Shawshank

Absolutely Superb in every way a book can be superb!

Revisado: 01-18-25

I enjoy DJ’s books. Rather, I have enjoyed every book by DJ Molles I have read. This is the first Mil / Sci-Fi book by DJ I’ve read and by the title of my review you can correctly assume I absolutely enjoyed it. Of course with every book 📕 Vincent action I do get impatient with the first internal dialogue, but I realized that’s like literally in every single action book I’ve read or listened to. I also thought that all those books would have been a little shorter had they not included it, which is not to say I’m a proponent of it, being a veteran, I am more in the camp of, “Just kill them.” But I’m not an author, I sit on the other side of that equation, so I stick to saying what I like and what I don’t like and try to not pretend that I actually know better when I don’t. There are a lot of reviewers in the land of Audible who - at least by the content of their reviews consider themselves the worlds greatest author or at least the worlds greatest critic. I am neither. I’m just a guy who enjoys a well-written and well narrated book and that’s exactly what this is.

My first reaction after finishing this book was to hit my browser and search for “the coming dark by DJ molles book 2?” Unfortunately, I didn’t find any results, but this book is prime for a series.

I truly hope you enjoy it as thoroughly as I did. The book reads like a great deal of effort was put into it. It’s pretty obvious to me that DJ didn’t sit down and just throw a bunch of words together. The characters have depth, the characters evolve (some anyway) and the action is pretty damn good.

I hope that someone who follows DJ on social media (I don’t really do social media) will ask Mr. Molles to get hot if he hasn’t already on the 2nd, 3rd, etc books because this one will be quite an adventure.

Thanks for reading.

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It was great. In spite of the protagonist being a D-Bag the first 2/3rds of the book

Revisado: 01-11-25

I enjoyed it. I really did. The main character was an asshole throughout most of the book but hey!! The author turned that around too. Some tactics are absolutely unbelievable, some situations are like “are you kidding me??” But OVERALL it was fun. Yeah mostly fun. Hell I bought the 2nd book and I have other in-listened-to books I can listen to but I chose to spend a credit on book 2 and will listen to it now. Later!!

Hey seriously, you’ll probably enjoy this so just…..

Pull. That. Trigger.

Shawshank

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I Waited Months & Months Before Deciding to Purchase this Book…

Revisado: 11-17-24

I had listened to the preview of this audiobook at least 5-7 times but didn’t feel the “pull” to purchase and listen to it. Then a couple of days ago it showed up again. This time was different. I looked at the title and reread the summary, and felt a smile crease my face. I KNEW it was time. Granted there were moments when I was listening to the preview where I thought, “yeah, I’ll probably listen to this book…some day.” But a few days ago I KNEW it was time. I had become a little disenchanted with the books in my favorite genre - generally Military Thrillers and being a veteran, those types of books have always been in my wheelhouse. I get the mindset, I understand the vernacular, and yeah I get frustrated when the narrator’s mispronounce military acronyms. But that’s what I like. What I didn’t like so much was the rampant cussing. Hey I’m not being a hypocrite, I invented cusswords in the Army, heck I was known as an NCO who could create cusswords on the fly all why smoking my maggots aka soldiers. I’ll admit it got very creative in those days, but things changed. My heart - as hard and black as it was - was changed, and then it was not longer acceptable to degrade my soldiers in such a manner. (That didn’t mean I didn’t smoke them still because I did, I just didn’t call their mama bad names or invent cusswords while “motivating” them, which I later realized was demoralizing them. So, I can’t explain why this book slapped me up side the head and I knew that I knew now was the time, but being your average knuckle dragger, I followed the orders of my “knower” and bought it. This is one of the very few books where if I thought I didn’t fully hear EVERY SINGLE WORD, I would go back to the beginning of of the chapter and I regret not one single time of doing that. This books does an amazing job at integrating some solid action, some “I got through that by the skin of my teeth” moments, while applying some sound spiritual - not just spiritual but Christian principles. I don’t know what book 2 holds, but this book was a true gem of authorship and narrating prowess. I’d give this book 10/10 I’d that were possible. I don’t doubt some listeners will rail on the spiritual aspects of this book, but let’s be honest - if they rail against the boo, they very likely have an amber if not red glow around their eyes. If you read a review like that, I’d suggest praying for those folks because they are probably just lost - unaware of Truth. Perhaps they have been suckered into the lie that “everyone has their own truth and there is no absolute truth, like the Truth of God’s Word. Do I recommend this book?

