Raphael Huber

Creative and original trilogy, narrator not so good

Reviewed: 09-11-24

I loved the creative and original story, even though some characters could have had more character and maybe fewer of them could have been named a name not starting with the letter D.

I enjoyed it, but in the last book I have really had it with the narrator which I at first thought was kinda funny in this layed back bored old mans voice. But after two books the narrator just sounded bored and spoiled the otherwise funny story for me.

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As bad as good literature can get before being bad

Reviewed: 05-19-24

Lets get this out of the way first: Should you listen to this book if you have listened or read the whole Enderverse before that? I'd say yes. This will give some sense of closure. However, for me it was at times really difficult to keep on listening. Remember endless family bantering in earlier books? Yes, it's back. The grandchildren of bean are characterized in ways that defy any psychological logic and those characterizations seem to be needed to produce endless bantering. I found it both boring and not credible. The character of the reborn Ender in Peters body makes no sense whatsoever, feels completely absurd and I don't know what this character is doing there in the first place. Furthermore, there are a couple of new characters, which are not needed for the story and just make it feel cluttered.
Moreover there is again, as in earlier books this "droning on", which I don't know if it comes from the written word or the narrators. It didn't even put me to sleep, because if was too annoying.
But what surprised me most was really just the problems mere writing skills. In dialogs there is an endless "he said, she said, they said" like there was no other word but "said" or "asked" to recite a dialog. It really comes across sometimes like a high school essay. Cheap hack writers who throw out 5 books a year write more beautifully by a margin. And this from Card? I don't understand it.
The purpose of the descolada Virus is explained and it is very obvious that the writer needed to correct an earlier mistake he made to do so in a way he found to make sense. His reasoning is explained in a personal note in the end. He has obviously not read the three body problem, since that would also help make sense for the descolada virus.
That being said, the most interesting thing in the book is indeed the personal note of the author in the end. I like the guy, he feels likeable and humble to me. Also, I believe he is quite religious, I'm not, but I never felt a single strain of dogmatism from any of his books. The opposite: There seemed a spiritual openness to be coming through and I thought this was very classy. I'm really sorry I can't give a better review, but listening to this book really was not fun. It felt off in so many places I wouldn't even know where to start.

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3 people found this helpful

Best stupid military sci-fi I know! Recommended

Reviewed: 04-21-24

If you want something easy to listen to which is not serious, funny, sorta stupid but in a comedic way, this is really a nice distraction. This series is no sci-fi masterpiece at any stretch. Compared to Red Rising or Hyperion this only deserves 2 or 3 stars. But within it's genre military-scifi, this is worth 5 stars any day and any book from the series.

Imagine hill billy red neck chauvinist imortal james bond in space. What could go wrong? :) A lot, but this author and narrator deliver and deliver for 20 books straight.

These are definitely not the books I'd take on a lonely island, but those are the books I listen to, when I do garden or DIY work, when I need to be distracted and don't want to have any drama or dead favorite characters in a book. This is just safe-stupid-funny-sci-fi and I can recommend to listen to all 20 books, even if you, like me, absolutely can appreciate the WORLD of a literature-difference between Hyperion and this one.

This has its place in literature too. While some authors write on one book for years, this authors writes multiple books a year. This is amazing to me and knowing and appreciating and respecting this, it is clear to me that this never can have the depth in meaning and language as a true science fiction masterpiece has. Listen to this, with this in mind and the quality, considering the authors output, suddenly is amazing.

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Incest and Rape justified by science fiction

Reviewed: 02-01-24

My second and last Heinlein for all time.
With the artist performing the audio book (who is doing a great job) Lazarus sounds like a horny old conservative man who is justifiying incest and rape through science fiction.

Its the most disgusting audio book I have ever listened to. It pretends to somehow "respect" women when it in fact just makes them alltime willing bystanders in Lararus's life.

To me it is absolutely mind boggeling that a book like this has not been torn to pieces when it came out. It's downright horrible. I will finish listening to it so that I can truly say I didn't judge it by it's cover and come back here in case I have to revise my opinion... but man.. this book... wow... Heinlein must have been a real d*.

Usually if I pick sci-fi books on audible from a famous author I got recommended I pick the longest ones, because I love to dive deep into a world. But this time I just suffer through this utter nonesense.

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With appropriate expectations: Great!

Reviewed: 01-13-21

This book, just as the whole series is a feel good, funny, not very serious military-scifi-chauvinist-hillbilly-in-space-adventure.

If you get at this with a literary angle and want to look at this all artsy, expect three acts, and completely logical, reasonable consequent story-telling and world building you will be disappointed.

But if you want to listen to an easy, tongue-in-cheek and funny adventure in space that will entertain you and keep you listening, while never making you feel bad about dead characters and misery at all, then you will enjoy this a lot.

My favorite SciFi book of all time is the Hyperion Cantos. Loaded with literature references, high end writing, world and story building at peak levels, also death and misery, love, destiny and whatnot. Highly creative etc. and so on.

This series is NOT that. BUT this has its place all the same. This is for fun, not to be analyzed. This is to listen to without effort, this is entertainment, to listen to while you do work that bores you, to fall a sleep and whatnot.

This series can be critically destroyed, when looked at with the wrong expectations. When compared to Hyperion or the Culture Series on a literary level, it doesn't stand a chance. But it is an unfair comparison. This series is great in what it is, it is worth it, I like to listen to it and I hope it will go on for a long time.

