Brushfire
Expeditionary Force, Book 11
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Brushfire
Narrated by:
R.C. Bray
Buy Now for £18.57
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Narrated by:
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R.C. Bray
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By:
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Craig Alanson
Peacetime can be a rough adjustment for the battle-hardened Merry Band of Pirates.
Especially when aliens don’t get the memo that the shooting is over.
©2020 Craig Alanson (P)2020 Podium Audio
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Continue the series
This one was gripping and very clever. As hard as I try I rarely guess what will happen or the outcome of the next tight spot the MBoP finds themselves in.
Supreme Awesomeness
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Excellent story Like always
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However, towards the end of the first part, there are 2/3 chapters that are almost impossible to listen to, due to cringe inducing terrible writing. This section was so bad that I have had to take 2 stars off the story. (more on this below, with spoilers)
The second half of the book is back to the good ol' sci fi that fans love. It is fresh to allow the MBOP to contact other ships and not hide anymore. I am excited to see the confrontation with the senior species play out and focus on Elders story, which I find far more interesting. Keep it going Craig, but please, no more romance writing.
*SPOILERS*
There are a number of chapters dedicated to Joe's love life. This has been built up for 10 books, but is a miserable disappointed. Most of the portrayal of Joe during these scenes completely go against how he has been portrayed in the earlier books. He has always been very respectful of women and tried his best, however, he turns into a horny teenager for a few chapters. A similar change is evident for Adams as well. She turns into a soppy mess when it comes to Joe, it completely breaks the flow of the series. Most of the content in these chapters is utterly embarrassing and I think this should be removed or at least skipped as is it not important. All you need to know is that Joe and Adams get together on Earth, he meets her parents and they are happy.
Great... Terrible.. Great
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Brushfire really moves the whole Expeditionary Force series to a new level in terms of the story. Up until this point, the Merry Band of Pirates were a highly clandestine group that none of the other species were aware of, in terms of their identity. Now, though, the galaxy knows that the Ghost ship series of strikes, as well as a myriad of other actions, have all been down to a lowly group of Humans. The proverbial cat is out of the bag at last! Now, a whole new set of problems are created as a result of-this, and it's the job of Bishop and co. along with the aid-of Skippy the magnificent to try and cope with the radical shift in power that the possession of Elder weapons has put humanity into.
This is all great stuff and just what we've come to expect from this series. As noted in other reviews, Alanson has an amazing ability to come up with and solve complex problems. What I am perhaps most excited about, is the prospect of this new balance of power setting the stage in future books for real growth to occur. I sense there is a new phase on the horizon that bodes well for expansion in scope as the series progresses.
OK, so onto my minor gripe. Characters like Captains Kirk, Picard and Janeway, amongst others, have never engaged in any on screen long term relationships and the writers did that for a good reason in my view. Such relationships compromise the characters, and in such cases, break up the flow of the narrative. I felt that Bishop's feelings for Adams should have remained unrequited. As a consequence of the coming together, romantically speaking, of the two key characters, there is a lull in the story that I found quite jarring in terms of tone compared to what we've been used to. Personally, I would've removed the section of the story relating to Bishop and Adam's Earth based romance.
One other very minor oddity I spotted, was a small section in the book where a pair of Jurraptha have a meeting and Alanson appears to have forgotten he was describing non humanoid aliens that do not possess any of our attributes. In the past, Bishop has noted how it was difficult to interpret Jurraptha body language because they weren't human. However, in this exchange in the story, we see a pair of Jurraptha doing things such as eye rolling, raised eyebrows, waving of "a hand" and using very human expletives. I didn't know Beatles had eyebrows, but maybe in this story,they do!
Also spotted either a typo or a rare error from R.C Bray. In one instance, he refers to a specialist as a "socialist"!
Other than that, Bray, as ever, does a fantastic job of reading this story. Oh, I liked the nod to him Alanson had included in this story by way of Bishop stating how a great narrator in an audio book is so important!
All told, Brushfire is another great story from Craig Alanson.
A New & Very Dangerous Phase
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the love story was a bit tedious
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