Posted by This is another book I picked up because I’m in a slump. I wanted something that was fun, that also doesn’t require a ton of concentration/brain power to get into or to understand what was going on. I really don’t mean this as an insult. There is absolutely a time for brain-engaging heavy-lifting worldbuilding books with complicated societies and cultures that has boatloads of new stuff to learn. And then there’s time for, “let’s have some good, easy fun”. I am in the latter mindset right now.
This is a dual POV book about what happens when aliens come to invade Earth.
Perfect. Just what I wanted.
The novel starts off with one of the main characters monologuing while practicing an introduction speech or something similar. And wow, this character has quite the embellished and dramatic entrance. The humor style for this book is very loud, very in your face, kind of Rick and Morty-esque in it’s crude-ness; including the fact that the invading aliens are phallic in appearance and get nicknamed “chodes”. I think to that point, most readers will find out early if they are going to like this or not. It’s not something you can just ignore or read past, it’s very prominent, and the main character’s voice/personality is what makes it that way — so there’s no escaping it. I was very unsure at first, I usually like a more subtle humor, but I didn’t to give up too easily/soon. I’m not offended by these sorts of jokes (so I kept going), I’m just not overly amused by them, either.
So, after the kind of abrupt introduction to one of our MCs, Stone, we learn that he’s a disgraced military man who fucked the daughter of a general and was assigned to Space Force as punishment. Space Force is unilaterally known as a joke. Space Force is where careers go to die. Everyone who has been assigned to this branch of the military has fucked up, or nearly washed out. Then early on in the book it gets disbanded. Congress says it’s a useless waste of our money and they don’t want to fund it anymore.
The only person genuinely upset by this news is our other MC, Halley, who is a fighter pilot and the only person who voluntarily chose to transfer over to Space Force. She knows that now that she snubbed NASA and other branches of the military they are unlikely to take her back now that Space Force has been disbanded and is fairly heartbroken about it.
Enter aliens.
Well shit, now humanity needs Space Force. This is set in relatively recent times, it’s supposed to be just a few years after the inception of Space Force, so like, 2025-2030 timeframe, probably? However, there’s some really high tech stuff that comes into this book, stuff we don’t have — like a sentient AI robot akin to the terminator, a spaceship that’s not just a rocket but like scifi ships, and a few other things that set it slightly apart from us and makes it a little more interesting.
Now, I almost did DNF when the very first sentence of the female MC, Halley, was about boobs, her boobs, her nice boobs. That is an awful way to introduce a character. She got better, and I don’t believe she ever referenced her tits again through the whole thing, so I don’t know why that part wasn’t just edited out. I can’t speak for all women, but my boobs occupy almost none of my thoughts, and I’m constantly baffled at how often women characters are thinking about them. Outside of that I honestly her inner voice and Stone’s were a bit too similar. They are both heavily sarcastic people that come up with long overworked metaphors to describe situations, or just weird pop culture references like “Celine Dion on a pogo stick”, or “What in the name of Daniel Day Lewis?!”. I can’t swear both of those lines weren’t said by the same character, but I can’t tell you which character it would be, which is my point, they’re too similar in some ways.
Anyway.
The whole book is almost one long fight scene. Aliens come to Earth and what they know of our warfare comes from video games. They’ve apparently been watching us for a while and want to mimic how we do warfare. So they send 50 of their dudes down and trap 50 of our dudes inside a forcefield with them and start a battle royale type thing. It’s a little like hunger games in that when someone dies the dome above flashes either white or red depending on which team just took a loss.
So, my two favorite characters in this book were side characters, lol. Girdy is an AI/android type character and Loretta was a bus driver. I didn’t really get to know Loretta until almost the end when she got a POV and I understood her a lot more and she rocketed to my favorite character.
So, did I like this?
Uh. LOL. I really can’t say, which is weird. I finished it. I wanted to know how it ended, and that’s something in a time where I’m DNFing left and right. But, I can’t say I super recommend this, either, unless you’re specifically looking for a completely ridiculous litrpg/alien invasion/comedy/scifi book with an overabundance of dick jokes. LOL. I think this book has an audience, it just might be a bit more narrow than what I usually read, and I’m kind of adjacent to the audience. I think the funniest part of the book was Girdy and her boop train, that actually got me to laugh.
Ratings:
- Plot: 9/15
- Characters: 10/15
- World building: 9/15
- Writing: 11/15
- Pacing: 12/15
- Origniality: 11/15
- Enjoyment: 6/10
Final score: 68/100