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Alansons sacrifices his feel-good factor for....

Reviewed: 03-12-20

Expeditionary Force was a feel good series for me. It is funny, and the pirates win, and it is in space and it is funny. This is why I kept reading it.

For some reason the Author has now decided that important characters have to be killed or hurt badly. A trap many authors walk into. As if people have to be able to get killed to keep a series entertaining. As if the only valid failure was death. As if the death of people would keep a series more credible. 10 Seasons of stargate without death major characters, it still worked. Repetition and boring story lines kill series, not the live-status of the characters.

Also Book 8 and 9 lost the balance between success and failure making them feel over all not very well. It is ok to hit low notes in order to make the high notes feel even better, but this is delicate. And imho it hasn't been executed well here. The high notes did not compensate the low notes well enough, the successes did not compensate the failures.

This was a feel good, fun series for me, but with Book 8 and 9 this series has left me frustrated, sad, angry without much high feelings. If I wanted death and suffering I would be reading game of thrones. Either I have misunderstood this series or the author has.

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What a pleasant surprise after the last two!

Reviewed: 08-03-19

The two last books were trainwrecks in my opinion. They made so little sense and I was just getting worked up over all the inconsistencies in the plot and decisions of the characters.

So, I held up on this one, only late finally got to it. And what a PLEASANT surprise! This was genuinely good! Good story, and characters who made sense. Recommended!

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Book 10 and 11 such a big plus!

Reviewed: 04-01-19

Compared to book 8, this is so so much better. Nice convoluted story, better characters. David VanDyke influenced the books very well.

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This is really really bad. But the next one is ok.

Reviewed: 03-13-19

Really, it's larson, so surely you are prepared for shallow military scifi with 2 dimensional charakters with no development at all, a protagonist who could just as well be the only person with a name in the book, because all the rest has practically no say in anything. Larson always tries to put women in not-cliche positions, leadership roles, fighters, technicians, but bottom line all women are just sex objects for the protagonist and are clearly second grade in all respects that matter. Larson tries to make it look differently, but fails.
Furthermore repeating phrases like "all hell broke lose" "hieve a sigh" and over and over explanations of the same thing "microbiotic treatment made me strong" that make you feel like the author must think you are a child.

This is all typical larson, you listen to him, you sign up for this and you are being entertained all the same.

Normally. But in this book its worse than this. The story, really is so horribly bad and repetitive. Again Kyle is not listening, is making all the stupid decisions that are obviously wrong, again all his people die for his stupid mistakes, again all obvious solutions to his problems are not being explored by the author. He sends 1000s of humans into their death, but not a a couple of ships even though he can build the biggest of them in a matter of days, has just 10'000 real humans, but a star system full of ressources and robots to build them into automated defense systems. But, he doesn't, he rather lets his troups die. He has destroyed fleets of enemy ships, their wrecks a free source of raw ressources, but doesn't use them. Furthermore the supposed intelligent professor more and more comes across simple minded and stupid.

All aliens are either naive or arogant. Kyle is incapable to talk to the arrogant ones, doesn't use obvious lines of reasoning to convince them, but rather bombs them with nukes. At the same time we are supposed to believe he was an intelligent academic before he became part of the books.

His completely incredible inability to talk to and understand aliens is just as frustrating to read/listen as the fact, that Aliens like the blues are supposed to be super advanced as well as completely unable to understand the problems at hand due to their arrogance. Not a moment Larson would consider, that advanced aliens could be humble or kind. Of course they must be arrogant and stuborn.

In this book, and many of Larsons work, the understanding of reasoning or situation of characters is not dependent on their ability or the situation or the explanation of them by somebody, but on the need of Larsons narrative of them being able to understand or not.

Just as well, Weapons are in place that could solve all problems or end Kyle, but they are only used when it suits the cheap narrative.

At this point it becomes unbearable. This is written in a way the author thinks we are stupid or is stupid himself. And I don't write this because he kills a loved character in this book. This book really is a complete mess and not worth anyones time. The next one is ok again though. But just ok, because he again turns kyles character into something that makes no sense given his many opportunities to grown. In a sentence: in this book Larson appears to really not understand human psyche very well, it's just off so many times. It's a pitty. Because technically he is quite a good writer and his stories have original structures.

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Perfectly executed, enjoyable shallow SciFi

Reviewed: 08-30-18

This might sound not so nice, but I mean it nice. This is perfectly executed, solidly written, very enjoyable, shallow and simple SciFi.
Don't expect any crazy world building, convoluted stories or anything really original. But do expect very good entertainment, funny characters and in general a good series to come back to.

This is no Hyperion. Comparing this to hyperion is more like comparing transformers part 1 compared to Matrix part 1. What Larson pulls off in this series is something I really really respect: He doesn't get worse book by book. He has settled on a quality, and he delivers it with every book.
Compare this to for example Scalzis "Old Mens War" series, which has those horribly written dialogues (he says, she says, he says, she says) and gets worse and worse after each book until it's practically unbearable.
Undying mercenaries is way better because it's stable in quality and it doesn't disappoint.

I'm really into deep and original science fiction, but this military scifi series is still very enjoyable for me and that is also a kind of quality. I can recommend it and I am looking forward to the next book.

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3 people found this helpful