Craig, take some time off and write a better book!This book is a continuation of the downward spiral of book 8. Not sure what else to say other than the second half of the book should not have been written. I also was able to skip a whole chapter and I didn’t miss out on anything. I skipped it because it was too painful to read. Unlike others I do not have an issue with skippy’s choice in the end, however there most definitely should have been a more complete way to end the book.So in my perfect...

What the f just happened?Seriously, whiskey tango foxtrot?!?!?!?! How? Why? What? I am lost! I have no idea what's happening? How could you end the book like that? Damn you! Write faster, please! I beg you!

Author put himself in a no-win. Shmaybe a Two but enjoyed First Half I’ve read whole series and have enjoyed it. But the author kinda did himself in with ending.The cliff hanger ending isn’t right. It’s extreme and out of character from previous eight books.Doesn’t feel right nor was it well done. No problem with going with the twist and turn. But the ending was poorly done, especially considering how much scientific dialogue we go through from previous books. In the space of a medium dialogue t...

This series has begun to really stretch out. I suggest you save your time and just read the last 10 pages. Nothing else in this book seems to have any importance. I felt very familiar with the repetitive challenges, solutions, and rants that Craig fluffs this book with. Also, I am quite frustrated with the solution to every problem being some fiddly doo that was never thought of before.... It was novel and exciting, at first, but now it feels like lazy writing. I really love these books/characte...

WTF and You've got to be kidding me!Those were my initial responses to reading the last few lines of the 9th novel of the excellent Expeditionary Force series written by Craig Alanson. Many a time a TV show has left you with a season finale cliffhanger that has you cursing the writers and producers but it's rare in a novel but Craig has managed to do so with Valkyrie. Naturally I am intensely interested in how our favoured characters are going to get out of this situation but it really did put a...

Cliffhanger I have been reading this series in the hopes that humans would eventually be able to actually develop their own tech. And once again I am let down. I am also seriously angry about the ending. I would never have read this book had I known beforehand. In my opinion it’s time to just let this series go by the way side.

The first half of the book was great, then our favorite group of pirates sees a squirrel and gets distracted for the rest of the book.We then get snapped back to the overall plot with a huge info dump at the end and are left with a huge cliffhanger. Could have used a lot less detail on the distraction mission and ended with less of a cliffhanger.Feels like a low point in the serries by its self I would wait until book 10 is almost out before picking up. Just due to the size of the cliffhanger.

I was waiting eagerly for this book. All prior books in the story had been plot progression, but tucked neatly by a logical end of each episode. The end of last book #8 Armagadden laid the story for a showdown and promised answers for many unanswered questions scattered through the series. I was so pumped up I finished the book over the weekend. The first HALF of this book DELIVERED. The story was building up and the loose ends were starting to tie up.But then the second half decided to take a t...

What a letdown.I've loved pretty much every exfor novel, the endings have all been an equal mix of hopeful and suspenseful. This book, however, has the most abrupt, phone-in ending of any book I may ever have read.The author provides about 3 pages of exposition "answering all of our questions", then f***s over everybody in about 1 page, ends the book, and then he writes about 10 pages of self-aggrandizing bulls**t author's notes.Basically, instead of a payoff, Alanson pulls the rug out from unde...

What???That has to be the laziest ending I have read in the last decade by a wide margin. Just dumb.

Lack of planned plot finally catching upThe last books in the series have become repetitive and the author has by careless world building painted himself into a corner. This book is a 99% repeat of the last books plus an desperate plot twist in the end by the author to escape his badly planned world building.

The book was great, although I'm not sure how I feel about the ending... It seems like it will be hard to come back from that. In my opinion, it would have been more interesting if they took the turn of sharing all their new found knowledge. I'll read the next book if there is one, but again, I'm not sure how they will be able to come back from that ending...

The author really hit the bottom on this one. Not bad writing but seemingly unedited. New interesting kitty character that might finally move this glacial plot forward.. character disappears.. Banter is getting old.. less of it than last book.. but still. The "exciting rescue" in the last third of the book was just tedious to read... skip over pages tedious... Samwise and Frodo in the swamp tedious. Yeah. Book goes out on The Big Revelation and Cliffhanger.. At this point I just don't care... I'...

A brutal slog with an unnecessary cliffhanger ending. It's hard to believe I've read 10+ of these books (including spin offs). Sadly, the story has become stale after recycling the same few concepts over and over again: witty banter (for pages and pages) between Joe and Skippy, the constant will they or won't they between Joe and Adams, pages and pages of dialogue and over-exposition, etc.Somewhere in this overly long series is a decent storyline, but as i said before, its stale. I'm tired of it...

Don't read this bookUntill the next book comes out as you will probably end up as pissed as me thinking you will have to wait...

Brilliant ending. An ending is supposed to give you a sense of resolution, of completion... or to shock you, make you think or leave you a bit disturbed. This is in the second category. It is a very “wtf” ending and now I’m looking forward to the next book. This is the most effective pattern interrupt I’ve seen in a piece of written fiction in years. It’s the equivalent of enjoying a nice evening at home watching Netflix and then having armed thugs break the door and hold you at gun point.It’s i...

How dare Craig Alanson leave this book off on such a cliff hanger. It is simply unfair. I feel cheated and I have already lined up the funds to buy the next book when it is released on audio. As far as the beginning and the middle of the book go, it is bog-standard of the rest of the expeditionary force books. The ending though, especially the final chapter, I could not stop reading/listening. Highly recommend.

WOW. Just, wow.You know how I said the last book was a game changer? Scratch that. This one will blow away your tiny monkey brain. It certainly blew my mind away. I knew my theories were going to be incorrect and that Alanson had something great in store for us. I was not wrong.The book starts with our Merry Band of Pirates wrecking havoc, it's exciting, it's action filled, it's awesome.The book ends by finally answering the burning questions we have about the Elders. And trust me, you did not e...

Well if Ol'Craig really wanted to be Super Awesome Avant Garde, cutting edge, deserving of one star status, he got my vote. I, like the rest of you suckers have read all his 10 plus, novella included books.Sure some of the books seem to recycle the ususal banter between Bishop and Skippy, but that's normal. Like the drunk uncle that shows up every Thanksgiving and totally makes an ass out of himself at the dinner table. It's to be expected. In fact it wouldn't be Thanksgiving dinner without his

I need to process the ending...This book is amazing. The first half of the book was excellent. It was some of the same old Joe and Skippy that we like. Then the middle 5-10% was very boring, with too much dialogue. The last half of the story was a "side story" that I didn't feel detracted from the main story. I know some reviewers didn't like it, but the aliens in this story have been fighting for hundreds of thousands to millions of years. War isn't always over immediately. Space is vast, and t...