Disclaimer 1: Minor spoilers ahead.
Disclaimer 2: I was given this free review copy audio book at my request and have voluntarily left this review.
This is the story of America’s newest branch of the armed forces; the United States Space Force (USSF). The book imagines a day in the life of members in the military unit created by Trump’s White House, along with a few surprise additions.
As you may have already guessed, it’s a Sci-Fi tale, but not one that takes itself too seriously (which I genuinely think is a good thing). Too many stories in the genre get too caught up in the science, trying to make things factually plausible, and conform to theory. They get heavy and dense and it tends to kill the story. If you’ve ever read one, you know they can kind of be a grind to get through. This is NOT one of those stories. It’s fun and humorous from start to finish. In the words of 1LT Hale, “There are penis shaped aliens, so many video game references, cuss words up the wazoo, and violence around every corner.” That said, this is definitely NOT kids Sci-Fi. Adult content throughout. Seriously.
Since the story is focused on Space Force, and since Space Force is a construct of the Trump Administration, it should go without saying that POTUS 45 is an ever present theme in the book. As you may have guessed, it’s rarely flattering. I don’t think he’s ever actually mentioned by name, but it’s blatantly obvious who is being talked about. He and his administration are the butt of multiple jokes of varying levels of “burn”. I didn’t mind that, and actually thought it was hilarious. Some listeners could definitely be turned off by that though. If that’s you, proceed with caution.
I think my only problem with the story itself was that it felt a bit long. The last hour or so of the book, I found my self getting easily distracted and my thoughts drifting to other things. I think if it had just wrapped up a little sooner, that wouldn’t have been as much of an issue.
As far as narration goes, it’s really pretty good. The hyper masculine, stereotypical voice of Capt Stone is a bit on the nose, but it fit the character and it made me laugh. The only real problem I noticed with the narration is that the character of Cheng has a thick Bostonian accent that seems to come and go randomly. Sometimes it’s very prominent, other times it’s practically non-existent.
My only other problem with narration was a minor annoyance more than anything, and it wasn’t actually the fault of the narrators. In my opinion, male narrators voicing female characters, and female narrators voicing male characters is always just a little off. In audio books like this one with both a male and female narrator, I wish they’d have the male record all the male parts and the female record the female parts, and then dub them together in post processing. I just think that would really help out with story immersion.
Overall, I enjoyed the book for what it is. If you’re looking for a deep SciFi story with hardcore scientific theory, you should probably keep looking. If you can laugh at fart jokes and appreciate solid pop-culture references, this is definitely worth the listen.