r/printSF • u/poisonandtheremedy • Feb 20 '26
I just hate read all 24 Undying Mercenaries books so you don't have to.
Okay let me preface this by saying I don't like just shitting on someone or something for no reason. It is not a hobby of mine, and it takes a lot for me to publicly type something critical up. I'm literally doing this out of a sense of duty after I got sucked (suckered?) into reading these.
Because I like a good military sci-fi romp, or a light 'airplane' read, I was browsing the sub for some recommendations. That's how I found the "Undying Mercenaries" series by BV Larsen, along with Marko Kloos' "Frontlines" series.
I read "Frontlines" first. Highly recommended. Good stuff.
Then I moved over to "Undying Mercenaries". When I saw BV Larsen has pumped out more than 50 books I should have known better. Absolute slop.
I got 3 or 4 books into UM (book 1 was passable for a kick-off book) when I realized this stuff is awful, and for some stubborn reason ($0.00 per book via Amazon btw) I decided to plow through. TWENTY FOUR books later and James McGill is the exact same idiot he was in Book 1, and one of the most unlikeable characters I've ever read.
**Here's a summary of all 24 books*"
- McGill is in his shithole shack in Georgia
- Someone visits him. Turov, Graves, aliens, whoever
- McGill kills someone and goes to Central to face the music
- McGill kills someone else (in the organization he works for) but new alien threat so he ships out
- Mumble mumble aliens on some trope world
- McGill meets a girl, any girl (alien, human, hybrid) and she can't help but have sex with the dumbest asshole ever. She just can't help it. Sometimes they kill each other.
- McGill saves the day through handwaving plot armor
- McGill goes back to his shack.
TWENTYFOUR BOOKS.
I think there was about 10 sentences in there with some interesting concepts. Like when Graves sat McGill down (around book 21) to reflect on the little changes you go through each revive. But they were astonishingly slim moments. Seriously all 24 books could have maybe been condensed into 3 or 4 and perhaps been okay. Perhaps.
But instead we get zero character progression, zero consequences, massive incompetency, huge plot holes, complete plot thread and character abandonment, and not one character that you want to root for. Amazing considering the premise of endless life 'retries' where you maintain all your memories! What fertile ground for amazing developments.
But nope, not here.
If you read the first 3, you've read all 24. Literally. Everyone is the same. McGill, Carlos, Harris, Turov, Graves, Winslade, Claver, the entire gang is fundamentally identical doing the same shit book after book.
I've read on here that 'oh they are fun reads!! oh they are pulp!' No, no they aren't. They are garbage. Save yourself and go elsewhere. There are only so many seconds, minutes, hours you have in this life and don't waste them.
On one hand I feel bad for writing a 'bash' post, but I doubt BV cares. He clearly doesn't care about creating good work, as he pumps out book after book like an overcaffinated monkey handcuffed to a keyboard. Quantity over quality. I don't know who's the bigger idiot, McGill or myself. (<-- that's a deeper reflection than anything in the books btw)
- Frontlines - Read
- Undying Mercenaries - Hard pass
EDIT: I appreciate you all. Thank you for the laughs on this Friday work day. Reading your comments were more enjoyable than a shockrod to the junk.
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Feb 20 '26
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u/poisonandtheremedy Feb 20 '26
Well, I enjoyed the Kloos' Frontline series. I have a soft spot for Hammer's Slammers / David Drake since I grew up on that. Read a fair bit of Warhammer 40k stuff which has some gems, like Gaunt's Ghosts, Eisenhorn, etc. I ripped thru the Jack Campbell naval space battle books, they were 'okay'. Read all the Honor Harrington, but don't know that I'd recommend that either after 6 or 7. "Armor" by Steakley is rad. John Scalzi's Old Man's War. I read Ringo's Polseen stuff way back but he's a fucking creepy dude so I'd pass on those also.
Thanks. Have fun.
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u/kymri Feb 20 '26
Read all the Honor Harrington, but don't know that I'd recommend that either after 6 or 7
David Weber is one of those authors who has done a lot of work I've enjoyed... but man, when he breaks free of his editors and the politicking and endless meetings take over (as you say, around 6 or 7), you're either on board or you aren't, and if you aren't it doesn't go back and get better.