Hell to the yeah I do!!!

p.s. forgive my misspellings, I do need better glasses. Oh and more obedient thumbs. ;-)

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Love this story and series, but……..

Revisado: 11-13-24

There are some holes. As an example, when the 5 dudes get to a certain town, 2 stay behind and 3 press forward, the command, was basically “call me if something goes south” instead of protocol which would have set periodic comm checks. Thats how it’s done especially in a non-permissive/asynchronous env. It’s what we do. But that would not facilitate the D-Bag situation which followed. So the average person who never has operated in such environments accepts that gross faux pas. Me? And my brothers?


A GROSS VIOLATION.

Square your shit away and get it right and right author.

p.s. other than that DAI (Dumb Ass Idea) and a few others, it has been enjoyable.

Just as an aside I truly searched for synonyms of the words I really thought as wrote this review. so if you’re wondering why ShawShank didn’t say it like this or that and where are the creatively inventive F-Bomb words - trust me Brother, they were in my head.

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Really good book and really good series.

Revisado: 11-06-24

I enjoyed the whole book. I like the characters, lots of action, good heroes and evil bad guys and some solid twists here and there. I definitely recommend if if you aren’t a huge Chair Force fan!

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A Very Good Conclusion to a Fantastic Series

Revisado: 11-02-24

I have this book 5/5 stars for several reason.
1. The Narrator absolutely killed it. Maybe I would rate it 5 stars with another narrator, but I highly doubt it.
2. The story itself was engaging, and the key characters were thought out and even consistent. The only issue I had was with Ragnanor - I didn’t know what he was. Human or what?
3. It was just a fun read. I like the author and he didn’t disappoint.
4. It was nice to actually finish a story in 3 books. There are a few series I’m reading where I am waiting for the next book in line. This guy popped out the worlds, the aliens, destruction and victory in 3 volumes. Well done.

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There Are Several Reasons this Series is One of my Favorites

Revisado: 10-14-24

1. Private > Private First Class(PFC) > Private (Again) > PFC (Again) > Lance Corporal (Lance Cooley) > PFC (Again) > Lance Cooley (Again) Corporal Stathis/Stattis (I can never sort out his name.) is pretty freaking hilarious and 110% “A Damn Private)
2. They have some super hard names of humans that the narrator nails every time. (i.e. Sif)
3. The characters and various cultures of humanity are really well developed.
4. The author does an excellent job of depicting the evils of Socialism. I have often thought that some chucklehead has probably written a review complaining about such definitive and accurate portrayal of how evil, evil can get when unrestrained .
5. I mentioned the characterization of the different human cultures, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mentioned how there aren’t just the main peeps whose character is well developed, but several characters and their development is both consistent and yet at times surprising. You know, kinda like human beings behave. I really enjoy so many of the characters!!!
6. Oftentimes in books that are primarily military-centric, the authors totally butcher military terminology or the narrator jacks it up. This books IS NOT one of those books! “A few rounds short of a full mag” aka “A few fries short of a Happy Meal.” Is a good example of the author not using the dreaded word “clip” which I expect any veteran (unless maybe Chair Force or Coasties) have to grind our teeth over. In fact the only mispronunciation I picked up on was the narrator pronouncing “OODA” (Observe, Orient, Decide and Act) by the letter instead of “uu-da” or maybe ew-da (Not the Kalifornistan Valley Girl version if ewwwww.). And anyway that’s easy to forgive, and I absolutely love that the author never explained what that acronym was..

