Colombus Day, and successive books
2.0 Stars
1-15-2022

Fine? Fine. I originally chose this audio book series since A) there's a lot of them B) it had been recommended and C) and most importantly, it's about people in spaceships shooting lasers at each other. And the recommendation wasn't invalid; the author is making an effort, and he's a decently smart guy, and he avoids the hard-right attitudes that you usually get from mil-sci-fi writers. I did like the initial setup (aliens visit earth; from that point on the humans are buffeted by the whims and politics and economics and campaigns of technologically superior aliens fighting a long-running war with each other). And occasionally I did genuinely enjoy the comedy, although mostly it sticks to the level of an Andy-Rooney-like patter. Some of the problem solving and orbital mechanics and engineering was fine, and I liked the bits about the counter-intuitiveness of dealing with tactical FTL jumps.

Despite the moderately positive qualities, the books get steadily less interesting as they repeat the same conversational bits, or find new excuses for yet more lengthy engineering problems, or avoid any actual consequences in what should be an extremely dangerous universe. I trailed off around book 4, as things seemed likely to continue in the same rut.