Kathryn

I slept through six hours of this book twice

Revisado: 12-14-22

And when I went back to re-listen to what I missed, I realized that I didn't actually need to listen to it to it to get the story.

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Liked it when I thought I wouldn't

Revisado: 09-10-20

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this to provide my honest opinion. Receiving the book for free did not influence my opinion.

I’m giving this book 4 out of 5 stars. BUUUUT…I didn’t feel that way about it at first.

First off, Ivan Andres Ley as the narrator, he’s not bad but his voice feels a little stiff as I listen to him at first. Like he doesn’t really possess the full range of emotion that I’ve come to expect from my audiobook narrators. But then I realized, he only sounds like that when he is narrating the plot main character, Lucien Draco’s words and thoughts. When he does the voices of the other characters, they are very emotional with excellent accents, large range, and it is easy to distinguish between genders and characters. I had completely forgotten for a few chapters that it was only the one narrator because he does such a great job with the voices of the supporting characters. Like WOW!

And then I realized that the reason why the narrator seemed so dry and stiff with Lucien’s voice and the general narration is because that is how Lucien is supposed to be. Lucien is super intelligent and raised to be hyper-rational. It’s not until later in the book that he really starts showing a lot of emotion other than “I’m-so-smart”. In fact, I hated Lucien for his I’m so smart that it is my greatest flaw, kind of situation for most of the book. By halfway through the story I was really only in it for the werewolf heiress that needed to be rescued from vampires because I hated the main character so much.

So, while I was initially underwhelmed by the narrator, I realized that he was actually very good at his job. Maybe too good, since I was hating on the MC and forgot that he had voiced all the other characters as well. I felt almost like this might have been the narrators first book, I wasn’t able to find any other audiobooks attributed to that narrator, and if it was their first, I think it bodes well for their future career that they were so great with their performance in this one. The audio recording itself was very good. No weird sounds, no pops, skips, or awkward pauses.

I’m glad that I listened to this book in audio format. I don’t think I would have enjoyed it or bothered to finish it if I had been reading this as a traditional book. I might have returned it to the store, actually, I was SO annoyed with the main character being extra smart and gifted because of his being the reincarnation of a deity. My teenage son had been listening to the audiobook with me for the first few chapters (we were stuck in traffic) and he actually started referring to it as “that awful book” as in “are you still listening to that awful book”. It’s not an awful book. We just hated the main character for the first few chapters, and he stopped listening before it got interesting.

The book is interesting. The story skips about three years (I think) of the time that Lucien is in a magic school. And that is okay because even though he’s supposedly learned a lot during that time, he doesn’t really do a whole lot of character development until later in the book. I actually grudgingly started to like him toward the end of the book and was devastated when one of the supporting characters died. Not until the last chapter did, I develop an affinity toward him despite enjoying the development of the world very much.

This book is definitely going to be of interest to people who are into series. It’s not a one-off. The story builds slowly. It contains unusual definitions in its magical world that, as far as I know, are unique to this series and will require some concentration to get straight. There’s a surprise twist at the ending that apparently my kid “totally saw coming” when I ran into the kitchen squealing with excitement to tell him about it.

For anyone who sees the main character’s name, Lucien Draco, and that he is attending a magical school; I want to make sure you understand that this is not a “Harry Potter” copycat as far as I can tell. I never read those books so I can’t say for sure anything is super similar, but I did watch all the movies. And after the first couple of chapters of this book, I decided that I was glad my son stopped listening because it’s not really a kid’s book. This is definitely a book for an older crowd.
The story and the character grew on me over the course of the book and by the end, I was disappointed that I don’t have the sequel.

So, definitely a 4 out of 5 stars kind of book.

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R. C. Bray's performance is Amazing

Revisado: 03-10-20

I’ve been hooked on this series since I heard R. C. Bray’s performance of the first book “Columbus Day
I received free copies of the first three books. Receiving those books free has in no way influenced my opinion of the book.
I cannot stress enough how much I love listening to R.C. Bray perform this book. It is full of funny quips and silly banter between the two main characters Joe Bishop and Skippy the Magnificent ancient alien A.I.

While this book would have been amusing to read, it is so much better as an audiobook. I have to admit that my copy of the audiobook had a few glitches where the sound got a little wonky, not anything that stopped me from being able to hear it just an electronic sounding. Unfortunately, I’m not able to say for certain that this was a flaw in the quality of the book or if it was because I was streaming the book on my laptop and was an artifice of wi-fi lag.

The writing in the series has progressively gotten better since the first book and now instead of rating the audio performance at five stars and the writing at 3 stars, I would absolutely give the writing four stars all on its own. Hopefully, this trend continues, and the rest of the series will continue getting better.

One thing I have to address, is that ridiculous things happen in this series. Off the wall ridiculous things that made me laugh out loud, and the heroes seem to be lurching from one bad situation to the next and just scraping by on sheer dumb luck and Deus ex Machina. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a good read and a great listen, it just might annoy some people. I loved it, because, I am a cheesy sci-fi connoisseur. Suspension of disbelief for the sake of entertainment is my lifeblood.

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This book made me laugh so hard

Revisado: 03-03-20

I received a free audiobook copy of this book. Receiving the book for free did not influence my opinion in this review.

