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Star Force #1

by B.V. Larson

Agresywni, żądni władzy obcy za pośrednictwem statków kosmicznych porywają ludzi, by przeprowadzać na nich swoje tajne eksperymenty. Najsilniejsi stają się żołnierzami. Co dzieje się ze słabymi? Strach myśleć, jakie przeżywają piekło.

Ludzkość, uznawana przez obcych za jednostki prymitywne, zostaje rzucona w sam środek kosmicznej wojny o surowce.

Genres: Science Fiction, Audiobook, Fiction, Space Opera, Military Fiction, Military Science Fiction, Space

440 pages, Paperback

First published December 23, 2010

About the author

Brian Larson is an American science fiction and fantasy author

Reviews

[Mike (the Paladin) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read some of the other reviews on this one and I see it got a lot of good ratings. There were a couple however that rated it fairly low and said things like, "simplistic" or "no depth". The main question that came to my mind at that was, "who picks up a book titled Swarm (Star Force 1) looking for a deep philosophical tome?" It's the people who had the same sort of complaint about Monster Hunter International I suppose...what did you expect? We get it, you're too highbrow for the rest of "us" pedestrian slobs...members of the great unwashed, the hoi polloi. We're cool with it, but again I just wonder at picking up a book named the same as an early arcade video game (Star Force) looking for, "DEPTH"...

Oh well, moving on.

I liked it. A fairly unique (or at least little used) plot device that sets up an invasion and battle for good old Earth, Terra, home world...whatever you want to call it.

Lots of action here. The book opens with "our hero" going through a tragedy that would more than likely crush most people, but using the rage it engenders he pushes on, prevails and becomes (another) "every-man" hero setting out to save the day, or the world. There's lots of action here both star side and dirt side as battles take place in space and on planet. I'll not mention the other participants (other than "us humans" of course), but it's a good read. As noted this isn't A tale of Two Cities or War and Peace, it is high powered, high octane, fast moving action.

Like I said, I like it. If you're a space opera or military science fiction fan I can recommend this one. Enjoy.

[Metodi Markov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Тази книга е въплътената мечта на всеки тийнейджър - любител на военните игри и стратегии.

И как иначе - внезапно получаваш собствен готин космически кораб, физически умения на супермен, секси мацка луда по теб и безброй извънземни врагове, които да громиш без милост в Космоса и из Южна Америка!

Много добра военна фантастика, която с удоволствие препрочетох, за да мога да започна втората част, която издателство "Бард" наскоро благоволиха да издадат (след само 5 години пауза). Остават още десет книги от поредицата "Звездна армада" и се надявам поне част от тях да са силни като тази и да бъдат преведени на български.

Art by Bastien Grivet

[Phil Johnson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well done. The main character just has his children eviscerated by aliens. For the rest of the book, he throws token remorse in their direction, but really spends most of his time trying to get into the pants of the hot/curvy/mostly-naked/restrained woman that ends up falling for him for some reason.



Bonus points for all of the hot-blooded Latina stereotypes! I'm surprised her skin color wasn't compared to food, like flan or something.

I'll give a star for the tech though. Yay nanos!

[Kat Hooper · Rating 2 out of 5]

Originally posted at FanLit. http://www.fantasyliterature.com

Professor Kyle Riggs and his kids were asleep in their house when the alien spaceship arrived. It killed the kids, kidnapped Kyle, and put him through a series of grueling tests. Since he was still alive afterward, the ship made Kyle the captain. This has been happening all over Earth. Most of the captured humans have been killed because they couldn’t make it through the rigorous tests, but all the survivors are now piloting spaceships and in the perfect position to fight off an alien invasion that’s coming to enslave humanity. Add in a beautiful naked coed who’s chained up inside Kyle’s spaceship and you have a silly, but exciting, male wish-fulfillment fantasy.

I want to admit straight up that even though I’m giving Swarm only two stars (it’s just not a very good book), it entertained me. I think many readers will love Swarm — those who just want a fast-moving exhilarating ride and don’t care too much about plot, characterization, and craft. Sometimes I’m in the mood for something like that and Swarm will do quite nicely in that circumstance. However, I want to critique Swarm by its merits, and not by my mood.

