Get Columbus Day (Expeditionary Force, #1) Produced By Craig Alanson Issued As Version

book is aon a good day and aon most days,

Earth gets attacked by a whole bunch of hamster people, but then saved by some lizards, Then our main pal gets shipped off to war in space, Turns out, space war is a lot less chill than you might expect when you are in a technologically inept society.


This novel is fun but felt a little clunky, The main character was fun and a fine character to hang around, if not a bit plain, Other characters seemed to have been forgotten about and the plot seemed to unfold at a strange pace, The philosophical elements never felt totally realized, but perhaps that will be improved as the series goes on,

About halfway through, a character is introduced that becomes a proper sidekick and gives a little life to the book.
Up until that point, dialogue felt a bit flat and the main character didn't properly "play off" anyone, The second half of the book seems to mostly fly by,

R. C. Bray's narration was excellent as always, although the main character sounded like he was from Boston and not Maine, Would recommend. As someone who writes science fiction it is very rare that I find one that I truly love, I truly loved this book, I have rarely seen someone merge hard core science fiction action, the realities of technological disparity, and relatable humor in such an amazing fashion.
Seriously, if you like science fiction at all read this book, If you like humor that takes a third person look at the human condition without being all atheist preachy, read this book.
Just read it if you are disappointed then don't ever walk up to me in a coffee shop, We probably won't get along, A nice military scifi story with some memorable characters, a plot that I am eagerly awaiting to learn more about, and worldbuilding that is a bit like Mass Effect.
I will be reading the full series as long as the quality is maintained through out, I'm not sure I read the same book as a majority of other people,

The first half of this book was a real slog, So much flat out exposition telling with so much pointless military technobabble, As well as some very obvious redundancies that I'm shocked weren't caught during editing, The famous Skippy shows up and the narrator takes a back seat to his own story in favor of just a series of sarcastic dad jokes.
Don't get attached to any other characters, because they either won't be around for long, or aren't developed, Every situation is resolved way to easily,

Also I'll give you two guesses what the Chinese character's name is, Also there are only five women, none of them given much to do,

It had some funny parts, and the narrator of the audiobook is excellent, His performance is the reason I'm giving it two and didn't give up on it,

Am I interested in the rest of the series No, Because the main character isn't interesting, and half a book of Skippy was enough,

Also authors STOP explaining pop culture references!!! Is this an editor thing It's SUPER annoying, stops the story dead, and kills any fun there is in recognizing a pop culture reference.
I was looking for a Scifi book to read by an author I did not know, I seem to be in a rut reading the same authors continuously, So, this is my brake away book,

The protagonist in this story is a U, S. Army enlisted man name Joe, The Earth is invaded by the Ruhar, Then the Kristang come to the aid of Earth to defeat the Ruhar, Th Kristang then ask for volunteers to help them fight the Ruhar in space, and Joe volunteers, He discovers Skippy the Magnificent, Skippy is a millenniaold artificial intelligence who acts like a child and is the source of endless amusement, Skippy is highly intelligent and helps Joe stay alive, The question is about the Kristang: Are they friend or foe

The plot is okay, There is lots of action and suspense, The book is irreverent and funny, It is hard to take the book seriously, The book makes a good “escape from it all” story, Of course, in my opinion Skippy is the star character of the story,

I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible, The book is sixteen and a half hours long, R. C. Bray does a great job narrating the book, Bray is an actor, voice over artist and a multiaward winning audiobook narrator,
stars!

