Zero Hour (Expeditionary Force)

Joe, Skippy,and the Band of Merry Pirates have screwed the aliens to save Earth. Their adventures have taken them from high fives to oh crap and back again. The domino effect just keeps on falling. Who moved planets? Who exterminated an entire race? What is the truth behind Skippy the Awesome? We must have more!!!! Craig has done this series proud. Need to see it to the end.

Grab yourself a juice box and join the Merry Band Of Pirates against the unthinkable! This party cruise has everything, spelunking into caves, lakeside swimming, star gazing, and even a friendly kitty. There’s even some nice slapping of the laws of physics for you daredevils out there. Shmaybe a little risk and a couple of moments where we have to ask ourselves, what was this dumb dumb thinking?! Ugh, ok and even some Romeo and Juliet stuff. And a couple of awesome ideas from the Magnificent himself that were never the idea of a monkey brain.

Ok ok you got me, I hate my life! Only because this book is over and I have to wait for Craig to finish the next book, which is like two ish months out STILL in meatsack time. Which is basically forever.

You’re going to enjoy this so much, this review will make sense to you.

This book 5 in the series was for me the best. The author mixes in new subplots keeping the basic story line moving. He has a gift of story telling that has me hooked.
This is a funny, thrilling, charming sci-fi that can be real since the characters are us. So if you want to kick alien but and run like hell, because they can wipe us out easily, start from the beginning with book 1. Skippy the AI and Joe his partner are perfect together.
I want a Skippy hat or shirt or coffee mug.

The fifth book in the series is pretty good. Continuing the adventures of Col. Joe and his beer can buddy Skippy. The collection has been great extremely entertaining and a great read. All the nerdy science stuff is dumbed down to a Barney level so you stay engaged. This series is a great read.

Grab yourself a juice box and join the Merry Band Of Pirates against the unthinkable! This party cruise has everything, spelunking into caves, lakeside swimming, star gazing, and even a friendly kitty. There’s even some nice slapping of the laws of physics for you daredevils out there. Shmaybe a little risk and a couple of moments where we have to ask ourselves, what was this dumb dumb thinking?! Ugh, ok and even some Romeo and Juliet stuff. And a couple of awesome ideas from the Magnificent himself that were never the idea of a monkey brain.

Ok ok you got me, I hate my life! Only because this book is over and I have to wait for Craig to finish the next book, which is like two ish months out STILL in meatsack time. Which is basically forever.

You’re going to enjoy this so much, this review will make sense to you.

This book 5 in the series was for me the best. The author mixes in new subplots keeping the basic story line moving. He has a gift of story telling that has me hooked.
This is a funny, thrilling, charming sci-fi that can be real since the characters are us. So if you want to kick alien but and run like hell, because they can wipe us out easily, start from the beginning with book 1. Skippy the AI and Joe his partner are perfect together.
I want a Skippy hat or shirt or coffee mug.

This is written in the same entertaining tone as the prior books. I thoroughly enjoy the plot line and keep wondering how it will end. This edition kept me in suspense as well as stitches because of Colonel Joe and Skippy the a-hole AI.

The fifth book in the series is pretty good. Continuing the adventures of Col. Joe and his beer can buddy Skippy. The collection has been great extremely entertaining and a great read. All the nerdy science stuff is dumbed down to a Barney level so you stay engaged. This series is a great read.

The adventure continues in this fifth installment of the Expeditionary Force series by Craig Alanson. This is the most entertaining of the last three books, but in the end it's more of the same. It's past time for Alanson to reveal some back story about the artificial intelligence, Skippy, at the center of the books.

Exciting, interesting and funny. Highly recommended. Can't wait for the next book in the series. I've read a lot of books in this genre in the last year and the Expeditionary Force series is my favorite.

RC Bray has completely ruined trying to read this series in any other medium.
The interactions between Joe and Skippy are pale and anemic on the written page compared to the way Bray brings them to life.
I tried reading the Kindle sample.....I just can't. I have to wait and hope it comes out on Audiobook.

I have followed the antics of Joe and his egomaniacal superbly awesome side kick (don’t let him know a filthy monkey (his words not mine) called him that) through out this series with a great deal of pleasure. Their shenanigans are a constant source of stifled laughter while my poor wife is trying to sleep, and the banter that I have shared with her from the books has caused her to ask me, “what did the beer can say/do now”, all in all a fun read and I am looking forward to more monkey brain ideas.

I don't have the time to go into how much I enjoyed the entire series. I will tell you that I spent money and time (dedicated time) to listening to this series. I didn't just listen while driving but also while at home, on a golfcart and in bed!!! :-) I love this series. So, I hope you will forgive me in expressing my frustration at the LACK of resolution at the end of Zero Hour. I am anxiously awaiting the next book. I look forward to its release!

This is the best series e-ver! Reading it is fine, but the Audio books are a MUST have. The narration just brings it to life. I tried to read book 5 until the Audio book came out, and it was a no go. I could not for the life of me get the voices right in my head, so I had to wait until the Audiobook was released.
All I all love the book series and it would make a great movie series.