The plot of Swarm is instantly engaging. Professor Riggs’ kids are snatched by a spaceship, disemboweled, and dropped to the ground. Wow. That kind of gets your attention. Then Kyle finds himself captain of an amazing piece of technology which belongs to an alien race. Until now, humans thought they were alone in the universe. Now they’re fighting a second alien race with help from these aliens who’ve given them ships but have also killed thousands of humans while vetting them for command positions. This diverse set of ship captains must figure out how to fly their ships and work together to save Earth. Crazy.

This is a pretty cool setup, but unfortunately there were so many places where I just couldn’t suspend disbelief due to ridiculous plot elements and bad characterization. There are many examples I could give, but I’ll just mention two. The first is the ineffective way the Earth governments respond to the spaceships. Kyle and the other captains roam around Earth for a while before getting organized. They hover over homes and malls and grocery stores, using the ship to steal items they need to outfit their ships. (The way they do this reminded me of the “claw” type arcade games and that funny scene in Toy Story: “The Claw!”). A ship captain from Australia is declaring himself leader and threatening Kyle and others who won’t follow him. Kyle, a college professor who has just seen his ship kill his own kids, goes off on his looting spree instead of immediately going to the police or other authorities to report what’s happening. Earth’s authorities, who have no idea what’s going on, seem paralyzed — they just wait to see what will happen. Even though they have satellite communications and internet, it takes a long time before the ship commanders and the authorities are communicating with each other. Even then the ragtag team of pilots decide to band together to save Earth rather than handing over the ships to legitimate military forces. And the governments let this happen. It’s exciting, but not at all likely.

Second is the preposterous relationship with the college student. Kyle, a widower, has just seen his kids brutally murdered, but he gets over this fast enough when the naked girl shows up. Sure, he talks like he’s grieving, just to remind us that Larson knows we’re going to have an issue with this, but he doesn’t act like he’s grieving when he’s ogling the girl and talking more about her nakedness than he did about his kids. Pretty soon he’s in bed with the girl (she has no personality, but she is naked) and the kids seem forgotten. Larson would have done better to bring her in during book 2 instead (Swarm is the first in a series of at least seven books). And maybe give her some more features in addition to nakedness. I mean, she is a college student — she should have more features.

I could go on, but I think those two examples get the point across. If you’re looking for a shallow but thrilling ride that’s fairly unique and you don’t have high expectations about craft, Swarm may be just what you’re looking for. I recommend the audio version narrated by Mark Boyett. I didn’t like his voice for the naked chick, but he did well with the rest of it.

B.V. Larson is an independent author who self-published Swarm. The audio version was produced by Audible Frontiers in 2011 and has been put on CD by Brilliance Audio. They sent me a review copy. I also have a copy of book two, Extinction. I’ll pick it up sometime when I’m in the mood for something really shallow.

[Violet · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think I was about ten and my kid brother must have been eight.
And we wrote a story!
About cyborg invasion, they came from a big ship, conveniently parked on one of Jupiter's moon's with a mission to KILLLLLL.
A story was about 3 pages long and it had more plot, character and well everything than this sad excuse of wannabe savior white boy's fapping material.
Series deleted from the reading list.

[Fred Fenimore · Rating 1 out of 5]

A Swing and a Miss?

Normally, when I read something with the words swarm and star force in the title, I get all warm and tingly thinking of all the hours I wiled away as a youngster swinging on my hammock reading Doc Smith. I expect to be transported for a couple of hours into a world where all the right people succeed simply by being the squarest of square bricks.

But what I got here was poorly written, badly plotted, sociopathic, uninteresting and much, much less. There is a kind of art to writing good pulp and this author simply doesn't get it. It's not badly executed pulp; its some new mutant form of schlock that bears no resemblance to pulp. I can't figure out if the author was even trying to write pulp or real sci-fi or something else. It's that bad.

Normally when I read a rough first book in a series, I like to read the next couple to see if the author grows. That can be all kinds of fun watching an author mature (ahem! Butcher) and write better and better stories. But honestly, I think I'd rather stick my dick in a blender than read another one of these.