The only bone and it’s not really a bone, every book likely has a character we don’t like or enjoy, and for me it’s Diamond. I mean seriously, you gocr a character a perfect stripper errrr I mean “Dancer putting herself through college.) name, and she turns into this super long winded ship captain that would have literally been blown out of the deep black space with all the “I don’t trust this person or I don’t trust that person or I don’t trust that group” and it goes on and on and on and on. Yeah not my favorite character. She’s also way too demanding in the heat of battle and by demanding I don’t mean demanding excellence of execution by her crew, I mean demanding of things pretty irrelevant to living. Lastly had she been a really good Marine she would have hooked up SGT Liven before he did his super epic KA-Bar thrust. But once you read the books you’ll understand why that is L. O. L.

So in short my loved 10/10 outweigh the one thing m not a huge fan of but I get that there needs to be characters like that and Diamond absolutely adds to the depth and breadth of the story and I probably wouldn’t swap her out for anyone else even if I could, which I can’t. But I wouldn’t even if.


Get the books - listen, laugh, enjoy, and make sure you have enough credits because I found it literally impossible to stop at book 1. Kinda like a Lay’s potato chip.
Ps my thumbs are almost tired so forgive any workers I jacked up.

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Finally - Zombies who are not Intent on Eating You

Revisado: 09-30-24

I’m a fan of Mr. Chaney for the most part, and I think he certainly let provided some mighty fine entertainment in this series, as book 2 is downloading. I apologize to the other author, I can’t recall your name but that’s because my mycelia and frontal cortex have been damaged. ;-). Also to the narrator - you did an amazing job and I’ll look for your other work. Not that you’ll see this, but hopefully you’ll get paid.

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Very enjoyable and looking forward to book 3

Revisado: 09-27-24

I have really enjoyed the first two books of this saga. Admittedly there were some parts that aggravated me, but that was more about the character Axel, than the writing or narration. I thought that for the majority of this book Axel behaved like a moronic child, IOW he acted like a little b!tch. Being former Army for a huge chunk of my adulthood, I know the value of working as a team and restraint when necessary to prevent putting your teammates - whether you get along or not - in a bad situation where their lives are in danger of getting smoked like a cheap cigar. Axel doesn’t have any of that. Often he acts solely for n his own interest without giving a flip about what happens to those around him. That immature and dangerous not even to mention probably one of THE WORST traits a leader can exhibit. I’m thinking that will change in book 3 or their fight against the Wrath is going to be very short and not sweet at all. All that said, and can see how the author is building Axel’s character, from a kid who was taught “I am peace.” To discovering that genetically speaking you have some legit badassery in you - to finally being in a position to let the rage (and accompanying badassery) show itself to the face of some pretty nasty enemies. I have seen Axel changing as his environment forced him to face change while also making sense of his he visions/dreams he was having more frequently. The world building (is that the right catch phrase to use? Seems to be ok, although there isn’t really much of that. We learn there are aliens, most of which don’t like humans, but that’s ok because most of them are d-bags too. I do recommend this book and the book before it. Highly recommend? Yeah l, yeah I do.

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Can’t get enough of this.

Revisado: 08-29-24

What a fantastic listen these books have been. I’ve enjoyed them all - which comes as no surprise to me. Unlike some Audible reviewers, I don’t judge books like I’m at a poetry contest, I just ask myself, “Did I enjoy this experience?” “Was this a book where when I got distracted while listening, that I stopped, went back to the beginning of the chapter and listened again without distraction?”

On both counts - YES!! Hands down yes.

So if you get into Space Military Adventures and blood letting (of a variety of colors), I think you’ll really enjoy this book.

Of course if you’re on book 3 as I just was, it’s obvious you do. Probably should have written this review for the book 1. 🤔

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