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The Origin of F.O.R.C.E.  By  cover art

The Origin of F.O.R.C.E.

By: Sam B. Miller II
Narrated by: John Pirhalla
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Publisher's summary

The Chrysallaman Empire made contact in 1947. Their mission was simple: find a suitable planet for colonization. Rich with land, minerals and water, Earth - HG-281- could boast only of a primitive race of defenders known as Humans, bugs who could be easily squashed by the might of a single Chrysallaman's mind. When a Chrysallaman ship is unexpectedly brought down in Roswell, New Mexico, the aliens return to their home planet to regroup, leaving behind a broken ship and a young alien boy who would grow to become one of Earth's greatest assets - and her greatest ally.

Mankind has 60 years to prepare a strategy to defend against not only superior technology, but superior psychic ability and strength. F.O.R.C.E., an elite group of military personnel, brilliant scientists, and a sombrero-wearing alien, is formed to develop a worldwide defense, the likes of which the Chrysallamans have never known.

Spanning six decades, the defining technological achievements, people and events of human history, from the Roswell incident to the Dali Lama to the Hubble telescope to the Pioneer missions, are masterfully re-envisioned and woven into The Origin of F.O.R.C.E. As they learn to work with each other, the humorous, tumultuous and sometimes romantic interactions of the F.O.R.C.E. team bring the book to life.

©2015 Sam B Miller II (P)2016 Sam B Miller II

What listeners say about The Origin of F.O.R.C.E.

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From Roswell to the Present...ReImagined

What did you like best about this story?

Enjoyed how the writer started the book in the 50's era and gradually moved into the present day. Loved the way the writer took famous NASA missions and re-spun them to fit into the story as well. The aliens were portrayed as villainous but had a humorous undertone. The multitude of alien voices was impressive. Narrator was phenomenal.The plot was fairly simple but the characters, human and alien, made it really fun. The technology in the book is plausible and very inventive. I will definitely listen to book 2 when it is released.

What about John Pirhalla’s performance did you like?

This book had to have at least 40 characters. I was constantly impressed by the narrator's ability to have different voices for all of them. How the heck do they do that?? The relationship between Heinbaum and McPherson was performed exceptionally well...very funny too. The quality of the recording was excellent. I have listened to this narrator in another book called Threads of the War...a very different type of book but also incredible narration.

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Thrilling Sci Fi!

Would you listen to The Origin of F.O.R.C.E. again? Why?

Yes, this book was suspenseful and was fast paced, and I loved the team that they assembled.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Origin of F.O.R.C.E.?

I enjoyed the science behind reverse engineering...

What does John Pirhalla bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

This was my first book narrated by him, and he did a great job. Great voices and good pacing. I would definitely listen to another book by him.

Any additional comments?

I received a copy of this audiobook for free in exchange for a fair and honest review.

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2 people found this helpful

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Interesting take on Alien Invasion!

Enjoyed the book, very comic book feel to it. Well worth the credit.


This review copy audiobook was provided by the author, narrator, or publisher at no cost.

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Don't bother

Not very good. The characters are one dimensional archetypes. You've got your mad Scotsman, your egomaniacal scientist who literally shakes his fist and has hokey lines, and your chiseled leader. It's a fine idea for a story, but so poorly rendered that it's got a comic feel.

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Aliens, action, tech, teams, and conspiracies

What happens when an alien scouting team of lizard people arrive on Earth in the late 1940s and their ship is shot down with only one survivor being a young alien? Making things more exciting is that the world knows this alien race is coming back in 70 years with a force to destroy all life on earth and take all its natural resources. This and much more can be found in “The Origin of F.O.R.C.E.” written by Sam B. Miller II and narrated by John Pirhalla. The book is a contemporary science fiction story encompassing six decades in just under 500pages; or 12hrs of audio. If you want to read a lighter space story, I would recommend this book. Be aware, this book appears to be the first in what looks to be a series of three (or more) books.

Mr. Miller creates a book that is more than simply a standard Sci-Fi series, but instead appears to be building a community and culture around the book and its contents. If one visits the book’s Facebook page, you will see the level of effort taken by the author to share photos; from the author himself along with community submitted material. Having the author share some pictures with me prior to reading the book and looking over the images on Facebook brought the book to life for me, and I can see how involved the author is in this book and future books. I look forward reading additional books in the series; book two is currently available and the third is under developed.

The story takes place mostly on earth covering a large span of time, however there are scenes occurring both on the alien home world and ships allowing the reader a view into the alien race’s society, desires, and wants. There are multiple story-lines involving some deep seeded conspiracies, involving religious groups, NASA and the Government to help the population of earth to succeed in this future battle. A few have commented they did not like the author’s inclusion of the standard science fiction character tropes like the brainy scientists, the brawny military guy, and the female specialist. I did not have an issue with this, and I took it more that the author was using them to bring some humor to the genre. Not only do the characters each struggle to come up with a solution to the alien invasion, they also had to address their own relationships along the way with one another. Similar to the Fellowship of the Ring party, each character brings a unique skillset and emotion to the book.

Even with the overall sense of doom and destruction from the impending alien invasion, the author includes some aspects of humor to assist in releasing the book’s built up tension. The use of humor was done sparingly and often feels natural. The characters were mostly well described and defined. It is clear the author has a vision of how each person fits into the complete story. One quickly sees that the author did a good job of researching the various timeframes and some of the important technology being developed during that time. All of this, in one way or another, was used as part of the hidden work of our government to come up with a technical solution to the problem.

