Seize Renegades (Expeditionary Force, #7) Developed By Craig Alanson EBook

love this series. Ive read every one of them, This is truly one of the best series i have ever read, Skippy is a complete asshole, but, a loveable asshole, With the merry band of pirates having to find a way to complete another impossibl mission with earths future on the line, there has never been a more dangerous time for failure.
Great addition to the series Special Forces Patch
A dinosaur holding a toilet plunger in its mouth Audiobook, Loved it. Had some good twists and turns and of course, Skippy is the best, Listened and read all of these books within a span of one year,

I first downloaded the audible of Columbus Day, after that, I couldn't get enough of the Expeditionary Force, The writing, the humor, everything about this series is, in the words of Skippy, "Awesome!" Can't wait for the next two books of the series, and hope for a lot more of the future.
I would also love to see this turn into a television series, Wishful thinking on my part In this book, Joe and Skippy save the day again, Two Maxolhx ships plan to come to Earth to investigate why the wormhole near Earth is acting strangely, Joe manages to jump aboard the Flying Dutchman and stop it from being hijacked by the US government along with some

of the original pirate crew plus some new crewmates.
Joe then has to hatch a plan to figure out how they can stop them against the impossible odds as always! with a reduced staff,

This book started off well, but it was a real SLOG to get through I guess the fact that I was listening to this fromth March toth July says it all.
The arguments between Joe and Skippy have begun to feel frustrating and repetitive, The plot of bad thing happens gt Joe comes up with a plot to save the day gt Skippy berates him because 'how could you think of an idea when I can't gt plan doesn't go as planned gt everyone nearly dies gt Joe thinks of another plan and saves the day and then gets berated by Skippy has gotten a bit stale for me and I found it hard to care about all the peril because I knew they'd figure it out, and it got a bit dull that every plan has some sort of issue.
A real shame because I had been enjoying the series a lot until this one,

I did like that we had some new characters introduced in this book, However Katie Fray gets mentioned at the start and then about halfway through Joe speaks to her about her interactions with Skippy, After that, she's suddenly not mentioned at all, A shame because I was looking forward to some new fresh faces that might liven up the series a little bit! Another fun read full of good SyFy, Theres no greater palette cleanser than a jaunt around the galaxy with our favourite beer can and his merry band of pirates, Alanson is no Asimov, and not really an Adams either sometimes he repeats himself, and he strays into the formulaic but what a winning formula! Theres few characters that consistently put a smile on my face and of them all Skippy is the most consistently “awesome”.


Like my favourite pair of hiking boots I cant wait to put them back on and start my next adventure, RENEGADES by Craig Alanson is yet another delightful novel in the Expeditionary Force series, A series about humans discovering they are not alone in the galaxy and also the weakest species technologically, Thankfully, they've discovered an AI in a beer canshaped device that gives them a chance to potentially dig themselves out of the hole they've unwittingly dug for themselves,

Renegades has the premise that humanity wants to reveal themselves to one of the less jerky factions of the galaxy due to a pair of advanced battle cruisers that have found their way toward our home planet.
This is a terrible idea but I'm not sure I agree that Joe Bishop's plan to keep hiding Earth will work either, Either way, he plans to steal humanity's onlyhip and try to destroy the battle cruisers,

Already the plot about hiding the Earth is becoming a bit stale and is starting to affect my enjoyment, no matter how much I love Skippy and Joe's interaction.
Likewise, if you haven't listened to HOMEFRONT on Audible, you won't understand a single bit of the opening,
I think Skippy took a few steps backwards in this one, in terms of empathy, To quote the immortal Skippy, “Blah, blah, blah”

As I write this review, Ive caught up with all of the Expeditionary Force books that have been released.
I can no long just keep throwing more Audible credits at them hoping for them to improve,

This one has finally hit rock bottom, The sad part is that I dont even hate the book, it is just a monumental disappointment, At the end of the previous book, after having saved the day, again, it all gets spoiled by the revelation that two big bad Maxolhx warships are coming to Earth to investigate.
This book essentially is about nothing but dealing with those two ships via a series of steps even crazier than what the crew of the Flying Dutchman have dealt with in the past.


