Space Opera Fans discussion

The September 2025 Reader Pick is Columbus Day by Craig Alanson.

Please use this thread to post questions, comments and reviews at any time.

Official description -
Book 1 of 18 books in the Expeditionary Force series, and a Nominee, Audie Awards - Audiobook of the Year, 2018

A space opera describing the events after humanity is thrust into a galactic war following an alien invasion of Earth. The chief protagonists are Joe Bishop, a soldier in the United States Army, and Skippy, an advanced artificial intelligence from an ancient civilization who befriends Joe.
Unlike many military science fiction stories, the Expeditionary Force novels include a considerable amount of comedy, especially (though not entirely limited to) the many comic interactions between long-suffering Joe Bishop and practical joker Skippy.
Intro -

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....

I've now purchased my "copy" of Columbus Day; since I'm still working my way through Red Mars, I decided to opt for an audio book version of Columbus Day. I hope to start listening this week-end.

I've started this, but barely. I'm always a little wary of books written in the first person. I consider it lazy writing. Plus I usually don't like feeling like I'm in someone else's head. But I also usually try to give it more than just a few pages, because I've often been pleasantly surprised. Murderbot, for instance.

I really enjoy the first person approach in this novel, the main character Joe Bishop is a regular guy and through his eyes the scene is set and plot unfolds which for me I find engaging and easy to grasp what's going on. I'm not a huge fan of pages of exposition, here we are thrust into the action, I like that.

I agree with you regarding the Murderbot diaries I really enjoyed that series.

A reminder to everyone that Columbus Day is our READER choice for September, starting tomorrow.

At the moment we have Betsy, Paul and me planning to read it - will anyone else be joining us?

Boy, this is definitely military sci-fi. I'm still not sure how much I like it, but I'm still reading.

I like this one for a "light read", I don't normally read a lot of military SF but at least this one doesn't take itself too seriously. I love Space Opera though and military SF titles often pop up in the genre.

Hi, I'm not a lot around here, but thought I'd give my two cents, since I read this one.

I liked the first half of the book. It was a interesting military sci-fi, liked Joe Bishop as a character and how humans was being used as low soldiers on a grand scale war.

But for me one thing happened in the book that was used to much as a facilitator to help the main character and the development of the story. It took away my enjoyment of the plot.

But I read some reviews that really liked the book and didn't mind that aspect.

I'm eager to read what you guys think of the book after reading it.

Juliana wrote: "Hi, I'm not a lot around here, but thought I'd give my two cents, since I read this one.

I liked the first half of the book. It was a interesting military sci-fi, liked Joe Bishop as a character a..."

I'm currently about halfway through and I suspect I know what plot device you're referring to. And I'm inclined to agree with you. It's too contrived. And unbelievable. But I will keep reading because I do like Joe Bishop so far.

I need to get moving with this one now that I've finished procrastinating by reading other books. I think its the fact that I bought the audio version - a format I use only rarely - that's putting me off. I've started listening to it but the reader's accent - real or otherwise - is really grating on me.

I finished this book, and enjoyed it for the most part. Here is my review.

Betsy wrote: "I finished this book, and enjoyed it for the most part. Here is my review."

Hi Betsy, I read your review and I agree with it. It was enjoyable but not belivible enough for me to continue the series too.

I'm only at the end of chapter 3 at the moment, but I'm finding it fairly dull so far.

I give up - this was dire. The plot was dull, the dialogue was infantile, the main character was cringeworthy, and the audiobook narration was severely off-putting. I hate not finishing a book but I couldn't force myself to finish this one. There may also be a cultural barrier on my part - the whole US military stuff may play better to US readers.

I can understand how some readers might struggle with some of the unbelievable aspects of this story, also I agree the very US dialogue and humour and not just US but kinda comic book hero American can be off-putting but from the first couple of pages I knew this wasn't serious SF so I stayed with it and really enjoyed it. I guess I just treated it as a light hearted read which I need sometimes.

I thoroughly enjoyed this one. From the jump Alanson makes it clear this will be on the sillier side of MilSF, and I think more authors should take note of how initial impressions make implicit promises to the reader and follow through with them.

It starts off semi-serious with the alien invasion, but when they go to fight back it’s in a truck covered with cartoon paintings. So we downshift into not-so-serious and let ‘er rip. By the time we get to the alien AI named Skippy, all bets are off.

I also appreciated that this isn’t yet another jingoistic self-stroking testosterone fest the way so many of these things are. The world in general and America in particular have shifted to the right politically and it grinds my gears to see that reflected in books. So it’s nice to see that’s not the case here.

R.C. Bray’s narration is excellent as always.

To a degree the book divides opinion; many people - as in this thread - really like it, while many others - like me - think it is unadulterated rubbish.

But I'm stunned that 15,000 GR readers apparently rated it as 5 stars. I must have set this thread up incorrectly (my apologies) as the ratings don't appear. What rating did you each give this one?

I gave it 3 stars. I liked it okay, but just okay. One reason I wanted to read it was because Michael Mammay gave it five stars. He's a space opera author whose books I have enjoyed. But 5 stars???

I've largely stopped reading comments from other authors, Betsy - too often it feels like mutual back-scratching.

I didn't give Columbus Day a rating - it would have been unfair to do that, considering that I hadn't finished the book. I doubt if I'll risk wasting time and money on another of the author's books - yet this series have been best-sellers, so its likely that I'm simply not the sort of reader the books are aimed at.

In addition, I should have been more alert to the fact that humour doesn't always travel well.

4 stars from me. 3 for the book, bonus for Bray’s performance.

This is the last day of our September read of Columbus Day by Craig Alanson. It looks like only 5 of us read it - and my thanks to Betsy, Paul, Juliana and Trike for interesting comments.

Its fair to say that the majority enjoyed the book; since its part of a New York Times bestselling series there are obviously lots of readers who share that assessment.

Oooops. I read it as well! Enjoyed it.

Thanks Biana - I'm glad you liked it. I hope you'll join in some of our other reads?

Just checked My Books and I gave this 4 stars, mainly for just enjoyment, I had a lot of fun with this.

Thanks Paul, glad you liked it. I'm looking forward to hearing your views on the October Star Wars read.

Hi John, I totally understand you not finishing the book. I almost didn't too when the IA entered the scene, but I sticked to it to see if it would get better.
As others said it was a not so serious Mil Sci-Fi and I enjoyed the tone down but not enough to understand the general rating.
I gave it a 3 stars.
But it was nice having this ongoing conversation about it.

Thanks Juliana; to be fair, the average rating from this group is probably 3.5 stars, which is a respectable rating. I was very much the outlier on this one - and I'm still unsure how much I was influenced against it by the audiobook format.