I will say though the narrator was really good. I'd like to hear him with actual material with an actual story or characters or something.

[Pam · Rating 1 out of 5]

Meh. Apparently there is one intelligent person in the entire world who has to do everything himself, from computer programming (sort of) to weapon engineering to field combat and command to alien language analysis, if he wants to save the world from alien robots. Everyone else is cannon fodder, except Sandra, the hot naked college student, who's here for sex. And none of them have any personality.

[Maurice X Alvarez · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my first exposure to B.V. Larson’s writing, and I was riveted from the start. I read Swarm in two sessions; I just did not want to put it down until I found out how it ended.

The plot is simple, much like the E.E. Smith “Lensman” novels: forces try to one-up each other in a series of combat scenarios, either by tech or tactics while an alien device assists our side. But the first person POV of main protagonist Kyle Riggs works marvelously to get the story to that point, as the reader is dropped in right beside Riggs as he struggles to figure out what is going on. Sights, sounds, feelings and smells create detailed settings throughout.

Characterizations are very rich; I connected with Kyle and Sandra immediately, and even Crow. However, Riggs’s command successes sometimes seem uncharacteristic or perhaps unlikely for his background.

There weren’t a glaring number of typos or grammatical errors, but just enough that they can’t escape mention. I don’t feel that this detracts from the reading experience much.

Based on my enjoyment of Swarm, I will try one of Larson’s other books.

This review was also posted on Amazon.com.

[Janos Honkonen · Rating 2 out of 5]

B. V. Larson is one of those super prolific self publishers that are doing well on Amazon. Swarm is the first book in Star Force series, and it left me massively torn. On one hand, the book was entertaining. It was pretty pure pulp-military-scifi with giant robots and space battles and souped up space marines, and the basic premise of an alien invasion works well.

That was the good part. The bad - well, if I'm buying self published scifi, I'm not expecting to see massively nuanced characterizations and psychological insight, but Jesus - in the first few pages the children of the main character are literally gutted in front of his eyes, and the guy remembers to be torn about it for about 15 minutes, until a sexy coed appears and it's boob staring time. Really. The main character also comes across as the biggest Marty Stu I've seen - a computer science professor in his late 30s who becomes a badass in ground and space combat, and gets to bone the hot coed. Did I mention that anything about women or sex is like it was written by a 16 year old. Thankfully there is little of this as the story progresses.

But damn. In spite of the previous the book was so entertaining that I actually ended up buying the second part of the series.

[Aaron · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book enough to finish it. I really really did. For so many reasons. But I was suffering. I was suffering too badly to continue to suffer, after getting at least 65% through the book. I love sci-fi, and I love speculative stuff and I can suspend disbelief for weird or new or even scientifically inaccurate stuff, so long as it's believable within its world. But so much of the human interactions here were completely unrealistic. The most prominent female character was inconsistent AND embarrassing. Forget the Bechdel test - the two female characters never spoke to one another and the main one never seemed to worry about anything other than a man no matter who she was talking to. Here's a great quote I remember from shortly before I quit the book "I could tell she wasn't going to give me any more sugar just then, so I decided not to beg for it. Women don't respect that." I won't even try to go into the plot holes that were so numerous my brain was feeling like the proverbial swiss cheese, just trying to keep track. I wasn't expecting high literature from this book, but this book was just too bad for me to continue.

[Петър Стойков · Rating 3 out of 5]

Нелоша фантастика, която започва с интересен и любопитен сюжет, който обещава нестандарна и идейна книга, но продължава малко скучно и стандартно.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Swarm is the first book in the Star Force series by B V Larson, a bestselling author of science fiction and fantasy. It is one of his earlier books. The audiobook is narrated by Mark Boyett, who has a clear and expressive voice that suits the fast-paced and action-packed story.

