Wake Him Up

The One U.G.L.Y. Marine Series, Book 1

By: Michael Anderle

Narrated by: John Pirhalla

Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

Could the first Vale settlers have predicted anything but the perfect civilization they were determined to create?

How was it possible that their advanced culture and knowledge could one day prove to be their greatest disadvantage? Had they not learned the bitter lessons of man’s weaknesses and overcome them?

Centuries after being driven from Earth as part of a massive diaspora triggered by an alien invasion, can the Valers face their worst—and unimaginable—nightmare? Can they withstand the might of the Komran Empire as it sweeps across the galaxy in a campaign to conquer all in its path?

When the conflict reaches a crisis point, will they recognize that what they see as their greatest strength is their greatest weakness before it’s too late?

Sometimes, situations are so ugly that only an ugly solution will suffice.

Will they have the courage to unleash the secret weapon they have in their cryo hold?

Are they desperate enough to resort to the kind of tough and strong that is bold, bad, and brazen enough to turn their society and the enemy on their heads?

Joe Ugly is undoubtedly the Marine for the job. But is the galaxy ready for One Ugly Marine?

©2022 LMBPN Publishing (P)2022 Blackstone Publishing

Loved it!

As with all of Michael Anderle's books I loved it. Michael Anderle always has a way of writing that entertains and makes you wonder what is the best way to be a human and help our world. The mixture of Sci-fi and military is awesome. Can't wait to listen to the rest of the books.

Pleasant surprise

Stumbled onto this while searching for a preview of the narrator John Pirhalla. Whom is slated to narrate a book I’m anticipating. Intriguing story with great narration. I will be continuing on to book 2

Very Good Story

Fair warning, some spoilers will be used as examples,

First, I listened to this all the way through and listened to Anderle's author notes, which I rarely do, to gain some insight on his thoughts regarding the story. He states that the future society is purposefully set up because he wanted to explore some things about our world AND politics in a subtle way, but also admitted he didn't want to get too heavy into the story's commentary in the author note so as not to ruin the story. Before listening to that portion, I thought Anderle was heavily influenced by 1993's Demolition Man with Sylvester Stallon as John Spartan and Wesley Snipes as Simon Phoenix. A movie in which both men are from "modern" society, at that time the near-future of 93 and put on ice, cryosleep, and awakened in the far future in a "polite" authoritarian society where many, many things that average human beings, yes even in places where there is authoritarianism today, many things that we today take for granted are considered "bad" for humanity and banned and people are "conditioned" by society to act "politely" and have become weak to the point that when an old threat appears they have to awake an old police officer who even in his time was considered a little extreme, but got the job done.

No, I'm not accusing Anderle of stealing anything. The core elements are there, cryosleep, old warrior who handled things a bit violently (it was a 90's action movie, what'd you expect) and both were awakened to solve a problem for a future society that had weakened itself thinking it was strengthening or bettering itself by removing what it perceived as the "barbarism" of human nature. Like Demolition Man, Anderle doesn't heavy hand the philosophy and I'm sure to some that will scream an imbalance in handling such a serious topic and/or conversation. He, instead, drops hints here and there with Joe (the MC's) reactions to some things in the similar way John Spartan did in the movie.

With that said, and because we live in a time where people immediately think inspiration = "rip off" again I'm not saying that Anderle did this. Per his author notes, he did not hint to thinking about Demolition Man when writing this. Perhaps he did channel it, perhaps he didn't, or did it unawares. Which was the reason I brought up his author notes.

Overall, the story is great when it finally leaves the finish line and that's perhaps my only complaint. It meanders about too long in the beginning and I suspect per Anderle's notes, that may have been the intention. To try to give the reader/listen a glimpse into the future society and the mindset of the future leaders before jumping into the action. But it seemed a bit unnecessarily long to me. We went from the Sergeant-Major suggesting they wake MC, to the hemming and hawing about it between him and his superior, the General, to the hemming and hawing about it with The Council, to the whole wake him up mini-arc where we were introduced to the process of pulling someone out of cryosleep, to Joe waking up, to Joe meeting his team, to some of Joe's complaints about the differences between his time and the future before finally sending him off to fight the Komran. The bulk of the book is the former stuff.

If you haven't read or listened to Anderle before then you should be aware that he writes action, adventure, sci-fi, and fantasy where the MC's are usually above-and-beyond capable for the task. This story is no different. Joe Jenkins is a larger than life MC who has uncanny "superstrength" in a sense, but not the superhero type where' he's flinging things around like Superman or The Incredible Hulk, but beyond the average human capabilities. That's nothing new for you if you've ventured into some of Anderle's stories such as The Brownstone Series. Let's be clear, yes, his characters, despite their uncanny levels of capability, do face some adversity and setbacks. I recall in Brownstone's series he faced a Necromancer that he pretty much lost to. This here is the first book in Joe Jenkins' series. He's not going to outright lose a fight, but he did suffer some indirect losses I won't get into so I won't spoil too much of the story for you. So, I don't see him as a Marty/Gary Stu like my fellow reviewer below. (Mary Sue is the female variety, friend) I'm also very particular on what I consider a masculine power fantasy. I think that label is thrown around a bit too easily these days. I don't see Joe Jenkins as some self-insert character that one would read about, sure some may like to imagine themselves as him, but the way the story is written, it's more so that one wants to enjoy hearing about the adventure of Joke Jenkins rather than be him. To each their own, I guess.

