Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.12 AVERAGE
4.12 AVERAGE
My review of EXTINCTION MACHINE can be found at High Fever Books.
Jonathan Maberry gets his X-Files on in the fifth Joe Ledger novel, Extinction Machine. Needless to say, it’s a doozy!
In the midst of a cyberattack and terrorist threats, the President of the United States goes missing. Not just missing, but kidnapped — actually freaking disappeared — from the White House, despite the presence of Secret Service. The only clue to his abduction is a mysterious crop circle on the White House lawn. And so enters the DMS, the Department of Military Science, a covert team of commandos specializing in tackling the misuse of the world’s most cutting-edge weird sciences. Joe Ledger and his team have tackled zombies, plagues, vampires, and now… aliens?
Aliens.
Mysterious aircraft begin appearing in the sky, and a team of assassins equipped with guns unlike anything Ledger has ever seen are trying to kill him and UFO conspiracy theorist podcaster Junie Flynn. Flynn possesses a secret worth killing for, as well as intimate knowledge about the US government’s research into extraterrestrial technology reaching back to President Harry S. Truman’s creation of the Majestic 12 group to recover and investigate alien spacecraft and technology.
Extinction Machine is a trip, man. As is usual of this series, the focus is on killer action sequences (such as Ledger vs an MMA-trained brawler in an absolutely brutal showdown that proves actual combat isn’t a freaking sport) and plenty of gung-ho military know-how, crossbred with strange science and elements of horror. After a number of earthly close encounters, it’s about time the DMS made contact with ET!
It’s rousing fun, and my central quibble is a minor one — why the hell is Joe freaking Ledger so damn resistant to the idea of aliens running amok? Dude’s faced off with actual zombies and a cult of vampires, but after all he’s seen he still can’t take the threat posed by extraterrestrial life seriously. This far into the series, he should be a regular Fox Mulder, ready to believe anything, but instead he cops an attitude of resistance that would make even Dana Scully shake her head in wonderment at his stubborn refusal. Yes, I was a bit annoyed by this, but thankfully Bunny had my back with his True Believer “Why are you surprised by ANY of this?” attitude.
This tiny niggling issue aside, Extinction Machine is another solid entry into Maberry’s on-going series, and gives us an extra bit of elasticity to the nature of threats DMS can and will encounter. If you’ve read or listened to any of the prior entries in audiobook format, you’ve got a solid foundation on what to expect here. It doesn’t break a lot of new ground, although it does a nice job of shaking things up for Ledger and his crew, and it’s a constant dose of pure entertainment.
If anything, the Joe Ledger books have become a bit of a comfort for me to turn to. Ledger’s the perfect, charming, All-American tough guy smartass hero that I really cannot help but root for and want to see kick plenty of old, rich, evil, white guy mad scientist ass. I know what to expect from these books, and can walk away from them feeling pretty damn satisfied. The narration by Ray Porter (easily the best in the business) is damn well perfect, and the man is the definitive voice of Joe Ledger in my mind. Maberry knows what he’s doing, and he does it very well, constantly one-upping the dramatic stakes and action scenes, ratcheting the tension up higher and higher, right to its breaking point. They’re the perfect summer blockbuster epics put to print, and I always finish them wanting more. Luckily, I’ve got plenty left to catch up on…
Jonathan Maberry gets his X-Files on in the fifth Joe Ledger novel, Extinction Machine. Needless to say, it’s a doozy!
In the midst of a cyberattack and terrorist threats, the President of the United States goes missing. Not just missing, but kidnapped — actually freaking disappeared — from the White House, despite the presence of Secret Service. The only clue to his abduction is a mysterious crop circle on the White House lawn. And so enters the DMS, the Department of Military Science, a covert team of commandos specializing in tackling the misuse of the world’s most cutting-edge weird sciences. Joe Ledger and his team have tackled zombies, plagues, vampires, and now… aliens?
Aliens.
Mysterious aircraft begin appearing in the sky, and a team of assassins equipped with guns unlike anything Ledger has ever seen are trying to kill him and UFO conspiracy theorist podcaster Junie Flynn. Flynn possesses a secret worth killing for, as well as intimate knowledge about the US government’s research into extraterrestrial technology reaching back to President Harry S. Truman’s creation of the Majestic 12 group to recover and investigate alien spacecraft and technology.
Extinction Machine is a trip, man. As is usual of this series, the focus is on killer action sequences (such as Ledger vs an MMA-trained brawler in an absolutely brutal showdown that proves actual combat isn’t a freaking sport) and plenty of gung-ho military know-how, crossbred with strange science and elements of horror. After a number of earthly close encounters, it’s about time the DMS made contact with ET!
It’s rousing fun, and my central quibble is a minor one — why the hell is Joe freaking Ledger so damn resistant to the idea of aliens running amok? Dude’s faced off with actual zombies and a cult of vampires, but after all he’s seen he still can’t take the threat posed by extraterrestrial life seriously. This far into the series, he should be a regular Fox Mulder, ready to believe anything, but instead he cops an attitude of resistance that would make even Dana Scully shake her head in wonderment at his stubborn refusal. Yes, I was a bit annoyed by this, but thankfully Bunny had my back with his True Believer “Why are you surprised by ANY of this?” attitude.