The premise of Swarm is that Earth is invaded by an alien empire that considers humans as a primitive and expendable species. The aliens send a ship that abducts and tests people, killing those who fail. Kyle Riggs, a computer science professor and a widower, is one of the few who survive the tests and manage to take control of the ship. He discovers that the ship is part of a vast network of nanotechnology that can be used to create weapons, vehicles, and robots. He also learns that the aliens who sent the ship are not the real enemy, but rather a rogue faction of a larger and more powerful empire that is planning to wipe out humanity.

Kyle decides to use the alien technology to fight back and protect Earth. He recruits and trains a group of marines who become his loyal crew. He also forms an alliance with Sandra, a fellow survivor and a love interest. Together, they face various challenges and enemies, such as rogue ships, alien worms, and hostile planets. They also discover the secrets and mysteries of the alien empire and its history.

Swarm is an entertaining sci-fi adventure that will appeal to fans of military science fiction and space opera. The story is full of twists and turns, surprises and shocks, battles and explosions. The audiobook is enhanced by the excellent narration by Mark Boyett, who brings the characters and the story to life with his voice. He also does a great job of creating different accents and tones for the various characters, such as the British, the Australian, and the alien.

Swarm is a novel that will keep you hooked from the start to the finish. It is a perfect introduction to the Star Force series, which consists of 12 books so far. This book may not be as well developed (in terms of characters), as the author’s “Undying Mercenaries” books, but it’s still an entertaining book for anyone who likes military science-fiction..

[Avihu · Rating 1 out of 5]

Complete and utter garbage. This book feels like a sci-fi novelisation of the recent GI Joe movies. Complete nonsense for the sake of cheap and fast action. No character development. No reasonable plot. Just a description of explosions and idiotic decision making to distract the reader from the absence of the plot. Nevertheless, there prominent references to other classics: Rama, Terminator and War of the Worlds are some that I spotted immediately.

After bashing the book generally, I will dive deeper.

*Contains Spoilers*

The way in which our Nano saviours introduce themselves is completely idiotic. They know enough of our language to create an AI that understands every dialect and every language naturally and speaks those languages fluently but they don’t know what a family is? They don’t what robots are? Nonsense. Human language is not a programming language. The language itself is not just syntax and is not devoid of meaning. This is why dictionaries are in a way abbreviated encyclopaedias. Kyle Riggs’ attempt at understanding the ship feels like someone trying to debug an Arduino with SQL. I was facepalming through this entire piece.

Which brings me to the next point - the prevalence of Computer Science references as a way of understand both invaders (the Nanos and Macros), WTF?!??!

Both seem to have achieved space travel technology before developing basic war skills and in times it seems even the understanding of basic physics. War is not something that is changed by the thinking mind that conducts it. War is a way of in which resources are used to achieve goals in a very violent way. The way the Macros conduct war resembles buggy software rather than a “computer”. The only way they outsmarted humans was that the humans were dumbed down to the level of cave people. Not to mention the level of distrust that mares every relationship in this story for no apparent reason.

I might have been able to enjoy this as a teenager with no appreciation of reliable storytelling or good character development.

[Sarena Straus · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up Swarm based soley on a recommendation and reviews on Audible.com and I'm so glad I did. This book is fantastic, fast moving, well written (really well narrated if you do Audible) and incredibly creative. The novel starts with a bang when Kyle Riggs' children are snatched up by an alien spacecraft and dropped to their deaths moments later. Needless to say, Kyle is pissed and grabs a rifle (he's a farmer/computer science professor, so the rifle is on hand) before the arm reaches down to grab him. What ensues is a series of tests that he seems to complete to the ship's satisfaction and he is thereby made commander of the ship.

Riggs and other commanders have to first learn how to operate their ships (there are no windows or external viewing screens) and then form some kind of alliance against an unknown enemy. Earth doesn't know if they are allies or enemies and meanwhile, some other alien force is attempting to invade.

Larson manages to combine a likeable, yet believable character, with good writing and really out of the box imagining. He even somehow manages to credibly get romance in there when Riggs ressurects another candidate for commander who the ship killed.

This is one of those rare books that you get so involved in that you just don't want the adventure to stop. Luckily, it doesn't as this is only the first book of the Star Force series. Even thought I'm in the middle of a couple of other good books at the moment, I keep wishing that I was digging into the next Star Force book.