As I said earlier, there's some philosophical or political commentary with the "modern sensibilities" stuff that reviewers here and on Amazon have mentioned. What bothers me is that some of them got upset about it because MC didn't just outright turn into a rebel when he had no place to go after being awakened AND he willingly signed up in his time to be frozen AND awakened for military service. When the Sergeant-Major taps into MC's military moral obligations, the MC falls in place while drawing a line in the sand on where the future society can cross for him, but isn't such an intellectual "barbarian" as his future companions see him. He's aware that he'll have to adapt to the future society BUT the author has already injected hints that there are outliers in regard to the authoritarian nature of the future society and the belief that all of this invasive conditioning through the AI's is beneficial to humanity rather than harmful. The story already tells you that it's bad, yet some readers got upset with the story for not going heavy-handed in how bad it was.

Will the story get into "'bland' freedom freedom America freedom power fantasy arc?" I don't know. It seems it might go that way and based on Anderle's author notes, it gives more credibility that it might go that way as I mentioned above. But quite frankly, I agree with Anderle if that's the way he's going. Today, given some things that have happened over the past 2 years regarding how easily nearly everyone in the planet in privileged (1st world) countries gave up their freedoms for fear of a supercold, I feel more stories like this examining authoritarianism for "our benefit" are needed. There were a ton of them in the 80s-90s oddly, yes a ton of them out of Hollyweird if you can imagine that, but I wasn't a reader gowning up, but I understand that even into the early 2000s there were a ton of YA stories regarding the issue as well. Still, the well off countries sat around while we shut down the economy and ignored the future damage and current damage during the shutdowns that happened to less fortunate countries. But I digress. I can't put in Anderle's mouth if that's what he's channeling, but he mentioned current state of our world today. So it's within the ballpark.

So in short, if you can get through the long, meandering beginning, the story gets better in classic Anderle fashion. Action picks up and the MC claims center stage as the more-than-capable character that impresses everyone. Other characters are capable as well. Unlike Brownstone, who solo'd most of his series until he acquired some sidekicks, MC has teammates from the beginning who are capable, but this is Joe Jenkins' saga, he will always be center stage. If that bothers you and you consider that Marty Stu-ness, you might want to pass the book on.

A Power Fantasy Filler

It's a pretty good book, I guess. Character writing is decent for the most part, a tad shallow but not offensively so, dialog is good if a bit heavy on exposition, and the worldbuilding doesn't have any major problems. Plot seems to be a "kick alien butt and be masculine" power fantasy, from about an hour and a half in. Overall, a solid filler book.

The main issue I had with this book was that the main character is, well, a total power fantasy. Ludicrously good military record, insane martial skills, known for gratuitous violence, and blows peoples expectations out of the water for very little reason other than it's damn cool. First thing he does it break a bunch of restrains and bend a presumably metal table before threatening everyone in the room. If that's your thing, go ahead, but I found it to be too close to plot armor/mary sue levels of character building. I'm not that passionate either way, but I thought I'd leave a review since there aren't any others.

Side note: The "modern sensibilities" the summary refers to is a series of Big Brother level personal oversight AI which have quite seriously whitewashed and suppressed the population to the point where they consider brightly colored clothes to be disruptive and any swears at all to be illegal. It's not looked into very much in the first hour and doesn't seem to be cast in a negative light (despite clearly being an absolutist, privacy-free, rights-free, soma-distributing undemocratic government), but the author is skilled enough to understand that the leaders would get pretty power-mad with that level of control, so maybe there's some good culture exploration and conflict with that later. Might just be some bland "freedom freedom America freedom" power fantasy arc though. I'm not sure.

Also, since I'm here. The only review there was (the amazon one) said something about powerful and independent protagonists. I would characterize it closer to, as I said, mary sue-ness. From the tone of the story, I'm expecting everyone who goes against the MC(s) to be defeated because "justice", and for none of their choice to be meaningful mistakes. Might just be my cynicism, though, and still could be a fun story. Do as you see fit, reader, and be aware I only listened till 1:37:14.

TL:DR: Worldbuilding is pretty good, but clearly exists in some capacities to make the MC more cool and dangerous, despite him already being unreasonably OP. Story will likely devolve into a macho power fantasy about killing aliens, so if that's your speed go ahead. There is room for social intrigue and exploration, but I don't have high hopes. This review is mostly just a token effort since there aren't any others on Audible.

sigh...

i wanted to like this but i just couldn't after Joe wakes up then gets operated on without his consent and his reaction is to hold back yeaaah nope. if you are going to make the MC this badass wildcard then fully commit to it . i just couldn't get into the book after that. it was really disappointing

Juvenile best description

Everything about this was just juvenile. Obviously no military experience. Every interaction between characters was just poorly written. This was my first and last of these books.