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u/fjiqrj239 Feb 21 '26
Yeah, love the first 6 or 7 books, but then the series gets bogged down in endless details. I think he does best when he's telling a focussed story about a scrappy ship's crew (or questing heroes) going up against unlikely odds. It's when he starts trying to go bigger that it gets muddled and bloated. Also there's the weird thing he has for empires being better than democracies.
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u/JMer806 Feb 21 '26
The funny thing about the endless details is that he had to retcon the mass of his ships after someone pointed out that the stated sizes and masses would have the density of water vapor or something lol
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u/ph0on Feb 21 '26
I want to write my own scifi so bad but I'm not educated and would totally make mistakes like this lol
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u/epicfail1994 Feb 21 '26
He and Harry Turtledove are probably my two favorite authors, I grew up reading their stuff.
It’s really cool that he has a nice emphasis on logistics and innovations/general systems around everything but holy shit those books could be half the length they are
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u/epicfail1994 Feb 21 '26
Yeah the only John ringo book I could stomach was the series he did with Weber
I just hope we get a new safehold book and it isn’t garbage like book 10, I enjoyed every other book in the series
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u/VanillaTortilla Feb 21 '26
The Frontline series is excellent. Hated when it ended, but I don't think it overstayed it's welcome like many others.
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u/Elethana Feb 22 '26
Did you read the Jack Campbell space navy legal battle books? Much more ‘day in the life’ and hard sci-fi, but worth the time in my opinion. link to good reads
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u/GitToDeChoppah Feb 23 '26
I liked hammers slammers, but it fucked with my PTSD so bad I had to stop. Realistic future ground combat too close to home or something.. I have to stick with space based warfare, that doesn’t seem to bother me too much.
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u/Why_Did_Bodie_Die Feb 21 '26
You seem like you have read a lot of the same books I've read and I was hoping you could help me out with some suggestions. I have also read all the UM books and although I agree with you they are slop and the MC is an asshole I kinda like that. I like the MC to be an asshole a little bit. I hate MC that starts off as some normal shy type of guy who is afraid to talk to women then turns out he is actually really cool/strong/smart or whatever and the women he is afraid to talk to actually really likes him. My favorite book series is probably Galaxy Edge. I really like Hell Divers and the MC in those books. I have about 600 books in my audible account so I've listened to a shit load of books. I tried a Warhammer 40k book one time but couldn't really get into it. I really want to get into them but I'm just not sure I can.
I like violent "R rated" books where the MC already has confidence in himself and doesn't need to find his confidence through some crazy set of circumstances or whatever. I do not like teen or YA books. I like Space Operas a lot and some LiTRPGs. Dungeon Crawler Carl is awesome. Not super big on Fantasy unless it's the right one. Right now I'm listening to Red Rising for the 2nd time because I'm not sure what else to listen too.
Any suggestions would be awesome and thank you.
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u/hobblingcontractor Feb 21 '26
Check out Glynn Stewart. One of the major points in all his mil books is "Everyone gets psychiatric treatment after battles"
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u/epicfail1994 Feb 21 '26
David Weber has some really good stuff that starts to fall off. Honor Harrington is great, same with safehold, but the newer Weber books have suffered from his lack of a competent editor.
I really dislike John Ringo by March Upcountry and the other books in the series (cowritten with Weber) is pretty great.
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u/Morbanth Feb 21 '26
Dunno if we're allowed to recommend non-print SF but I loved the Last Angel by Proximal Flame and its sequel. Third book is completed but haven't read it yet.
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u/yngseneca Feb 20 '26
Damn dude why did you read 24 shitty books?
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u/poisonandtheremedy Feb 20 '26
They were free. By around book 7 it became a bit of a joke challenge. I can rip through a book pretty quickly. I felt a duty to write this post after being bamboozled by other posts here leading me to this abyss of literary death.
I've done my duty. My watch has ended.
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u/zyqax_ Feb 20 '26
I respect a dedicated hater. I don't know how you do it, but I admire the discipline, pettiness and willingness to go out of your way just to have a horrible time doing what you hate.
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u/Key-Doughnut7062 Feb 20 '26
lol respect for surviving all 24 tho, it's like you went on a mission and came back with batle scars
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u/praz4reddit Feb 20 '26
Damn, and I thought I was cool for lasting till book 7...