And therein lies the most fundamental failing of Renegades the utter repetition, There is an impossible mission to destroy another alien ships with a Dutchman that is in worse shape than ever, But weve been through this story a couple of times now with just the difficulty level of the boss battle cranked up,

But, there are several things that make this the worst of the series by far, First, the Skippy and Joe banter are wearing really thin, The same arguments and insults get repeated over and over and over, Even the other crew in this book are growing sick of Skippy the AI and Joe have become stagnant,

Next, due to reasons, most of the crew that have been on board get replaced with a bunch of ciphers, Only a couple of the original crew make it back this time and Alanson gives us little reason to care about any of the newcomers, theyre pretty much just a bunch of bots pulling switches.


Another great failing is that, while the Maxolhx and Bosphuraq and the major antagonists this time, Alanson gives us almost nothing useful about them, In the previous books, weve gotten to see the cultures and characters of the Ruhar, the Kristang, the gambling obsessed Jeraptha, and the mentalist Thuranin, The Maxolhx and Bosphuraq might as well be “generic evil alien” and “super difficult generic alien”, The world building really fails this time, and it was really needed to break up the monotony of listening to the story,

Obviously, the author is free to tell the story that he wants to tell, It seems unfortunate that hes content to keep telling the same story over and over with just turning the difficulty knob up a bit each time, But, it really could be so much more, Hes clearly given a lot of thought to this universe, the alien races, and the history, But, were seven books in and that history who/what the Elders were, what Skippy really is, what has been going on in the universe a few crumbs have been scattered, but not enough to be worth the slog of getting through this book.


Hopefully this book marks an end to the “destroy alien threat without detection” rinse, lather, repeat cycle and Alanson will start turning his attention to telling us about this wider universe hes created and the ultimate story of whats going on.
March
I revisited this while swimming laps just to visit old friends, Honestly, it just never gets old

June
I don't know this was of course still a great book in the series and they got a lot of amazing things accomplished.
But Joe is clearly growing weary of Skippy's endless insults, Quite honestly, so am I, But I love the crew and the action scenes were fantastic, It's all worth it in the end, And largely because of RC Bray! Bookof the Expeditionary Force continues to deliver the goods, While I didnt listen to it on Audible, choosing instead to read the ebook, it was still very enjoyable and I could hear RC Brays voice as Bishop and Skippy clearly in my head.
Feels like a rerun

Nothing new and a lack of characters left the story very hollow, At some point, the relationship between Skippy and Joe has to progress from sarcastic, put down, jibes, It feels forced at this point, This story had really no suspense, no revelation of the larger plot lines, and no development of any of the characters, It felt like a rerun, The battlescarred star carrier Flying Dutchman is finally on her way back to Earth, after an exceptionally successful series of missions that have once again Saved The World, The ship needs a serious refit, and her exhausted crew just wants a break from constant clandestine warfare against a vicious and superior enemy, Wishes come true, right Not for the Merry Band of Pirates, Best one in the series yet, R. C. Bray is a scifi legend, Narrators like him make audiobooks the way they are supposed to be: engulfing, enjoyable, gripping, hilarious, Kudos to Craig Alanson for giving us a little blurb at the end, His shortminute story how this series originated makes it that more special, I'd say this is the first time I have ever continued a series this long and still thoroughly am enjoying it, I really hope this gets turned into a series someday, . . but only if R. C is the voice of Skippy, Well, my mind is blown,

