Aftermath: Expeditionary Force 16 by Craig Alanson (2023)

Fantastic resurrection to this fun series.  Hilarious, mindless entertainment. 5/5 Stars

Callsign Valkyrie by Jason Anspach, Nick Cole, Walt Robillard (2023)

Self-contained, backstory of factions during the reign of the evil "House of Reason" era of Galaxy's Edge. Not bad. 4/5 Stars.

Always Legion by Jason Anspach, Peter Nealen, & Nick Cole (2023)

I needed something light, fun, humorous to recover from that terrible Peter H Kim book.  This one is a little disappointing; the close combat is good as always. This era and setting in the Galaxy's Edge universe is dark and depressing, though.  3/5 Stars.

Wayward Galaxy 6 by Jason Anspach & Nick Cole (2023)

Hilarious, silly, fun, light, entertaining, mindless mayhem 4/5 Stars.

The Red by Linda Nagata (2015)

The plot and mystery are well-executed.  And the characters are wonderful.  The characterization of political power, relative military capabilities, and oligarchical powers is not very believable, unfortunately.  But the good writing enabled me to suspend disbelief and enjoy the story. 4/5 Stars.  I'll read the rest of the series now.

Never Shall I Fail by Jason Anspach & Nick Cole (2022)

I am enjoying the series and look forward to each new volume; I particularly liked the ending of this book, 5/5 Stars.

Red Ice by William C Dietz (2018)

Some work colleagues recommended this series and lent me the first one; it's ok, but not great.  And recent events make the entire plot line ridiculous. 3/5 Stars.

Freefall (Expeditionary Force Mavericks) #2 by Craig Alanson

Fun story; next time I start a series I shall read the books in publication order. 4/5 Stars.

Death Trap by Craig Alanson (2019)

Taking a break from deep, dense fact books that are popping up in my stack, I took a break with some light reading and went back to read the last two Craig Alanson books in his "Expeditionary Force" universe.  I think one should read them in publication order because the last two books in the main "Expeditionary Force" series have some spoilers and assume you have read these two "Mavericks" books.  But this one was still fun; the characters and dialogue are in many ways funnier than the main series. 4/5 Stars. Entertaining.

Failure mode, expeditionary force, book 15 by Craig Alanson (2023)

Fun conclusion to the series, but I was disappointed in the "elders" confrontation at the very end.  Otherwise, the story was fun. 4/5 Stars.

Match Game (Expeditionary Force #14) by Craig Alanson

The story is suddenly drawing to a close; the stakes get much higher and some of the mysterious, ultra-powerful tech, e.g. another "elder AI" are involved.  Fun.  There are way too many loose ends to wrap up, however.  So the final volume will likely be disappointing. 4/5 Stars.

Fallout (Expeditionary Force #13) by Craig Alanson

The adventures continue; I am reading quickly to get to the end of this series. Mindless, silly sarcasm and cheesy space opera. 3/5 Stars

KTF Part 2 by Jason Anspach & Nick Cole

Fast moving story trying to tie together many separate plot lines and make the rest of the "big reveals" to end this chapter of the story.  Although a fair number of the main characters died, I think the authors should have killed off more of them to end the story.  3/5 Stars.

The Pursuit of Power by William H McNeill (1982))

I normally don't enjoy these dense, phonebook-long history textbooks with too many names, dates.  But this book is fantastic; there is never a dull moment.  It is deeply insightful and posits the author's theories of larger, sociological nation-state behaviors not only of the leaders but the populations.  5/5 Stars.  I am grateful someone at work recommended the book.

Breakaway (Expeditionary Force book 12) by Craig Alanson

Although the same old tropes are repeated ad nauseum, the characters are developing, 3/5 Stars.  I shall finish the series and go back to read the other branch of the story (Mavericks).

Lead The Way by Jason Anspach and Nick Cole

The fantasy story continues with silly over-the-top Army Ranger stuff, 3/5 stars.

Critical Mass (expeditionary force book 10) by Craig Alanson

The series continues with the same tropes and evolving characters. Fun, mindless space opera as technology and politics become more sophisticated. 4/5 Stars.  I plan to finish out the series and go back to the other branch (Mavericks).

Valkyrie & Critical Mass by Craig Alanson

There are two volumes and two titles, but the first book ends in a ridiculous cliffhanger where everyone (literally) is seconds away from death.  So the two volumes are really one book (with a beginning, a middle, and an end).  And the plot is fun but the reduction in awe-and-wonder mystery of space opera, along with the usual lazy writing deus est machina arbitrary changes to the magic system are grating.  However, like many readers of Alanson's books, I have become comfortable with all the characters and universe of the stories so I am willing to suspend disbelief.  I plan to finish reading all the others and go back to the other series by the author in this universe. 4/5 Stars.

Armageddon by Craig Alanson

This chapter in the never-ending story is better than some of the others, and continues to develop all the characters.  It drops direct hints of a bigger, awe-and-wonder, galactic-scale mystery and kills off some of the characters who were with the reader for 8 books.  The creative, bizarre, desperate schemes always eventually work out in the end, so this cliff hanger "formula" is getting tiresome.  I am hoping we can get more and better political stories among the space aliens.  4/5 Stars.

Ceephay Queen by Joel Shepherd

I love the Spiral Wars series by Shepherd.  The two year gap between Qalea Drop and Ceephay Queen was difficult to endure but enhanced the pleasure of diving back into the Spiral Wars universe with my beloved characters.  I intentionally read this book slowly and even recorded some aphorisms:

One worries less about turbulence when one is a pilot. There is a metaphor in there somewhere.

You start to use it, thinking it is a saddle but it ends up being a leash.

A person meets her destiny on the road she takes to avoid it.

Nothing is more dangerous than an officer with a good idea.

The photon hits the electron; the wave hits the shore; we are all just pawns in some larger game; the magic of sentience lies in the attempt to make the process slightly less random.

Why make a small threat when you can make a bigger one?

The day humanity accepts that "dangerous" automatically means "bad" is the day we start to go extinct.

You may not be interested in violence but violence is always interested in you.

I was disappointed in Styx's new character arc and her dialogue; I don't particularly like most of the new characters.  The new species, Rhee incompetence, and lazy writing about the politics are also a little disappointing. The book is still fantastic and I can't wait for the next installment. 5/5 Stars.