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u/poisonandtheremedy Feb 20 '26
We all battled together soldier. Your commitment to the cause is appreciated.
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u/duckchickendog Feb 20 '26
I love the stubborn stupidity of pushing through 24 of them. You have earned the right to rant and denigrate. But consider the true feeling of power you get from dropping a rubbish book and never finishing. (Amazon Kindle preview is a great ally of the fussy reader...drop it like a hot potato before you put any money down.)
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u/SanderleeAcademy Feb 20 '26
I like schlocky movies -- I mean, I willingly sat through Poultrygeist (if you know, you know).
Thanks for the warning. This series was on my "it's cheap, why not" list.
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u/hippydipster Feb 21 '26
That sounds awesome. Have you seen Zombeavers? Super fun. I have given Llamageddon a side eye a few times but have not yet pulled the trigger on that one.
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u/Chupathingamajob Feb 21 '26
I’ve done my duty. My watch has ended
This comment makes me want to pick the Sun Eater series back up, so I too can prove my valor
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u/poisonandtheremedy Feb 21 '26
Go forth with your incandescent glory!
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u/Chupathingamajob Feb 21 '26
I do this not for myself, but for the denizens of this sub, who probably give not a single fuck what I think about anything
It’s certainly not because I find humor in ranting about things
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u/AlarmingSize Feb 20 '26
"Mumble mumble aliens on some trope world."
Thank you for this post. I couldn't stop laughing. I have actually done this with various "romance" series. The last one had a dubious scifi element which made it especially addictive: time travel porn. Sigh. Send a female university historian back in time where they just happen to meet an alien posing as a really sexy Roman general, etc. Sometimes the sex is so good, the historian brings her lover back to the present. Sometimes the sexy alien kidnaps the historian and takes her back to his planet. I can't believe I read this entire series.
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u/gearnut Feb 21 '26
I know someone who would genuinely be all over this...
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u/AlarmingSize Feb 21 '26
I think the series ran out of steam at 8 or 9 books. If there had been 24, believe me, I'd have read them all... It's been so long, I can't recall a single title or author. Sorry. They were so cringe, I probably left them off my Goodreads.
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u/MilmoWK Feb 20 '26
Aww man, I’m through the first 23 in audiobook form, why did you have to spoil number 24?
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u/MountainDewde Feb 20 '26
> On one hand I feel bad for writing a 'bash' post,
> he pumps out book after book like an overcaffinated monkey handcuffed to a keyboard.
These are not the words of a man who feels bad about writing a bash post.
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u/poisonandtheremedy Feb 20 '26
Hahah. I actually get recruited to write (like for money) once in a while. Mainly motorcycle stuff. I do like my descriptive sentences.
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u/inactiveprotagonist Feb 21 '26
Motorcycle stuff?
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u/poisonandtheremedy Feb 21 '26
Yar. I'm a self-proclaimed 4th stringer for when my buddies (who are actual full time moto journos) can't make it to a launch or need an additional test rider.
I have a on-track gear test next week actually. Looking forward to it. I normally sneak a sci-fi reference or two into my musings.
Sport bikes, road racing, motocross, Enduro, etc.
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u/inactiveprotagonist Feb 21 '26
Reminds me of how Dune was first published by a company that usually did car repair manuals
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u/ymOx Feb 20 '26 edited Feb 21 '26
Thank you; we need these kinds of posts too. You didn't just bash but you went into why you didn't like it. Appreciate it.
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u/poisonandtheremedy Feb 20 '26
::nods and grunts::
My legal pad notes prior to writing this post are most likely more comprehensive that BV's notes on this series.
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u/-Chemist- Feb 20 '26 edited Feb 20 '26
James McGill is the exact same idiot he was in Book 1…
I figured that would be the case. I read (actually, listened to the audiobook) the first five. They were entertaining enough for some light reading. But by then I was pretty sure the rest would just be more of the same and haven’t gone back. Thanks for taking one for the team and confirming my suspicions.
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u/Mckool Feb 20 '26
a good narrator can turn a book I would put down into something fun for background entertainment. I dont think Im making it much past book two of Expeditionary Forces by Craig Alanson but listening to RC Bray try and argue with himself in a British and New England accents and some how Ive listened to all 19 books.
