Renegades (Expeditionary Force #7)

Yeah I really should, That would serve him right. How dare he write another book about Joe and his pet Beer Can Skippy the Magnificent and then make his reading public wait another 6 to 9 months for another book. I mean, come on Craig, your dogs need a new SUV to drive around Florida in. Get busy on the word processor and quit laying around avoiding hurricanes or whatever people in Florida do,

The series and this book never fail to make me laugh and remind me of my younger days as a Marine. Heck, they are a fun read and have the spirit of Robert Heinlein’s “Have Spacesuit Will Travel” They remind us that a good Space Opera can be fun and adventurous at the same time.

I have 2 suggestions.

1 If you are reading this review and have not read the rest of the series do so.
2 If you are Craig Alanson and reading this review why are you not writing on the next 2 books you lazy yankee.

I enjoyed the book, but like with all the books after the first, I skip pass the Skippy conversations as they are redundant and lend nothing of substance to the plot. At this point we all know how any problems presented to the crew goes, problem, Skippy forecast doom, light bulb moment yada yada wash repeat. I still get a kick out of it for now but, it’s beginning to wear thin, something of substance has to happen or you gotta drop it like the “Wheel of Time”.

Seriously! We’re 7 effing books in now, and practically nothing we stupid monkeys want to know about is being given up. Shed some more info on the origin of Skippy The Magnificent, the Elders, what’s the deal with the roach motel???? C’mon Craig Alanson, you stupid meatsack, throw us an effing bone already you dumdum. All we get are Skippy and Joe insulting each other constantly. I’m wasting my time with this review… Stupid monkey. I truly hate my life, just drop me in the next star we pass, really. On top of everything else, I had to actually read this one, because that other hairless monkey, RC Bray apparently can’t read more than two or three words a second.

I really enjoyed the first books in this series. They were fun and engaging This one felt formulaic and slapped together. The first third was boring and repetative repeating over and over how impossible the task before them. Through out the previousely amusing repartee between Joe Bishop and Skippy devolved into childish “you dumdum…” “No, you’re a dum dum…”
I’d give it only one star, but the solutions were still inventive.
I Hope the next one gets a good editing and freshening before it gets pushed out. This was was rushed to publication without it.

This review is a general one for books 3 through 7 there may be some spoilers for earlier books, but if you are
here, you probably read them.

I reviewed the first two of these books last month. This is the
remainder of the series to this point.

To reiterate, the basic setup of the series is that in the aftermath
of the departure of the Elders, there is an ongoing, apparently
endless, interstellar war drawing in all the known intelligent races
of the galaxy. There are two coalitions, each headed by a senior
species which has mastered some of the Elders’ toys, with a pyramid
of technologically inferior species under each senior race. One
side is, basically, the bad guys and each species in that coalition
works as much to screw over their supposed mentors and allies as
they do against the good guys. Unfortunately Earth got chosen to
fight on this side, and we are so far down on the tech pole that
we barely even count as cannon fodder.

Sent with the UNEF to the planet Paradise by our Kristang “allies”
to do essentially mall-cop level duties by evacuating Ruhar “enemy”
civilians from Paradise after it changed hand from Ruhar to Kristang,
US Army enlisted man Joe Bishop comes into contact with a still
functional (though somewhat arrogant and ADD) Elder AI he christens
“Skippy” who will help Joe, and by extension, Earth if Joe will get
the (non-self-mobile) AI off of Paradise.

With an unlikely team, and monkey cunning, Joe’s “Merry Band of
Pirates” have managed to exterminate the Kristang occupying Earth.
Unfortunately it is vitally important that no race of either coalition
come to realize that Earth is a) free & b) has a spaceship and
limited Elder tech. This leads to wilder and iffier missions to
keep the secret, and means that the UNEF on Paradise can never be
told that the homeworld is OK.

Two books & a novella here basically deal with the situation on
Paradise: _Paradise_, “Trouble On Paradise” and _Mavericks_.
Basically, without ever contacting anyone on Paradise, Joe’s team
must maneuver events so that the Ruhar take back the planet, because
otherwise the Kristang will massacre the humans of UNEF as traitorous
allies. With that done, a tenuous detente trending towards friendship
blossoms there (the Ruhar are basically OK guys, though there are
some jerks of course) and may lead to something new in the age old
war. This sequence is generally well done, though the framing story
of Joe’s Pirates in _Mavericks_ is a bit forced.

The other books are tales of the increasingly frantic efforts by Joe’s
team to keep the rest of the universe from noticing that there is anything
at all going on on Earth. This is not helped by Skippy being taken down
several notches and dealing with species several steps higher on the
tech tree. Along the way, the team gathers alarming information on
the state of the Universe, and indications that “Everything Skippy knows
may be wrong”. The final (as yet) tale deals with Joe’s decision to
go it alone after being a consummate team player, something that can’t help
but have major repercussions.

As before, these are engaging tales full of puzzles, humor, hair
brained plans that work, hair brained plans that don’t work,
arrogance, humility and the continuous prospect of the end of the
world as we know it. Recommended.

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