I want to give credit to John Pirhalla for his exceptional narration of this story. Mr. Prihalla makes voicing the multiple characters seem like a simple thing to accomplish. He appears to be a newer narrator with seven books published on Audible at the time of this review. Being the first book I have listened to from this narrator, I would easily listen to more of his work as I enjoyed this reading style, character inflection, and pacing. He was able to bring me into the story with his reading with excitement and action.

Mr. Puehalla did a respectable job of voicing both male and female characters along with the various accents he had to keep track of; including alien accents. All of this was done without issue. The audio itself was crisp and clear. The volume was consistent and I did not recall any audio artifacts while listening; apart from a small audio patch near the end of the book. The audiobook quality was top-notch, and I would listen to other materials performed by this narrator in the future.

The book contains some light use of vulgar language; however, this was not frequently leveraged in telling the story. The book also includes some graphic and descriptive violence, but nothing that would not be found in a PG-13 rated movie. For most, I would recommend this book as one that would be enjoyed by mature teenagers and adults alike.

What would I have changed or liked to have seen in this book? Although we get a good view of the alien technology, I would have liked to have had some more detail on the technology and struggles of the people and equipment during the time period; such as 1940s, 1970s, etc. This was covered more in future time, but I would have liked more. Often when time changed from decade to decade, I really did not get a solid picture of what this new time enveloped. Maybe some better description of the technology itself, the clothes of the time, and even some of the social struggles occurring. I would have like to have had a more descriptive transition between times.

Disclaimer: The reviewer received this book at no charge by the author, narrator, and/or publisher in exchange for posting a non-bias review.

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Worth your time and credit!

Any additional comments?

Definitely worth your time and credit. Very entertaining, engaging, interesting and enjoyable. Really like all the thought that went into the story. The story is told over a period time, with the majority of it story setting up/getting ready for the return of the aliens. You might think it would be boring but it's not. The story is well written and constantly moving forward preparing for what is to come. I really liked the fact that the story did take years. Giving the world time to prepare.

People have wondered for years if the government is hiding something at Area 51.

Great cast of characters. Enjoyed the humor.

Like how the author incorporated actual dates and events into the story. Example, the fluoride. Since fluoride is added to water it's a scary thought. How many things could be added/given to the general population without us knowing. Which if you think about their delivery system is a really scary thought that it could be done. (So glad I have my own well water).

Looking forward to the next installment of the series. As soon as I was done with this book I checked to see if the next book was on Audible. Unfortunately not yet.

John Pirhalla did a fantastic job with the narration. Pleasant voice. Easy to listen to for long periods of time. Great character voices. Clearly spoken with a smooth even pace. Overall very enjoyable. Hopefully he will narrate the next book in the series.

I was voluntarily provided this free review copy audiobook by the author, narrator or publisher.

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Great Sci-Fi Doomsday/Alien Invasion Story

I really loved this book. I loved the characters, I loved the story progression, I loved the ideas and author invented technology. I think the whole book was really good and I'm excited to see what happens next.

An alien ship is shot down and the humans figure out that they plan to return in 60-70 years to kill/capture all the humans and colonize earth for themselves. How are they going to stop them? A secret government agency of course! FORCE is cobbled together and comes up with a plan. Their secret weapon? An adolescent alien who is captured and believed to be dead.

My favorite character dynamic was that between the highly intelligent and conceited scientist and the red-headed Scottsman who won't take any of his crap. They're forced to work together, against their will, and wind up solving many of the problems FORCE faced.

The narration was excellent. He used many different voices and accents to full effect. Voices were always discernible, and the dialogue was excellently written and executed.

Overall, this was a very enjoyable book for me. I suppose the one thing that I really didn't like happened right at the end. The dialogue was VERY corny, and came off to me as trying too hard to be funny and endearing. I could have done without that. Other than that, I'm not sure I can think of any other problems I had with the book.

I received a free copy of this audio book for an honest review.

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Great book

Can't wait for the next book in this series. The way the author incorporated actual date and events from history made the story feel so real.

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Wonderful

This book really impressed me. The story was fascinating. I loved how it spanned 70 years. I'm very curious to see where the story goes. Its a pretty good stand alone though. The story had me hooked from the get go. The characters are are wonderful. I especially liked how the author humanized the captured alien. He wasn't just a thing to be experimented on. Although the book dealt with some pretty doom and gloom subject matter it was quite funny at times. Which is always a plus for me. Not much action till the last part of the book but it always held my interest. I'll definitely follow up with this author.

The narrator gave a great performance. Very entertaining.

This audiobook was provided by the author, narrator, or publisher at no cost in exchange for an unbiased review.

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Origin of FORCE review

“This audiobook was given by the author, narrator, or publisher at no cost in exchange for an unbiased review "
If you are wondering about the validity of "unbiased reviews " when we get the book for free to review; it's all about preselection bias. We choose the books we want to review, so of course we have good things to say, we don't read and review the unwanted ones.
That being said, how do I share with you , just how good this was. The performance by John Pirhalla was excellent. Each character was distinct and the emotion of each passage was vividly experienced by the listener. The author Sam Miller spun a story so intricate and enticing that you can't help but want to know what's going to happen next. This was an enjoyable read, try it😊.

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