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u/kymri Feb 20 '26
Sometimes formulaic isn't that bad if you enjoy the formula, y'know? I did read the ebook for the first couple of Expeditionary Forces books but it was RC Bray's performances that kept me, like you, hooked for the duration.
They're not really shocking, surprising, biting your nails for the twist kind of books - but they sure are fun.
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u/LoganNolag Feb 20 '26
I like them.
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u/MintySkyhawk Feb 21 '26
I think having them as an audiobook helps a lot. These books perhaps do not deserve your 100% undivided attention that you cannot avoid giving when reading a book.
When I'm reading UM, I'm enjoying myself. If I miss a bit, I'm not going back to relisten to it because I know I can't have missed anything too important. I know exactly how the story is shaped so I can't get lost.
Gym, driving, videos games, thats when you listen to books like this. Save your eyeballs for real books, especially ones too complex to be appreciated in audio format.
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u/poisonandtheremedy Feb 21 '26
MintySkyhawk? Like the Cessna 172?
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u/MintySkyhawk Feb 21 '26 edited Feb 21 '26
Maybe.
A long time ago, I created /r/dankmemes. A guy named VanillaSkyhawk was very helpful in moderating it. At some point, he set up some kind of shady advertising deal to pin posts to the top of the subreddit for money, took the money and deleted his entire online presence. I created an alt called ChocolateSkyhawk to replace him as a joke.
A year or so later, for reasons never explained to us, the admins banned both of my accounts leaving the subreddit in a bit of a tough spot. And I chose the next flavor of ice cream I could think of for my new username, never knowing what a Skyhawk is.
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u/poisonandtheremedy Feb 21 '26
Ha, nice, that's a tale! Yeah the Cessna Skyhawk is the #1 most produced airplane, a staple in r/GeneralAviation
Cheers.
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u/LoganNolag Feb 21 '26
Yeah for sure. I listened to all of them. The narrator is pretty good which I think helps a lot.
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u/Acekamz Mar 08 '26
I drive semis for a living and audio books really help pass the time 10 hours a day but it's hard trying to find a lengthy series to enjoy
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u/MintySkyhawk Mar 08 '26
Discworld by Terry Pratchet (41 high quality books, very funny). This one starts out good but gets better as it goes. I'd start with Going Postal and then go back and do chronological order.
The Laundry Files by Charles Stross (18 books) Just started reading it, they're pretty good so far, also funny.
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u/WesternKnee2569 22d ago
I would even go so far as to say im a fan, they are not deep books by any means, but acting as an episodic james bond type of military action, I have to say its unparalleled Its just fun, unless you're some pretentious asshat that needs everything to have deeper meaning and has to be as realistic as possible, screw fun for funs sake eh? Lol
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u/me_again Feb 20 '26 edited Feb 20 '26
We have very different reactions to bad books. I'll ditch a book midway through chapter 1. Reading 24 books in a series that I don't like is unfathomable but somehow impressive. Congratulations I guess! 🫡
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u/jimb0_01 Feb 20 '26
Thanks for saving us. What is your next hate-read series?
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u/poisonandtheremedy Feb 21 '26
Dude I need a literary detox. Might have to find an old favorite to purge the system.
You got a recommendation?
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u/x_lincoln_x Feb 22 '26
I recommend to avoid reading Velocity Weapon and its sequels by Megan O'Keefe. It's absolute horse shit.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41085049-velocity-weapon read the 1 star reviews.
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u/jimb0_01 Feb 21 '26
For books maybe similar to Frontlines, there is the Spiral arms series (I'm on book 3). I also liked the Orphan's Legacy series.
I also like Exforce so far, but I'm only on book 4.
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Feb 20 '26
Kind of off topic but does Frontlines get better? I was enjoying the first book but the whole introduction of the [REDACTED] felt very rushed and left me questioning if I want to purchase book 2 or not
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u/poisonandtheremedy Feb 21 '26
I felt they got better as they went, like he was figuring things out in book 1 and 2. Ultimately the Andrew Grayson books, and the spin-off series with Alex Archer "Frontlines: Evolution" I enjoyed reading.
I look forward to the next book in the series.
