Decided to add a little light space opera to the reading list for the summer. First up was Columbus Day, the first book in the Expeditionary Force series by Craig Alanson. It has a strong tactical military focus. It changes up the Earth caught between warring alien species trope in a fairly interesting way. There is entertaining back-and-forth dialog between the two main characters. A bit more politically preachy than you might expect from a Kindle read in this genre.
Expect I will read some more of the series to fill in between more “serious” reads this summer.
Columbus Day by Craig Alanson
We were fighting on the wrong side, of a war we couldn’t win. And that was the good news.
The Ruhar hit us on Columbus Day. There we were, innocently drifting along the cosmos on our little blue marble, like the native Americans in 1492. Over the horizon come ships of a technologically advanced, aggressive culture, and BAM! There go the good old days, when humans only got killed by each other. So, Columbus Day. It fits.
When the morning sky twinkled again, this time with Kristang starships jumping in to hammer the Ruhar, we thought we were saved. The UN Expeditionary Force hitched a ride on Kristang ships to fight the Ruhar, wherever our new allies thought we could be useful. So, I went from fighting with the US Army in Nigeria, to fighting in space. It was lies, all of it. We shouldn’t even be fighting the Ruhar, they aren’t our enemy, our allies are.
I’d better start at the beginning….