Holy cow. Expeditionary Force is my Favorite audiobook series so far. Craig Alanson has a formula for this series. Earth is in danger. Joe and his ancient alien artificial intelligence sidekick, Skippy (yes, freaking Skippy.) have to figure out how to save Earth. The plan is executed, something goes wrong. Hi-jinks ensue. Sprinkle in some juvenile antics by Skippy as he explores his fledgling sentience and by Joe because...he's Joe.

At the start of this book, Joe has returned home with his "merry band of pirates" and saved the day. Now he has set out on a one way trip to the stars to help Skippy find the ancient AI collective. Everybody who has come on this mission knows it is probably one way because once Skippy finds the Collective and leaves the ship, the crew won't have a way to open the wormhole to get home to Earth.

First off, while you could read or listen to these books individually and out of order, you are going to miss out on the character development. Most of what I love about this series is Skippy's development into a fully fleshed out sentience. He is gradually becoming more of a complete being and not just a computer program. Joe grows also, as he shoulders more and more responsibility in determining the fate of not just Earth but of all of humanity.

The writing is hysterical. Just silly humor as the reader gets to see the authentic friendship developing between Joe and Skippy. But RC Bray as a performer is a rare treat in an audiobook reader. His narration and comedic timing had me rolling on the floor laughing. Do not listen to any book in this series while driving or doing anything that requires coordination.

While the book itself I'd give a 3.5-ish score (it's a good book, but it is a much better audiobook) I wholeheartedly give the audio performance 5 stars which averages out to 4 stars for the audiobook. I'm not going to guarantee that everyone will love it. But if you like snarky AI's you probably will love Skippy.

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A fun sci-fi adventure

Revisado: 02-25-20

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book for review.

First I’m going to say I give this audiobook an enthusiastic four stars. Why do I specify audiobook? Because I abhor books told from the first-person point of view and I never would have read this book in paperback form. But…
What sold this book to me was the way the narrator told it. The narrator easily captures the humor and wry wit the story is told with. He expresses an enormous range of emotion and vocal acrobatics; male voices, female voices, deep voices, higher pitch voices, clear voices, husky voices, various human language, and alien language accents all seem to be performed effortlessly. The main character, Joe’s, voice is husky and a little gravelly. It was pretty amazing.

The first chapter had left me wanting, but I was left curious that I was willing to keep listening. I didn’t really get into it until the story left Earth and headed out into space. The story follows Joe, a little slowly but not so slowly that I got bored, through his acclimation from being a U.S. Army grunt into being a grunt in a united Earth military forces and learning how to use alien weapons.

The main character Joe is charmingly relatable in an incredibly average way. He’s got a chivalrous sense of honor, which he even admits on a few occasions interferes with him seeing the women in the military as women (to be treated chivalrously) first and (he is aware they are perfectly capable) soldiers second. This changes as the book progresses and his female compatriots work effortlessly with the male soldiers under his command to fight against their alien enemies. He is admittedly failable and devastatingly human, with hopes, fears, love interests, and unease with responsibilities which he knows are far beyond his training.

I can’t speak to the accurateness of the military aspects of the book. The rest of the story is delightfully engrossing.
Still, it is the incredible performance of the narrator which pushes this story from three-point-five stars up to four.

Definitely worth 4 stars.

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An excellent introduction to fantasy

Revisado: 02-05-20 El oyente recibió este título gratis

Disclaimer, I received a free copy of this audiobook. I have posted this review by my own choice and my opinion is not affected by the reeipt of a free book.

The Delving is a fantasy adventure book which reminds me of a well-played out game of Dungeons and Dragons. I wasn’t too keen on the narration. The voice which the narrator used to portray the main character’s thoughts annoyed the heck out of me. But I realized after a while that, that was exactly the way that Thorbin would probably actually sound. He’s a reformed ex-convict after all. And he’s not like a hardened criminal, he’s a grave robber who got caught young and laments the hardships that his youthful choices have caused him.

I’m not exactly sure where the narrator hails from, but…there are a lot of scenes where the things that “never truly die” are described as “horrors” (I assume) but whatever the narrator’s accent is (or the one he’s trying to emulate) make it sound like he is calling the zombies “whore”. At first, I was a little disappointed because I thought I had missed something important. So, I rewound and listened to an entire chapter over again to find what I had missed. But no. It sounded like a mispronunciation. But it kept happening over and over again, through to the end of the book from that point on. Maybe my ears are going? Maybe that’s just how it’s pronounced wherever he is from.

For all his back history as a “delver” or grave robber, Thorbin is just an average guy. He’s not even all that bright, adventurous, or brave. He is, however, mechanically inclined which made him really good at Delving and solving the locks and tricks to get into ancient graves. Similarly, to a Dungeons and Dragons campaign, the story takes you from his humble home through increasing levels of danger until he finally experiences a change in himself to become braver and more valiant than he was.

I enjoyed listening to this book very much. The pace of the story starts slow and gradually increases. It’s a wonderful get-your-toes-wet book for those new to the fantasy genre as the more fantastical elements are introduced gradually. Something I hated is that there is a made-up word, “arns”(?) I think it is, that denotes a unit of time. I was unable to determine from context whether it meant “hours”, “days”, or “years” but it is used to discuss things which happened in the main character’s youth or someone’s age so I assumed it was years.

Despite the things I disliked about the book, I have rated it 4 out of five stars and DD on the Delighting Delilah scale. I’m not going to say you should read it, but if you like DnD, fantasy, or zombie fighting, you are probably going to like it..

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