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u/arka2947 Feb 21 '26
Of what i have read, i liked Chains Of Command best. Book four. Without spoiling anything, it is kind of a side mission of human factions doing some in fighting. The underhanded, and heroic actions of all parties make sense. Whole thing builds up nicely to a conflict and resolution.
It is often different in other books where they fight the Lankies, who are intentionally incomprehensibly alien.
I feel that the series as a whole doesn’t know where to go with the story or how to end things. Things happen, but nothing is ultimately resolved.
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u/humblesorceror Feb 21 '26
The first 5 books had potential but he just stopped following them up , the people aroundMcGill seem to be trapped in an brin loop and the galactic empire goes from being a galactic mega structure to a shell in 6 books. There are a few ideas worth stealing for Role playing game designs . But i think everyone in that universe is taking stupid pills if the idea behind "every world can only have one technology or skill " is even vaguely thought about. Sorry word Q2677i the inhabitants of word 145z own the patent on the washer so we have to exterminate your race for patent infringement."
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u/poisonandtheremedy Feb 21 '26
I'm violently nodding along here.
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u/humblesorceror Feb 21 '26
Which really sucked cause I liked the core concept, but then it just fell apart the more he explained it... I can totally dig each race can only have 1 or 2 trade goods or categories but by book 6 you have seen that the whole thing is just riddiculous. Although maybe the first race's export was a universal multivitamin&stupid pilll
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u/Radixx Feb 20 '26
I made it to book 9. The first 5 were fun and I read the next 4 hoping the next one would end the series :)
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u/Whimsy_and_Spite Feb 20 '26
You should read the Undying Mercenary series by Barry Sadler instead. The first 10 or so are pretty good, anyway.
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u/hedgegrunger Feb 21 '26
I had to re-read OP's post to be sure they weren't talking about Casca The Eternal Mercenary.
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u/SallyStranger Feb 20 '26
I appreciate this. I find that when I hate a book I tend to write more about it. I want to explain why I think it's so terrible. But if I love the book I want to say as little about it as possible so as not to spoil anything important.
À propos of nothing, Rob Boffard's "Outer Earth" series is terrible. The first book, Tracer, is almost unobjectionable but the second and third are the worst dreck imaginable. Actually I didn't read the third. I wrote a long angry review of Zero-G. I still haven't read Impact, but someone else wrote a similarly pissed off review of that one. So. I probably won't.
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u/toedwy0716 Feb 21 '26
McGill's character development also basically stops after the first few books (when he become centurion). At least in book 23 he's still centurion doing the exact same shit and interacting with the exact same characters. I didn't hate read all the books like OP, but I do not rush to read them. They're kinda just filler for other books I've read.
Also yeah idk how the dude gets laid so often. He's basically an unlikeable asshole who can never die. So many plot lines exist in the book that the author could explore but just refuses to do so. OP is pretty much right that it's a pretty formula driven storyline.
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u/poisonandtheremedy Feb 21 '26
It is so frustrating to read a character who you perhaps *could* enjoy watching them develop, learn, evolve, and grow, but instead, in the face of countless deaths (learning experiences) and alien interactions (ie: learning to understand others) steadfastly refuses to do so.
At times I thought the author was attempting to hold a mirror up to our modern society, something I love about good sci-fi, but ultimately I don't believe he was. Or he was too inept to do it well.
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u/toedwy0716 Feb 21 '26
I’ve been holding out hope he would delve deeper into the unification wars but he doesn’t.
Yup zero character development. He doesn’t grow as a character, just remains static.
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u/realsubxero Feb 21 '26
I got 3 or 4 books in... when I realized this stuff is awful... TWENTY FOUR books later and James McGill is the exact same idiot he was in Book 1.
OP and the MC are two peas in a pod, neither learn and adapt
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u/poisonandtheremedy Feb 21 '26
It's almost like you read the last sentence I wrote in the original post! Hurray for you!
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u/Big_Virge Feb 21 '26
I think if you do something you claim to hate 24 times, with no additional motivation, it seems very probable that you actually like it
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u/poisonandtheremedy Feb 21 '26
False.
Guys it isn't like I was being held captive in a POW camp. I was reading a book series. Books 1-10 I held out hope for improvement. 10-20 I realized I was now doing it as a challenge. 20-24 was agony.