This sci fi military novel is in the school of "Ender's Game" and "Starship Troopers," yet totally unique -- you don't feel like your reading a copy of something else at all.

Really fantastic book - can't wait to report on "Extinction," Book 2 of Star Force!

What's your favoritie Sci Fi novel?

[☼Bookish in Virginia☼ · Rating 3 out of 5]

SWARM is a book for when you are in the mood for what they would have called in the old days, 'a testosterone-driven' read. It's a book with aliens, space ships, and invasions much in keeping with the scifi classics.

The story is told in first person. Kyle Riggs is our protagonist and he makes a convincing computer scientist cum war hero. Something along the lines of a Heinlein character; a man of wit who rises to the occasion.

WHAT I LIKED:
--The concept was great and interesting.
--I particularly like how politics and personnel issues were handled.
--I liked watching how Kyle solved the problems that cropped up.

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:
--If there's a downside to the story it's the shallowness of the characters. I'm sorry but I'm not buying that a dad is going to forget for moment that his kids were just eviscerated an hour before and get aroused because there's a cute young chick around.

There's one female character that starts out very strong. She's smart and interesting but she's unfortunately mid-way through the story she's relegated to a dismal role where she might easily be played by Playboy Bunny. There's also some familiar throw away characters. (Larson makes you like them before... you know... stuff happens to them.)


All-in-all, I's describe SWARM as a good, fun book that you might consider reading when you are in the mood for something light and quick paced in the scifi genre. BV Larson is a capable writer.

ps--Wish GR had half-stars. This book is better than average, but not quite 4 stars.

[Sean · Rating 2 out of 5]

Swarm is an interesting read, quickly morphing from one sort of alien incursion story to another, I found it far from satisfying. While some attempt is made to justify the technologies involved, they really are what the author needs to drive the story in the direction he wants.

The ships tasked, like the one that kidnap our main character, with defending the Earth from the invading 'Macros' seem to be ideally designed to kill their pilots and fail in their task, as they have no coherent tactics and no real ability to communicate with their (kidnapped) crew except when their crew forces them to, which rather makes you wonder why they even kidnap crew in the first place if they are not going to integrate them into the decision-making process. Equally the three-dimension nature of space, explanation of drives, communications and power systems are essentially hand-waved away.

The enemy forces are also lacking in both tactics and strategy and their technology is poorly applied to their task of resource acquisition. There was nothing they were shown taking from Earth that they could not find in the asteroid belt where they would not need to worry about gravity, environmental hazards and, oh yeah, local life forms shooting back.

While fun, the Swarm is not deep or exceptionally coherent.

[Juliana Rodrigues · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book on an Audible promotion and got intrigued, so I bought it and started to listening it right away. I was not disappointed!

Swarm is a fast pace military science fiction, where the main plot is the human survival from a alien invasion. The first point of view gave sense of reality to most of fighting scenes, and the plot was intriguing and full of additional material that kept me listening to it.

The text has humor too, Kyle pulled as a good main character and survivor.

The narrator did a good job and I could easily identify the different characters when they appeared.

Pretty good!!! I'll look for the next one.

[Banner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very soon into this book I thought this was going to be a three star. Fast starting adventure with nasty aliens. It has kind of a retro feel of a 1950's b rate movie; there is even a scene with a scantly clad damsel in distressed, that is chained to the wall. But the plot is very tightly written and the story continued to flow without any disjointed sub story lines. The imagination grew as did the story until a ending that was able to surprise without a major cliffhanger.

Recommended for pure enjoyment value.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Light and fun. Lot's of action.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good enjoyable read. re-read 11/20/17

[Willow tree · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good book has a fantastic plot, the book is very well done, I highly recommend it, that's why it deserves 5 stars, thanks for reading my comment.

[Ed Tinkertoy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Before I read this book I saw a review of it that someone posted that said the book had very little science in it. That is exactly what I found. Good science fiction to me is an extension of real science and is believable. This book did not meet that test for me. The story reads like some kid who had a fantasy and made up things as he went along to make a story. The story has a LOT of holes, like where did the alien ships come from and why, and then where did the adversary Macro ships come from, and why, and what were they after on the Earth None of that was ever explained in the story.

