Renegades (Expeditionary Force)

Another awesome installment in the series, after this one it's on to the audio drama (wish that was in book form also).

Things now moving on again, nearly as good as book 5. Skippy and Joe's roppore seems to be tiring, not sure if they aren't getting on as well as they once were. Seems they have to go through 20 yes no questions before an idea becomes workable, but that it sort of the ongoing style. Skippys past comes slightly to the fore and is a little unpalatable. I liked this book particularly the hard fought end. A new maxholt ship would be nice, but to struggle is part of their lifes. The ending almost could be a final for the series, but being that there are at least two more books being written, more is to come 😊 PS it is a pity the Audio books don't come out at the same time a the written version as would have liked to hear RC Bray take, but just cannot wait that long :-)

There are no surprises in terms of the writing. Alanson delivers again with his now trademark mix of complex sci-fi principles in a fleshed-out universe and bawdy banter from likeable characters, with a splash of military, a heap of comedy, a dram of pop-culture references and enough new desperate monkey-brained ideas to feel fresh. Great read!

Loved how this latest adventure with the merry band of pirates really developed all the characters. And so good to hear skippy finally start to mellow and give some proper credit to Joe! Can’t wait for the next book..... would love to have the crew get back to paradise too and for those guys to really catch a break... plus....when can joe get a new starship? He sooooo needs a better one.

I, along with many, await the next book, chronicling the (mis)adventures of the Pirates et al. It's a shame that Ealing studios do not exist any more, these books would be right up their street.

Following on the exploits of Skippy the magnificent and that dum-dum Joe shmoe to save the world, a large part of the book has a negative feel which drags a little (with a little too much of the Skippy bashing / Joe bashing and Skippy being more of an a-hole than usual and doing some skippy-magic quickly rather than helping the flow of the story ). There are some good parts too but overall it feels a little light / rushed / reliant upon luck rather than skill. I wonder if / when the frankenship will be replaced / upgraded / skippified.... Looking forward to the next episode...

This series has it all : humour, mystery, action, suspense all woven into a epic space opera. Although the story is huge it never loses focus of its characters. I came across the first book by accident and have just kept reading since :)

I write this review as someone who absolutely adored the first book, and has enjoyed the series since then. However, my enjoyment drops a little with each new book released. I am not sure if the quality of writing has gone down, or if I am simply becoming too used to it - but then, that's kind of the point. Its getting repetitive. For instance, take the dialogue between our two main protagonists, Joe and Skippy - a major part of why I and others enjoy the series. Apart from a few rare, crisis driven moments of real connection, the way they interact hasn't changed since when they met in the first book. Only now the jokes have been used and re-used a gazillion times, and what was fresh and new and fun, has for me become stale. There is essentially zero character development. To be fair, I'll still occasionally laugh out loud at some witty back and forth, which is better than most books are able to do, but the spark has gone. The only partial character development we get comes from Skippy, when the underlying story of his origins and the true history of the galaxy moves forward, albeit only a tiny little bit with each book. When this happens, we see how Skippy reacts, and learn a little of his internal processes. Unfortunately it has zero effect on how he acts throughout the rest of the book. Or we could look at Joe, who has repeatedly solved crushingly difficult problems, and come out as a true hero of humanity. But apart from the very rare confidence boosters from Skippy, or a throwaway line from Smythe, nobody actually acts like this to him - not his crew, and certainly not the governments of earth who only ever ream him out for eye-rollingly asinine reasons. We dont see him growing in confidence, we dont see "growing respect" from anyone, bizarrely we dont see his stature rising at all. Given his long list of accomplishments, this makes no logical sense, and doesnt work from a narrative progression point of view either. For another example, take the way they approach and solve the inevitable crisis: an impossible task, nobody can think of a way to solve it, Joe tries and beats himself up that he cant think of anything useful, "tensions builds" (not really), and then something in Joe's environment triggers an idea. Skippy pouts, makes some adjustments to the plan to use Skippy-magic, and they pull it off even thought numerous things go wrong during implementation. Rarely does anyone die, only the occasional red shirt, and none of the main characters are ever seriously harmed. It has become cliched for me and again, formulaic how many times this pattern is played out. Dont get me wrong, there is still some enjoyment there - but again, there is no progression or character development. There is never any real learning from past battles. Because the author wants to keep throwing in new and interesting solutions, past solutions to problems cannot ever be used because of complicated "spacey reasons" - which honestly feel more like reverse deus-ex-machinas. As such there is little to no building on any past knowledge base, and they have to start from scratch.... every single time.... That said, for all my complaining I still like all the main characters. I want to see where the series goes and how it ends, so I will continue to buy the books and the excellently narrated audiobooks. I just wish the series could evolve a bit more.