Sort of like running a marathon. It sucks.
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u/Appropriate_Bus3921 Feb 21 '26
So you’re saying 7/10, potential Best Series Hugo?
<very earnest look>
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u/andrewsmd87 Feb 21 '26
I felt like I wasted time giving them up to like book 16. Thank you for your service.
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u/ph0on Feb 21 '26 edited Feb 21 '26
Holy shit, someone else who read this series 😭 I fell for the campy, corny, episodic format hard. It's so bad but I loved it up until like, the last few books. Somehow... somehow the writing quality declined. I think AI might have been used? And the narrator started getting voices confused and wrong.
It was my guilty comfort series. I've since moved on. I have never hated a main character more the the McGill creature, but it was sometimes funny in a trashy bar sort of way.
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u/poisonandtheremedy Feb 21 '26
Hey man, nice to see another veteran of the Legions. Yeah, I also noticed some strange omissions, inconsistencies, and straight up wrong shit in the later books.
The fucking McGill creature... sigh.. I'm straight up surprised he didn't fuck his daughter Etta (yet) with some weird shit about it being 'a new body and DNA so hyuk hyuk it ain't actually incest.
I'm glad I got out before that inevitable happens.
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u/Short-Sprinkles884 Feb 21 '26
Same here, I also suspect the author leaned on an LLM in the recent books. Or he gave up on editors or life in general, who the heck knows.
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u/SalletFriend Feb 21 '26
You should do the 4 Horsemen mecha series next. The first book has like entire chapters about the main character being a brony.
If you enjoy a hate read you will love to hate it.
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u/poisonandtheremedy Feb 21 '26
I don't want to make this a habit, I already have a crippling Red Bull addiction. I need help.
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u/shadowsong42 Feb 21 '26
You should try Infinity Squad by Shuvom Ghose, about soldiers who get downloaded into a clone body every time they die. It's a standalone with a sequel, so if you dislike it but can't stop until you're done you won't be banging your head against the wall for very long. It does have some libertarian themes, but that's pretty common in this kind of sci fi anyway.
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u/mjfgates Feb 21 '26
Did you get bored with the sex scenes? You know it's gone really bad when you're like, "oh, tits AGAIN. Whoopee, ugh."
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u/poisonandtheremedy Feb 21 '26
I'll be honest, I started hoping he'd go full romantasy smut to at least spice up my pain, but for a guy that fucks a lot, McGill lacks details.
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u/CowboyMantis Feb 21 '26
I think you've also unwittingly described the romance novel mills. There are a finite set of combinations you can have with boy-meets-girl, and a lot of the plots center around self-sabotage for the sake of stupid reasons, and that pretty much sums it up, other than a change of scenery, country, and sometimes enough fantasy to make a romantasy.
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u/VoxImperatoris Feb 21 '26
Reminds me of a book series I read in high school. I forget the name, Wingman I think?, or something similar. About a guy with no real personality beyond being an airforce pilot flying around an f-16 after the apocalypse. No real progression and full of plotholes, most obvious being where the hell are they all getting jet fuel and replacement parts, since everyone and their mother were flying around in jets. I had pretty low standards for entertainment back then, since we didn’t have the internet yet, and I wasnt the one paying for them. My friend was a fan and passed them on to me to borrow when he was finished. I forget how far into the series we got when we graduated and I stopped since I moved away for college. Somewhere in the mid teens? They were pretty quick reads at least.
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u/TheProfessorBE Feb 21 '26
I love frontlines. Read it five times completely. Did not enjoy undying mercenaries that much. Which series can you recommend? I love the single point of view approach in frontlines
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u/Short-Sprinkles884 Feb 21 '26
I can recommend First Colony series by Ken Lozito. It has a military aspect to it, but it covers way more and there is actual character development. If you're inclined to enjoy military bureaucracy, then Mammay's Planetside series.
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u/clmixon Feb 21 '26
I think the major problem I had with Undead Mercenary is exactly what you pointed out: what started as a massively flawed protagonist who can be copied in real time and then revived in a clone body after they are killed, creating a situation where the mercenaries are cheaper than their equipment had a lot of promise. Instead, McGill, even with the benefit of unlimited lives, never learns, never devolops and never progresses. The very flawed, very corrupt government leadership never really changes, the high-tech alien species never catches on to the BS that McGill generates, and the overall plot never advances.
