SpecOps

Repetitive and watered-down

The story seemed forced and less important then book 1. What really started to bother me was the same 2 or 3 scenerios kept playing out over and over. Skippy has no plan, Joe comes up with plan, Skippy cant believe a monkey came up with a plan. Tbat happend about 5 times i swear. Even phrases and information was repeateded. The performance was top notch, the writing was lazy.

74 of 84 people found this review helpful

WE HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY by NO PATIENCE MAN

BREAKING IT DOWN BARNEY STYLE
I wanted to BLUFF IT, but it is your money. I liked this book and will continue the series, but I did not love it. The book is very funny and that is what saves it. It does have some SCIENCY STUFF to the point of over my head. We are talking lots of physics with wormholes and flat universes. I like the main character Joe. I like the fact that he shows humility, but yet is in charge. It is entertaining 90% of the time. I liked the planet of the week, which this week is an Ice Planet.

BONUS OR BONE US
Keep in mind, I said I like the book and I am going to continue the series. When I listen to book 3, I will wear my lucky underwear. YEA, LUCKY UNDERWEAR IS A REAL THING. For the first hour or two, the sarcastic SKIPPY almost becomes too much. Almost every line is a sarcastic remark by him. I love this type of humor, but the first hour was annoying. The jokes are repeated so many times, that I found myself giving the sarcastic remark before Joe or Skippy did. You always know that Joe is going to think up something Skippy does not think up. You know that Skippy will get upset over that fact. You know that the solution will almost always involve Skippy listening in on the enemy's communications and often manipulating them to make the enemy see or hear something different than the truth. When it is not that, it will have something to do with Skippy making a small worm hole. After a while it became SEMPER TEDIUM. With all that, there is still some LOL moments towards the end and of course the love that is growing between Skippy and Joe.

THAT'S ARE STORY AND WE'RE STICKING TO IT
I am also very interested in the mystery of the Elders, along with a new mystery, involving an unknown race that is using Elder technology for evil uses.

IT IS BETTER TO BE SILENT AND BE THOUGHT AN IDIOT, THAN TO SPEAK AND REMOVE ALL DOUBT

R.C. Bray is no idiot and I will always listen to him speak.

208 of 246 people found this review helpful

Welcome to an outer space version of Groundhog Day, but boring.

After the twists and turns of the first book, this sequel was a huge disappointment. I kept listening hoping that it would get better, it did not. Here, I will save you 8 hours... Skippy is really smart, Joe is a dumb monkey but comes up with a good plan, Skippy is mad that Joe had a better idea than him, the plan works, bananas for everyone, repeat. Your Welcome!

4 of 4 people found this review helpful

Definitely worth a credit!

I'm a person who enjoys watching Sci-Fi, but im usually disappointed when I read it. This is the 2nd book in the trilogy and the author's style is definitely different, but it's a "good" kind of different! His choice of words and his ability to make me think and feel that it's entirely possible for an object that's shaped like a beer can that's, because it is the most intelligent being in the universe is a testament that the author' is creative and his book is worth listening to.

8 of 9 people found this review helpful

Disappointing Drop

I listened to book one when it first came out. It was amazing!
When this book came out I figured I had to re-listen to the first before starting the 2nd and I did.
Book 2 was a failure. The All Mighty skippy jokes got repeated so many times and towards to end he seemed like the monkey on the journey.
So many repetitions like “Huh” and “what”, it gets incredibly frustrating.
I really wanted to give this the 5 star I gave its predecessor.

12 of 14 people found this review helpful

Sadly repetitive

What disappointed you about SpecOps?

Book 2 takes a few elements that worked fairly well in Book 1 and repeats them ad naseum to fill the pages. Did the publisher require a specific page count from the author? The plot is basically a loose collection of randomly appearing, insurmountable problems that end up being resolved by (1) Skippy, using another one of his god-like, deus ex machina powers that aren't mentioned until he explains the solution or (2) Joe's "brilliant" idea that Skippy for some reason could not foresee despite his superpowers, followed by Skippy's grudging acknowledgement of monkeys being smarter than he thought and "I hate my life and monkeys" screams.... Rinse and repeat N times to fill the book.

The rest is filler without much character or plot development. We don't get much in terms of world building, interactions with various aliens or Elders, but we get a ton of pages about Newark. The constant banter between Joe and Skippy worked well in the first book, but eventually became really repetitive and formulaic. Also, Joe's constant inner monologue is cringe-worthy - we get it, you have a strong sense of duty to save everyone and also don't feel like you deserve the promotion to colonel, but how many times does it need to be mentioned???

Would you ever listen to anything by Craig Alanson again?

No, if Book 3 in this series is like Book 2. I liked the first book, but this is just lazy.

What about R.C. Bray’s performance did you like?

Excellent narration.

38 of 46 people found this review helpful

Sci-Fi Military-In-Space with humor

Entertaining, with more emphasis on chat than on plot, ideal as an audio book since there is a lot of repetition of what-is-happening - if you are doing something while listening don't worry about going back because you missed a bit - the author has the characters repeat what's going on at least twice, if not three times.

The humor is more the guys-insulting-each-other kind of joshing and less the clever or witty kind of humor. It still made me laugh out loud or at least put me in a good mood.

Sometimes the narrator's British character's voice (Smythe?) slipped into the same as Skippy's voice, but other than when that happened the narration is fantastic.

Light and fun sci-fi.

18 of 22 people found this review helpful

Not as good as the 1st. Repetitive. Repetitive.

If you liked the first one you'll probably be good with this continuation. The plotting and development isn't as interesting and there's virtually no world building. This one is very much about a cycle of "stumble into big problem for the monkeys, magic AI almost fix, stumble into new catastrophe, AI has no solution so everyone is gonna die, stupid monkeys come up with a clever idea the AI didn't think of, magic almost fix, stumble into new catastrophe, etc.. It goes on like that a great deal. Groundhog day continues as the plot of the series moves forward a very, very, small amount. I'll read the next one but I'm less excited about it.

24 of 30 people found this review helpful

Repetitive. Hesitant to Buy the Third Book

I love the fact that it's 15 hours and it's something to keep my mind from going numb when I am on the treadmill, but just barely. The reader has a dynamic voice, which makes up for what the writing lacks. Characters don't develop so who they are on page 10 is who they are on page 1000 --- basically which part of the galaxy they replay the same skit over and over again changes but the book ends where it begins with character and plot development a good author could have accomplished in 3 paragraphs. I am heading to the gym, so I guess I use another credit and get the 3rd....oh well....here's to hoping.

6 of 7 people found this review helpful

Best Book Of 2017 So Far!

My wife and I have waited for this second book in the series since the moment we finished the first book! We stayed up past 3AM (Eastern Time) on the day it was released, waiting for it to hit our Audible Cloud Library after Pre-Ordering it ("Refresh Library" DANG IT! "Refresh Library", DANG IT! "Refresh Library", WHOOO HOOOO!!!!) . After Downloading it to iPhone, we listened to it pretty much STRAIGHT THROUGH!

It's well written, AND Hilarious.. In places it's SO funny, and we laughed SO hard, that we had to take a short break to keep the funny parts fresh... you can only laugh so much before "the Funny" wears off ;)

I liked seeing the Main Character Subtly Mature as the new book went along, and he was forced to rise to the challenge of actually BEING in Command, and thinking/planning ahead, instead of just "Winging it and getting Lucky".

You probably won't regret dropping a credit on it!

37 of 48 people found this review helpful