Books 1-3 were OK but by 3 I was getting sick and tired of the terrible monotone of the narrator, how everything was read like it was the dramatic action high point of the story with those awful pauses every few words. Unfortunately the story just gets worse from this point. Unbearably worse. Marco whines and whines and self analyzes, carries on long monotonous inner dialogues with himself and everything is over described. Book 4 literally made me sick. Agitated and depressed. The constant tension the narrator tries to relay is grating on the nerves. Everything in the story is said over and over and over. Different characters literally have the same conversations using the same phrasing and descriptions. And the same characters keep having the same conversations saying the same things over and over from one paragraph to the next. From one chapter to the next. From one book to the next. Think I’m overstating? I’m not. From here on the books are over bloated with the pointless self deprecation and flagellating of the good guy characters. The aliens are portrayed as one dimensional beings solely occupied with the enjoyment of the torturing of humans and the author seems to get even more enjoyment describing this in great redundant detail to no apparent point or end. Take out this repetitive filler and the books would probably be about 75 percent shorter. Give them a different narrator and then they might be tolerable. And you wouldn’t feel like you needed antidepressants after listening to them. It’s really a shame because the author did have some interesting characters and a story line that could have made for a decent or at least average sci fi series if he’d let the humor of the horrible situations out and had a narrator that could show that. There was a bit where Marco and his friend cooked hotdogs in a bizzare way that could’ve made for a hilarious scene. But he didn’t. He’s written it like a bad poet in a deep depression with an obsession for adjectives and stuttering over description that takes himself too seriously. (Ha! Like Marco, right?)
The best thing you can do for yourself is to stop now. Don’t waste your time or money on this book. Find a better series by a better author. Don’t make the same mistake I did in thinking that somehow the series has to get better. It doesn’t. It gets worse. Much worse. Unless of course you’re a masochist, then by all means, keep going, you’ll be greatly satisfied.