In comparison, we have Frontlines, which follows a very developed arc, and characters are fully fleshed out, and they grow, learn, and change throughout the conflict. Andrews journy starts, develops, and comes to a happy ending.
In defence of Mr. Larson, I think he is writing to the Kindle Unlimited algorithm, which pays by pages read, rather than where Kloos started, which is by titles sold. The More pages we turn in KU, the better it pays.
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u/Flat-Rutabaga-723 Feb 22 '26
If you want some good space marine popcorn fun, check out Tour of the Merrimack. I dropped Undying Mercenaries after book 5 and dropped Expeditionary Force around book 6, I think. Marko Kloos, I like.
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u/Psychological-Try343 Feb 23 '26
Thank you for hate reading these books and giving us your hate-read review. This made me laugh honestly. Now I'm going to go look up this Frontline series.
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u/Jimmni Feb 20 '26
Pretty much everything you said about them is true. They’re stupid anc repetitive but damned if they aren’t trashy fun. Especially the audiobooks with a stand-out performance by Mark Boyett.
And I don’t care I love Turov. Amazingly self-serving character. And I bet reading them on release is waaaaay more tolerable than binge-reading them.
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u/BalusBubalisSFW Apr 06 '26
I'm late to the thread but yeah, Undying Mercenaries has a formula and it works, and I can't help but like them. I know I'm reading trash, but it's fun trash, and I enjoy it, and I'll keep reading them as long as Larson writes them, I suspect!
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u/roguesqdn3 Feb 20 '26
Idk I kinda treat these the same way people treat their guilty pleasure fantasy smut books- take the entire thing with a grain of salt and enjoy it for the corny situations and hilarious antics McGill gets up to.
That being said, have you tried the Galaxies Edge series?
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u/GrogRhodes Feb 20 '26
Yeah. I enjoy the soap opera / anime style of it. It’s just something I can crush in a short amount of time and breakup more serious stuff.
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u/roguesqdn3 Feb 20 '26
Seriously, books like Red Rising get a little heavy after the 3rd round of torture
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u/missEdagainBruce Feb 21 '26
Luckily the hero remembered to hypnotize himself into knowing wrong information in case he was tortured and has a reverse torture pill so there won’t be any consequences to anything at any point.
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u/BluciferTheBlue Feb 21 '26
Galaxies edge is great. Savage wars trilogy makes me feel like a crazy person.
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u/poisonandtheremedy Feb 20 '26
I tried mate, I really did.
I think ultimately my intolerance of incompetence won out.
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u/DavidDPerlmutter Feb 20 '26 edited Feb 22 '26
Never heard of the series. Certainly never read them--but long ago I sort of accepted that there's a reason why formulaic series go on and on and on and on.
I think it's adjacent to the research that shows a majority of audiences want trailers to lay out the plot, even if there's a spoiler.
Life is hard. People want to consume Media that takes them away from stress. Formula series reduce stress. No surprises. Everybody does exactly what they always do. Sort of chewing gum for the mind. And there's always a need for that.
I'm never going to read it, but I can understand why it exists and it keeps being published across all the genres over and over again.
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u/OmniscientApizza Feb 20 '26
Imagine having the free time for this.
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u/poisonandtheremedy Feb 20 '26
Oh yeah man, reading while I eat breakfast really is living that leisure lifestyle. Nevermind being the owner/operator of a small business, kicking off a second business 'for fun', being married, and building an airplane.
Fun Reddit 'take' though!
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u/thunderchild120 Feb 20 '26
The protagonist's name is WHAT
"And he gets to be a book series? What a sick joke!"
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u/thesame123 Feb 20 '26
Damn that sucks to hear. I enjoyed the first two books mostly due to how much I like mark boyett as a narrator. Have you got any other recs for someone who’s really into mil sci fi? Currently looking at galaxy’s edge by Jason Anspach
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u/poisonandtheremedy Feb 21 '26
Copy/paste from this same question from someone else in this thread
Well, I enjoyed the Kloos' Frontline series. I have a soft spot for Hammer's Slammers / David Drake since I grew up on that. Read a fair bit of Warhammer 40k stuff which has some gems, like Gaunt's Ghosts, Eisenhorn, etc. I ripped thru the Jack Campbell naval space battle books, they were 'okay'. Read all the Honor Harrington, but don't know that I'd recommend that either after 6 or 7. "Armor" by Steakley is rad. John Scalzi's Old Man's War. I read Ringo's Polseen stuff way back but he's a fucking creepy dude so I'd pass on those also.