Columbus Day is one of those books that I connected within the firstminutes of listening and it is nonstop adventure to the end.
It is no wonder that this book is afinalist of audiobook of the year, R. C. Bray is outstanding bringing this book to life,

It's a quiet autumn day, Columbus Day, when Army Specialist Joe Bishop sees a space ship crash in potatoe field in his home town, Thompson Corners, Maine.
He wonders what strategic value this back water town has to these alien creatures, Then they do something incredible:

The Ruhar troops, cute and furry bewhiskered bastards that they are, no doubt waited until their transport finally skidded to a stop on the front lawn of the elementary school in the middle of town, popped the door open, gazed in awe at the magnificent vista of Thompson Corners, and asked the pilot where the hell they were.
Soldiers are soldiers, whether they have fur, skin or scales, So, logically, the Ruhar lobbed a missile at the most imposing structure in the area, the potato warehouse, and took it out in impressive fashion.
I mean, they blew the hell out of it, those soldiers must have had something against potatoes,

That's all it took! I was hooked and it keeps getting better, The story is told from Bishop's POV, Through his eyes we learn about multitiered alien spieces predicated upon their respective advancement in technology, The "lesser" or "client" species do the "dirty work" for the more highly advanced species, The humans happen to be on the bottom rung of this hierarchy, Earth is just a pawn in an intergalactic conflict between the Ruhar aka Hamsters and the Kristang aka Lizards, It gets more complicated but I won't go into that, The armed forces from all earth governments including Bishop get shipped to another solar system for training and eventually be redeployed where the Lizards need them.


The characters are well developed and banter has some military lingo, Most of the dialog is on the light side which keeps the story moving and interesting,

This book is great science fiction and, for me anyway, a highly entertaining read, I will definitely will be picking up Bookand soon, This is a fun read and would venture even to those who don't normally read sciencefiction may enjoy, Highly recommended.Stars

Columbus Day was a fun read, but one that felt a bit too shallow for me to enjoy as much as I would have liked.


As the blurb says, Earth was floating merrily along in the galaxy when it was attacked by an alien race with marked technological superiority.
A second alien race shows up and saves the day, though it doesnt take too long to realize that Earths saviors may not be quite as wholesome allies as first thought.


So Im new to this whole scifi thing, This is in fact only the second scifi series Ive read, the first being the excellent Frontlines series by Marko Kloos if you like military scifi go read itits very good.
So I went into this without a whole lot of expectations beyond a fun read, if the previous reviews were anything to go by.


Any by and large it was a fun read, The author has a witty, humorous writing style that moves the story along briskly, There were a number of moments that made me smile while reading it, There was also a particular character Skippy! that deserves special mention for his sheer entertainment factor,

Unfortunately, the constant use of humor was a bit of a two edged sword, Im all for a good bit of mindless entertainment every now and then, but this was a bit much for me.
Some of the writing was over the top glib and the cheese factor was strong at times, The first half in particular was a bit of a struggle, and until we meet Skippy I thought this book was heading for astar rating.


Skippy helped redeem the book through his pure unbridled readability, but he also brought his own problems, I felt that there were several situations that were resolved far too conveniently,

Columbus Day was a decent lighthearted scifi that had its moments but was just a bit too glib for my taste.
COLUMBUS DAY is the first book of the Expeditionary Force series that is an extremely hard book for me to rate.
It has some serious flaws with "telling not showing", going into long rambling moments, and some other errors from traditional writing.
However, I kept wanting to read more and so I kept reading while being thoroughly entertained by the book, It's very much an indie book and yet it is an indie book I recommend,

The premise is Earth is invaded by a race of humanoid giant hamsters and "rescued" by the Kristang, who turn out to be the bad guys in a muchmuch larger conflict that Earth got swept up in.
Our protagonist is shipped off to fight for the latter only to discover an AI that offers humanity the chance to fight back against their newly occupying "allies.
" A very interesting and fun story that I picked up the sequel to automatically after finishing the original,

Skippy really makes this book and is the AI buddy we deserve rather than wanted, Like HKmeets Bart Simpson only with godlike powers, Columbus Day Expeditionary Forceby Craig Alanson, R, C. Bray Narrator, is an absolutely outstanding scifi novel!!! Outstanding in everything such as plot, world building, characters, dialogue, science, action, and just everything!!! My gosh.
. . I was so engrossed in this book! I had the audio narration and loved the narration, it was perfect! Outstanding is the perfect word for all of this book, even the narration.
A scifi must read! Going in my favorite read file and will definitely read rest of series!!!,