If you can believe that a college professor and farmer who teaches computer science can all of a sudden pilot a spaceship, all of a sudden lead an international army, all of a sudden be able to communicate with soldiers from 20 different countries who just happen to all speak English, all of a sudden can decipher and communicate with the enemy, then you may like this book. I found it very hokey that the space ships brought people on board via a sky hook claw, like in Spiderman movie, vs using a bean or just landing and sending a robot or something to secure people.

The only reason I began reading this book was because someone gave it to me. So didn't cost me nothing but a little time to read it.

[Nicholas Raven · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story follows Kyle Riggs, a College Professor, who gets kidnapped by a mysterious alien ship. The ship is looking for a commander and how it decides on the commander is rather interesting. The ship forces the people it has kidnapped into brutal tests, including fights to the death between the other occupants on the ship, until there is one person left standing. Then the ship will proceed to kidnap more people to test until the survivor has the brains to command the ship to stop kidnapping/testing people for command. There are multiple alien ships doing the same thing around the world.

Prior to his kidnapping Kyle witnesses the ship murder his children as part of these tests but I feel this books quickly moves on from this and plonks a beautiful young woman on his lap and forgets about his dead children almost instantly.

I am very intrigued with how the book ended and taking into account that I enjoy the authors other series, the ones that I've read anyway, I am going to give book two a go.

Actual rating 3.5

[André Odendaal · Rating 2 out of 5]

I felt setup for an interesting story but the book seemed to pander to a prepubescent male’s fantasy of leading the charge against an invading force while clutching a responsive damsel. I do not recommend it for anyone looking for a good sci-fi

[M Hamed · Rating 1 out of 5]

glorified fan fiction with no depth and very limited view

ex (a small one ):an entire army caught off guard with no recon or any front lines

[Donna Weaver · Rating 4 out of 5]

WHAT IT'S ABOUT
Earth arms marines with alien technology and builds its first battle fleet!

Kyle Riggs is snatched by an alien spacecraft sometime after midnight. The ship is testing everyone it catches and murdering the weak. The good news is that Kyle keeps passing tests and staying alive. The bad news is the aliens who sent this ship are the nicest ones out there....

MY TAKE
The book was interesting in the beginning, heart-wrenching even. As things moved along and the body count increased the story also became more Kyle focused. All the supporting characters either died or were two-dimensional.

Some might think that because it's truly an action story that I'm probably not the target audience for so much action. That may be true. But the heart of any story for me is the characterization. Larry Correia also writes (exhausting) action-packed stories. But he knows how to make me care about ALL the characters.

3.5 stars, rounded up to 4

***spoilerish issue following***















Sandra, the love interest, seemed totally there for show. When she decided to stay with Kyle, all I could think was "Didn't she have ANY friends or family she wanted to check up on?" She spent a lot of time stuck on the ship. Doing what? Waiting for Kyle to come back and she could fret or snuggle?

My husband is currently listening to the second book and assures me that Larson does better with this in the next book. I haven't decided if I'll listen to it.

[Kiril Panchev · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a big and tasty military sci-fi burger!
Although I've seen similar premise in Assault Troopers in the Extinction War series here the execution in much better.
Deducting a point due to the children subplot. I just didn't like it!

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seeing a lot of bad reviews, I didn't know if I'd like this one. But while I can see the point some reviews have made, it's still a good, action-packed story. The narrator was good, also. So I liked it a lot better than I expected to!

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Oczywiście pierwsza rzecz, jaką te maszyny robiły przy podpisywaniu nowego traktatu, to znalezienie sposobu na jego złamanie. To było jak zawieranie umowy z przysłowiowym wilkiem czyhającym na progu domu, który i tak potem próbuje dostać się do środka, aby pożreć tych, z którymi się układał."

[Lucas Carlson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven't gotten into a series that I've enjoyed so much since Red Rising. This book starts out like a firecracker and only gets better and better. My only criticism is that it objectifies women, but I think the author does fix this objectification in future books somewhat.