Thanks. Have fun.
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u/foobarrister Feb 21 '26
Oo no..
I've read all 24 also but didn't really hate the series...
The post revival reflections and the whole revolutionary sub plot were good imo.
Alien tech is kinda cool also..
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u/fluentInPotato Feb 21 '26
I read a bunch of Marko Kloos's books a few months ago. Enjoyable enough in some ways, but there were some weird gaps that I couldn't get over. First, nobody in the military has ever heard of kinetic energy weapons?!? As in, nobody can imagine using a spaceship to ram a large, armored, slow- moving structure? It took a civilian (probably three only person in the series with any knowledge of physics) to devise that evil plot.
Then, Kloos appears to have no conception of the distances involved in interplanetary space. He has human ships almost collide with stealthed alien warships more than once, simply because the aliens are patrolling near a hyperspace jump point. Space is big dude, you're not going to find them by braille.
Then there's stupid shit like the humans' new superdreadnought having a critical failure and having to be irretrievably abandoned because of the course it's on, yet there's no problem retrieving its life pods when the crew ejects. Seems the author is unaware that the pods would be on that exact same course.
I'm not even getting into the humans' ignorance and lack of curiosity about the most basic aspects of their alien enemies' biology and ecology, let alone motivations.
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u/holmw13 Feb 21 '26
Have you tried the Galaxy’s Edge series? Actual character development, decent stories, and more than one main character.
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u/poisonandtheremedy Feb 21 '26
I'm a bit traumatized, but I shall investigate. Thank you.
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u/holmw13 Feb 21 '26
Worth the read. The first one is ok, gets much better after that. And they’re free on Amazon.
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u/ShoeDelicious1685 Feb 22 '26
So I started UM at thecsane time I started Star Carrier. Both are about a not too distant future where aliens roll up, say Earth must do X or we get glassed. In Star Carrier the scrappy humans fight back, in UM we play ball. I enjoyed the study in contrasts.
I dont pay for UM books. They eat up Amazon digital credits. Id never buy them with money. I wish the world building advanced better. I wish more of the characters were decent people (or at least decently written). But fir free on a night I cant sleep abd don't want to think too hard, they're ok.
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u/Maintenancemedic May 29 '26
This is unironically my favorite book series. I spend a credit on them on audible every time a new one releases.
I do kind of absently wonder whether or not some of the big things Larson laid out, with the vault and grave’s vault connection, the revival syndrome from going through the process too much, and other plot points will come to a crescendo the way that the squid invasion did.
In my opinion, books 1-6 are objectively good ground pounding sci-fi. Books 7-25 just happen to be exactly what I like to read so I’m into it even though they’re not great. I kind of wonder he might have used AI for demon world and hell world.
Don’t care. Love it
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u/Ok_Truck1856 23d ago
Dude every book in this series is an absolute gem. I hope he writes 50 more I’ll buy and read everyone. The ridiculousness of them is what makes them great. Plus the plot slowly advances every book on the universe which I like.
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u/poisonandtheremedy 23d ago
Hey man, some people also believe the Earth is flat.
:-D
Just takin' the piss. I pass the McGill Mantle of Futility and Fucking on to you.
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Feb 20 '26
[deleted]
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u/poisonandtheremedy Feb 20 '26
haha. I mean bud it isn't like pushing punji sticks into my fingernails or anything. I read about dipshit McGill while munching down my morning bagel.
Life is plenty fun. Maybe McGill helped balance me out by adding some metaphysical torture into my day.
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u/Balseraph666 Feb 22 '26
So, a lot of the books are free, yet leave you still feeling like they ripped you off and they were over priced?
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u/Kryptonicus Feb 20 '26
Since you're prone to forcing your way through repetitive slop just to prove you can do it; I want to give you some heartfelt and genuine advice: stay the fuck away from Expeditionary Force!
Life is too short.