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Savage Homecoming  By  cover art

Savage Homecoming

By: Joshua Dalzelle
Narrated by: Paul Heitsch
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Publisher's summary

Ever since he joined Omega Force, Captain Jason Burke has lived with the underlying fear that one day Earth would be discovered. His desire to keep Earth's existence and location a secret has driven him to extremes, and kept him far away from his homeworld for a long time. But now Jason's greatest fear is realized, and a fleet of alien ships has attacked his planet. Omega Force rushes to Earth's defense, but the ships are like none they've ever encountered, and employ weapons they have no defense for. Will their lone gunship be able to slug it out with the unknown fleet holding the planet hostage? Or will this be a one-way trip for the crew of the Phoenix?

©2013 Joshua Dalzelle (P)2015 Audible, Inc.

What listeners say about Savage Homecoming

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

First two were great, returning this mess for a refund.

The main character loses about 40 IQ points, makes unbelievably stupid decisions and everyone simply goes along. Was this a high school writing project for a ghost writer? It gets so ridiculous that at one point Jason and Crusher spot evidence of their deadly adversary being nearby and rather than disable his empty ship or stake it out, decide to go searching for him without backup, a plan, and entirely forget to bring weapons. Seriously? Crusher brings a knife to a gun fight. As a reader I grow to have contempt for the plot holes. Can you imagine a Navy Seal team ready to deploy to Iraq when the girlfriend of one decides she wants to come along and the other seals just giggle and go along? That's the level this has fallen to. After loving the first two I'm returning this mess after only an hour.

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15 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Bummer!

I did not like this book! Jason, the leader, often throws temper tantrums, acts like a dictator to his crew, fails to listen to their advice, almost gets everyone killed, and to top it off, the book becomes a romance novel!

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9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Main character too moody

Main character was like a middy teenager at times. Hope this doesn't continue throughout the series.

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8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

the author dropped the ball on this one!

the story had glimpses of goodness but the main character turned into a major ass old dumbass. I think I'm going to have to stop the series at this point. it doesn't look as if the main character is learning from his mistakes. he takes no responsibility for his actions. and the crew doesn't seem to take him to task for that

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Stereotypes Abound

I liked the first few books as a fun bit of fluff but this book in particular was just too much. I ignored the total absence of female characters in the last book but this book has a total of 2 female characters (who actually speak) and this somehow made it worse. Both females are love interests of the main character and apparently have no motivations or desires that do not directly relate to him.
*retch*

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Burke Gets Whipped?

I really wanted to give this book a great review, but the interactions with the girlfriend are far too contrived and one-dimensional to be real. Overall, the impression one gets from the interactions between the two is of a couple of teenagers attempting to get along, where the girl is very domineering, and the boys simply submits to everything she does. This element for the book caused me to have to stop listening to it several times as my brain started screaming "OMFG! How was this guy a ship captain?!" or, "There is no way this guy survived boot camp, let alone PJ training!"

I knocked a few points off the performance rating because the voice characterization shifts a little over the course of the book. There are sometimes when I can't tell who is speaking without them being named. This is it marked departure from the previous book.

Overall, an okay story that might not be missed in the series if you skip it. Moving on to the next book...

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Interesting... but horrible female characters

In the previous books, there was only one female character and she only had a minor role. The rest were either male or male androids. This didn't really bother me much. This has been an interesting series so far, with a simple but entertaining story and a good narrator.

In this book we're introduced to the captains' love interest and it becomes clear that the author has trouble writing believable female characters and non-stereotypical interaction whenever the love interest is involved. Not only is she written as a stereotypical "damsel in distress" with only a few functions: overly emotional and dramatic/irrational, in need of saving, sexy and destabiliser of the crew dynamic, the captain is also written as the stereotypical knight in shining armour whenever she's around (example: won't go on missions that might include risk if she's on board). The interaction between the two is overly predictable as if taken out of an old TV drama.

There are parts of the book where she's not around. Those parts are like the previous books, mostly, however her presence does affect the overall story as well as the minor plot points, and so the story itself suffers and becomes predictable and silly.

The ending suggested the female love interest might be included in the later books as well. Normally that would be awesome, but I doubt the writing will have improved by then and so I'm dropping this series. I'll go look for a new series with less stereotypical, less predictable, less annoying and less cringe worthy characters.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Not as good as the previous books, but passable.

I give this series a little bit of extra leeway when criticizing it because it's more of a fun and light sci-fi novel, and I think it can be taken a little less seriously. But there were several things that kind of grated on me. For example:

- A love triangle that was completely manufactured out of thin air. Captain Burke brings aboard his old girlfriend and immediately she's all hot for him! No awkward trying to figure out their relationship or get to grips with old wounds or anything like that, just "let's get naked and have sexy fun times!!"

Problem is that this causes jealousy with the only other female character in the story that has any kind of speaking lines... even though it seems like there's nothing actually between her and Captain Burke other than some light flirtation.

- An implausible misunderstanding that causes tension between Burke and Kristoff. It makes zero sense that Kristoff thought that Burke attacked a mine. There would be no reason for him to think such a thing. Why would a report about an attack on a mine even involve his team in a mention when they were nowhere near the place?

Not to mention that this is the exact same kind of misunderstanding that happened in the last book... just as implausibly, I might add. There are some serious matters of incompetence going on in this organization!!

- A Captain Burke who becomes way less likable in this book as most of the time he seems either like a bumbling idiot who has no idea what he's doing, or a fiery hothead who shoots first and asks questions later and has zero control over his temper. For example, he flies his ship into passenger vehicle traffic in order to chase down his enemy, which is unsurprisingly unsuccessful. What did he think he'd be able to do before the authorities stopped him?

- Alien fanatics that are WAAAYY too easy to convince of the error of their ways, and to turn themselves over to the authorities.

*
It seems like throughout the book, elements are added for the sole purpose of causing tension or bringing the story to a certain place, but there is very little effort made to make those elements make any kind of sense. That's just lazy writing. You've got to do the leg work to make your story feel real to your audience.

But I did enjoy the book, in spite of its flaws. I give it a pass mostly because I feel like this series doesn't need to take itself too seriously... but there's still a point where you can take this writing not seriously enough, and Joshua Dalzelle is really skirting that line!

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Top Notch

What do you do when you're accidentally kidnapped from planet earth in a spaceship? Escape your captor, rescue people in trouble, and kick some ass along the way?

Yes, please!

This is one of my favorite science fiction series of all time. It's fun, witty, ridiculous, and the characters are absolutely fantastic.
Paul Heitsch delivers time and again in each book of this series. He is able to impart a distinct characteristic and tone of voice for each of the many different types of characters and peoples.
I sincerely hope to see many more books in this series for years to come.
**Full disclosure: I received a review copy of this book.**

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

enjoyable book

After the negative reviews, my expectations were low, but I enjoyed the book. it seemed consistent with the first two. None of them are literary masterpieces, but they are fun swashbucklers.

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