#43 Expeditionary Force Craig Alanson

I was going to do a top 40. Then I decided to just add a few more. Those ones that are not fantastic books, deep literature, but they keep me coming back for more. I do not know why i picked up this book. I just was bored one day, coming off a deep, heavy book that was dragging me down. That led me want something lighter.

So I fumbled around and this is one of the ones I came up with.

Earth is attacked by aliens. Well a group of hamster like aliens have invaded, the soldier, Joe Bishop, on leave happened to catch one. Soon after, another group of reptilian aliens shows up and chases them off our little green and blue ball in space. Well, Joe is hailed as a hero, and the lizards offer us the stars if we help them fight the hamsters.

This seems simple, right? Earthlings are trained in all the basics, but nothing important, but are meant to be the lizard’s shock troops on the front lines. Only, who is in the right? Who is the right? Come to find out, there are many levels of races, each using lower races to fight and die for them. Joe being a hero is thrust into the middle of this. However, the military is not that happy with a lowly soldier suddenly becoming a corporal at the command of the lizards.

In his travels with the Earth Expeditionary Force, he stumbles across ancient artificial intelligence. The small can like object, was created millions of years before. Skippy, as he is nicknamed, is awake, and helps Joe. He and Joe escape from a predicament, leading a band of soldiers and stealing a high life forms ship. This evolves into a friendship between the human and the beer can.

Joe spends a lot of his time like me. Wondering how I got myself into this. How am I so dumb? Skippy is the brilliant person that has the intuition. He can’t see outside the box and finds himself in many situations that somehow the dumb monkey Joe is able to get them out of.

All in all, I have loved the series. In later books, I was getting tired that nothing was happening, or it was progressing too slow. It was kind of rehashing the same stories. I have been told I should finish that last few, but I have not yet. However, I find the book fun. The AI mocks the humans regularly. Yet he cares for all the crew and especially Joe.

All the aliens they encounter are divided into two camps.  Neither one is a good side, and both are equally assholes.  Each side hunt for each other, and ancient technology from lost races that are no longer around.  The humans find themselves moving to an important center in the galaxy.  It takes a lot of luck, time, and Skippy the magnificent along with the Merry Band of Pirates. 

It is fun and just an enjoyable read.  I love that I think about these books years later, I wonder what happens, and what is in store for them next.  That is really what makes me put books on this list, the fact that I want to read them again.