The Merry Band of Pirates has faced impossible odds before, Truly. However, this book is a step up from that, In all possible ways.
First off, the mission isn't mereley impossible, it's so impossible everyone wants to give up, I am still amazed at how everything turned out,
Second, Skippy is more of an asshole than ever before, No, honestly, in that first mission no spoilers, I promise he was so much an asshole that I was starting to hate him, So far, I had only been amused by his behavior, I had to stop and consider that maybe Alanson had overplayed his hand, Thankfully, his assholishness returned to a normal setting, but I am still peeved about it,
And then, then there's the Elders mystery the books have been hinting at all this time, For the first time we start getting a few answers and it's mind blowing,
I don't know what's in store for the next half of the series, but I on board, Overall, I enjoyed Renegades. It was satisfying to see some progress on certain story lines, That being said, I'm getting tired of the same problems being hashed and rehashed, It feels like each book is just the same basic problem of "oh no, we need to keep earth from being discovered by !" First it was the Kristang, then it was the Thuranin, now it was the Maxolhx.
Every time it is absolutely impossible and then Joe thinks up some crazy plan and Skippy complains and bemoans the fact that he didn't think of that, I don't think I will be able to justify listening to another book if it is just more of the same,

Also, it's getting difficult to listen to how crappy The Dutchman is, If the crew has been able to accomplish all this other stuff, why can't they figure out a way to go steal a senior species ship to replace The Dutchman.
I mean seriously . I enjoy this series so much! I already have the rest of the books in my library ready to read in the upcoming weeks, I also love how this book had an author's note at the end talking about the series and how it started I had no idea these books all started so recently I went back and looked at publication dates and Alanson is writing at a truly incredible pace.
I love how the series manages to take such fresh twists and turns but when things happened they still all feel like Alanson has plotted them in advance instead of just tacking on extra story to meet a contract.
This is one of my favorite sci fi action series : R, C. Bray continues to deliver on the audiobooks of this series,

A good "ending" of the story arc with a very satisfactory conclusion, If you are into space opera and out of the box thinking in a main character, this is a good book to read but a better one to listen.
There was a lot about this one I didn't like, It's just getting repetitive now, and it lost a lot of heart with some missing crew, Meh. But it keeps me entertained I suppose, Pretty good. On way to Earth S finds in relay info that the M are going to to go Earth, On Earth the entire Pirate team is followed by security, Then the UN sends a Delta Force to take the Dutchman and head out to find the R to plead for protection, Knowing that will only get Earth destroyed for its arrogance and disinterest by those who UN want to help us, S is able to round up just some of the orig team, and he stops the D Force while boarding by freezing their armor, essentially they steal the ship.
Smythe describes a 'typical Tuesday' to the new guys, Most aboard and the 'hostiles' agree to go on careerdestroying missing to take out theM ships, S gets connection to a Marine's dad on a secret submarine, Asshole S is fond of amusing humans, To know the M's route to E the crew has to get communication 'pixies' to fake relays and ships, J amp Smythe travel through ship's wormhole through a Smade micro wormhole into carved out rock, S hacks factory AI to rate good pixie's as bad which they get, S has to repeatedly hand off exit transitions, but the ship is lost, however it traveled fwd in time, J wants to find an exogalactic planet for Hs to survive on if Earth is destroyed, At remote system to do maintenance, S discovers remnants of Elder site on a moon, Evidence of attack on the Elders, Underground they find a crashed Elder drop ship and body, S keeps he amp J safe inside warp ship destroyed around them, They get some E tech and see large vicious looking dead E, S amp Joe go to investigate something in orbit, and are attacked by insane nonsapient Elder AI using unknown methods, S runs campaign for Captain, Cover story for the M ships is they went to E, found nothing there but were damaged by wormhole near there, one destroyed, the other later after making it most of the way back and leaving fake' boring' mission report.
S also messes w/ other E wormholes to back the errant wormhole story, Also, from far end they also set up the wormhole near E to act crazy at the time the M are supposedly there, thus informing all advanced species that there is nothing special about E's wormhole.
They get the M ships' route, and set up a trap of multiple micro wormholes that blow upM ship when it exits its wormhole, but the other once its sensors clear will easily destroy the Dutchman.
S pulses maser cannon and predicting the AI's shield freq shifts, baffles it and destroys the ship using harmonics, With new info S finds thatM years before they left the Elders destroyed a sentient species, Nagatha controls the sexbot in the infirmary, Return to E and the US is pissed because of Skippy,