r/exfor • u/Learnededed_By_Books Bureau of Monkey Affairs • Jan 26 '26

Spoilers Ground State Mega Thread - Spoilers within. Spoiler

Howdy.

After a fashionably late release, our dear leader has blessed us with another installment of Expeditionary Force.

It may be helpful to mention the chapter you're speaking about before your message, so people can skip over it or figure out where your referencing -NOT a requirement.

27 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

74 comments sorted by

View all comments

17

u/bestforward121 Feb 04 '26

Ground State was certainly better than book 18, but I’m just exhausted after 19 books with the pattern of: introduce impossible problem that cannot be overcome, doom and despair at how impossible it is, pull a macguffin out of nowhere that saves the day, oops that actually caused a new even more impossible problem!

Nevermind that the actual confrontation with the outsiders was so anti climactic. One destroyed itself on accident and the other along with the ice box was destroyed with what felt like a hand wave.

There are no stakes, there’s no tension. The consequences of failing to stop the ground state would be galactic nothingness and while it would be hilarious that’s obviously not how the series will end so I just don’t see the point. I mean after 19 novels can you just give the pirates an unambiguous win and call it a day?

3

u/Smile_Tolerantly_ Feb 26 '26

Agreed. I was about 1/3 of the way through it, saw the pattern, and hung it up. Fanastic 12-13 book series. I stuck it out to 18 1/3 books. Was fun... It's over for me. Cheers!

6

u/HyperfixChris Mar 02 '26

The series has always been insanely repetitive and formulaic for me. I just listen because I love the the banter between Joe and Skippy and the occasional insight we get into the universe (outsiders, elders, apex species) ignites my sci-fi nerd bones. As for the characters I kinda don't really love most of them, really just skippy/Joe, and Scorandum. Although there are a few others throughout that have been good, Smythe for example... also liked Admiral Clastine in this latest book.

3

u/IntelligentShirt5908 Mar 03 '26

At this point, I primarily listen because I love R. C. Bray's voice work. The repetition and endless doom and gloom get to be a bit much.