Author: Craig Alanson
Series: Expeditionary Force 4
Genres: Sci-Fi, Military Fiction
Publisher: Independently published
Release: 2017 May 24th
Source: Audiobook
Pages: 673
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BLURB:
The elite crew of the pirate ship UNS Flying Dutchman had a simple mission: determining whether the Thuranin are sending another starship to Earth. Along the way, they became sidetracked by securing a future for the UNEF troops on the planet Paradise. When asked whether Earth was now safe, their ancient alien AI responded 'Not so much'... now they have to deal with the consequences.
EXPECTATIONS: So the previous book wasn't so good. It was good, but not so good. I was a little bit reluctant with this one thus. I knew that there's still much for Merry Band of Pirates to do, especially now that they're seemingly so close to something, anything really. But I was really worried it'll be same opera of "plan - fail - next plan - success".
THE WORLD: Things are very fast getting very, very complicated and stressful. The human crew on stolen alien spaceship are jumping in and out of places, learning what wormholes are, and all that cool jazz. Their world is, of course, reduced to this single spaceship, but I doubt any of them will get cabin fever any time soon. Mostly because of what Skippy's telling them, and what they end up doing all the time. For aliens still threaten to destroy Earth, and Skippy is absolutely willing to help sabotage those brutal, disgusting creatures he loathes with all his AI brains... It doesn't hurt that on their way they do find an Elder artifact, and humans, being grateful and not so bad, really, kindly help retrieve it. So our setting is a galaxy far far away, with an a-hole AI with a bunch of human friends. What could possibly go wrong?
CHARACTERS: Skippy, with help of humans, locates an Elder artifact and is honestly surprised at the help these less hairy monkeys were willing to provide him with. Truly, he's so touched, he helps them throw some parties, and gives them the greatest gift in the Universe: karaoke. Joe, and the rest of the Pirates might have cried a little. Laughing. But all in all, everyone's holding up fine. Up until Skippy does what Skippy does best - doesn't listen to advice. The AI they found was dead for some reason, and even he doesn't know what could've killed it, thus, naturally, Joe was very much against him entering the other shiny beer can to check it out. Skippy returns in just a few minutes, with terrifying news: there is a worm in there, created specifically to destroy rogue AI's. It was dormant, since it killed this particular one. Was it rogue, or did the worm go rogue? The latter would explain why it suddenly awoke and attacked Skippy too. But I guess that's for the next book to tell.
ROMANCE: Still none.
GOOD: There's brand new tension. The complexity of this Elder Race is pretty amazing. They created AI's that were only allowed to communicate outside the race that made them if the species were on a very low technology level, and were absolutely not allowed to share any course changing information or science with those said races. And just in case, created a worm that is meant to destroy AI's that go rogue. So is Skippy doing something wrong? Or has the worm went coo-coo? On top of that, crew went up and beyond to make Skippy some outfits, and oh boy does he hate them all! And he can do nothing about it, being a shiny beer can! Wait, or can he? (yes, yes he can, he's in control of whole ship)
BAD: Not this time.
OVERALL: This was very interesting. Rarely do I laugh out loud with the same book that keeps me on the edge of the chair. It was full of action, tension, and yet hilarious with all those super different humans trying their best to not only co-exist all together, but also suffer the ever present AI who is child-like curious about everything and with much too great of an ego. This is some amazing sci-fi, for real.
What do you think about BLACK OPS?
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