The only bad thing about this series is that the next portion hasn't been released yet.
With an infinitely awesome AI as one if the main characters, this could potentially go on for millions of more books.
Waiting for Book 6 might be more than I can take.

I've been reading all of the Expeditionary Force books and the series is terrific. Yes, it's science fiction but the stories take place only a few years into the future so the technological skills of the human race are not too different from what they are now. I don't want to say too much about the plot because it could spoil it. But, I will add that series involves interactions between humans and more advanced alien species. The characters are well developed and very believable. Even the alien technology seems believable. The story line keeps the reader riveted even when the discussions are obviously intended to educate the reader.

Also, I must add that I've been listening to the audio versions in addition to reading the books. They are read by R C Bray, and he adds so much. The next audio version in the series won't be out until this fall. I may skip reading the next one and just go for the audio version.

Another great story! Full of humor, adventure and plenty of mystery! Its a great space adventure with plenty of aliens and an immensely awesome advanced AI. Really enjoyed the entire series so far. I hope the books keep coming. I definitely recommend the audio version, its had me laughing out loud!

How many impossible situations can one crew come up against? There is always one more, as the author seems to have Murphy whispering into his ear as he writes. Strangely, no matter how many times Skippy says, “Heh, heh” or the karma of the physics of this space-time reach out to b**ch slap the Flying Dutchman for offenses so egregious Skippy can’t even explain them, it never gets old. You’ll laugh at the inanity of an intelligence bigger than Marvin the depressed robot being continually stymied by his all too earthly companion, Joe Bishop. You’ll cry when Skippy manages, against all odds, to actually increase his repartee of show tunes. The Dutchman enters a new phase of existence and escapes the inescapable once again, but of course there are all new challenges waiting for the next book.

I've listened to all of the books on Audible now so far, and I have really enjoyed the series as a whole. It is very comical most times, and the story arc is both interesting and gripping. I find it mostly well written, although being the 6th book in the series (including the novella) I am starting to grow weary of the constant repetition. At first, I presumed this was to allow for large gaps in the release of the books in order to remind the reader of important facts, but now it just feels like the author is re-stating quite obvious facts which do not need repeating. It is almost irritating.

I am however able to look past this, although a new problem is that I am now becoming all to aware that the books very much follow the same concept, which is that some species has something that the crew needs but it is impossibly difficult for them to obtain it, but just in the nick of time they find a genius solution. It is the side story about Newark, and the history of Skippy which keeps me reading as I just cannot not know the answers.

Skippy's attitude and personality was quite funny for the first 5 books, but I'm now becoming quite tired of what is fast becoming the same lines of insults that he hurls at the crew.

This is written in the same entertaining tone as the prior books. I thoroughly enjoy the plot line and keep wondering how it will end. This edition kept me in suspense as well as stitches because of Colonel Joe and Skippy the a-hole AI.

I enjoy this series so much! I can't wait for the next one! I love the characters in this book. The crazy and unexpected situations they get into are wholly entertaining. I want to be one of the merry band of pirates!

I've left a five star review of every book in the series so far. This book is great. There is more tactical information about combat that I have not seen before. There is less combat in this but there is some planetary exploration in this. I was expecting the series to start wrapping up, for more technology to be introduced. I left wondering about more mysteries about the Elders.

One good thing is that there is a brief timeskip in the book so I didn't have to read about Colonel Bishop planting potatoes like in book 1:) good thing the author skipped some of the less important information about survivql. Focusing too much on the survival of the group will make it more of a survival novel and less appealing as science fiction. I didn't say pirates because the team technically are pirates, but not the kind that attack humans. There are aliens in this series if you're not looking for human vs human combat.

I love this series, it became a surprised favorite when 1/2 way through book 1 the book went from merely a decent military sci-fi space opera to LOL wild and funny ride with the introduction of Skippy. Book 5 did not disappoint and it was good really good fun, I do look forward to book 6 but I will say that some of the jokes and plot lines are starting to get a bit ridiculous. Also, Skippy's relationship with Joe and the rest of the the not-so-merry-band-of-pirates needs to develop further. It just seems like the relationship has plateau in book 2 and every book since has just been "more of the same". I get that Skippy was originally used as a comic relief + force multiplier but he is very much a major character in the series now and should be treated as such. Ex. Book 5 feels kind of like book 2... with higher stakes...

I hope Book 6 will seriously move both the character development and the plot line forward in a significant way. I see plenty of runway left in the series given the rich universe that Craig has created. But as it stands, the over reliance of Skippy being awesome but absentminded is seriously hindering both character and plot development.

So what if other "older" races gets more involve in the future story line? At the end of the day, the story will more or less be the same one that's been told in book 2-5. Humanity is screw -> Monkeys can't do anything -> Joe / other monkey came up with some non-conventional solution that absentminded Skippy can't figured out -> problem is solved because Skippy did something awesome that other race can't even begin to understand -> monkey wins! But... unintended consequences... repeat.

Again, it was great, but 5.5 books in I think the series needs to make some changes, take some risk to move the plot and the character development forward.

This is my first one star review. I really enjoyed the first couple of books in this series, but since then he's just kind of repeated the same thing over and over again and honestly I'm not even going to finish this fifth book. It is too much of the same, I'm done.