This tiny niggling issue aside, Extinction Machine is another solid entry into Maberry’s on-going series, and gives us an extra bit of elasticity to the nature of threats DMS can and will encounter. If you’ve read or listened to any of the prior entries in audiobook format, you’ve got a solid foundation on what to expect here. It doesn’t break a lot of new ground, although it does a nice job of shaking things up for Ledger and his crew, and it’s a constant dose of pure entertainment.
If anything, the Joe Ledger books have become a bit of a comfort for me to turn to. Ledger’s the perfect, charming, All-American tough guy smartass hero that I really cannot help but root for and want to see kick plenty of old, rich, evil, white guy mad scientist ass. I know what to expect from these books, and can walk away from them feeling pretty damn satisfied. The narration by Ray Porter (easily the best in the business) is damn well perfect, and the man is the definitive voice of Joe Ledger in my mind. Maberry knows what he’s doing, and he does it very well, constantly one-upping the dramatic stakes and action scenes, ratcheting the tension up higher and higher, right to its breaking point. They’re the perfect summer blockbuster epics put to print, and I always finish them wanting more. Luckily, I’ve got plenty left to catch up on…
Better than the last few in the series, I have hope again!
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Another quality addition to the Ledger series. I don't quite know how Maberry plans to beat this book in terms of scale, but I'm sure he'll figure something out.
I just want to start out by saying that Extinction Machine is a breath of cool air between assignments at school. I feel like I can always count on Jonathan Maberry to deliver something fun, fast-paced, and easy-to-follow, and that was exactly what I needed.
There were a ton of things I enjoyed about this book, but most of those had a second edge on them that I feel also dragged the book down for me. It was head and shoulders above Assassin's Code, which I still cannot bring myself to like, but it wasn't quite up to the standard set by Patient Zero. The Ledger books follow a pretty predictable structure, and I think that does more harm than good in the long run. Joe's day gets interrupted by an emergency that turns out to be a pretty serious, world-threatening thing. He and his team wade through mystery, Joe gets little to no sleep and goes through a crisis of realization (zombies? vampires? aliens? you'd think everybody would stop being shocked at some point) and maybe bangs a chick or two before we arrive at the extremely shoot-em-up climactic ending.
On a high note, those endings are usually spectacular. If there's one thing Maberry does right, it's a solid fight scene. I've picked up a lot as a writer by simply reading them, and I love to read them. Joe Ledger is a magnificent warrior. Those scenes are some of the reason I know I'll never get completely tired of reading the series, despite the fact that it can be almost too repetitive at times.
Howard Shelton, like the last three main villains, has been pretty cookie-cutter. Surprise, he's an extremely rich, extremely intelligent man with a flip-the-bird, screw-everyone mentality. It's not that I don't think these men make plausible bad guys--I just want to expect more from a writer who has such stellar minor characters and insane plot ideas. (Seriously, every time I explained the plot of the book to a friend who asked, they were extremely intrigued.) Even Bones (a "minion"--I literally groaned when I read that) was too “henchman” for me.
And then there are the aliens. Discussing aliens semi-seriously, at least for me, is like walking on egg shells. There are too many little details that I can't find plausible. Maberry does a decent job of briefly addressing these and diverting the reader's attention away, but I was still bothered by certain aspects.
Unless they wanted to destroy us, but even then if they have that technology, why don't they just destroy us themselves? I don't get it. Aliens.
Moving to the characters, I will always love Mr. Church. When I would roleplay with my friends, one of them played John Church, a police officer, and an NPC was an Asian forensics guy, and after I got them to read the books, we would joke about how it was Church and Hu. I love the way Maberry has him under lock-and-key, and we only know things over the course of several books. Most of the minor characters are amazing as well. I love the Top/Bunny banter, and--as much as I grit my teeth against Sam Imura because I'm still bitter about John "The Hammer of God" Smith--I kind of enjoy the overlap between series.
There were times I felt that Maberry was forcing things to make the plot move forward, mostly when it came down to Joe vs. the Closers. The Closers are supposed to be these super highly trained soldiers and Joe takes them down like nothing. Specifically, when the Closers are hunting Joe and Junie in the woods and they’re speaking movements to one another and it gives away their position to Joe. I know Blue Diamond is supposed to be mercenaries, but I wouldn’t say that they would be stupid enough to do something like that, especially supposing that they had knowledge of who they were facing. I mean, I’m all for Joe kicking ass but for all the fighting against “skilled” men he does, he doesn’t get hurt nearly as much as I imagine he would.
The last minor objection I have about the book is the severe lack of Grace Courtland. It was my biggest objection about Assassin’s Code as well. Joe is the most emotionally selective character I have ever read about. There were several moments () that I imagine should have triggered memories her death and didn’t. It’d be something if he was repressing the memory, but in almost every book Joe talks about Helen so the inconsistency makes me uncomfortable.
His apparent ease at moving from woman to woman kind of makes me uncomfortable, too, but that’s a completely different issue and it would take me longer than I want to spend right now to analyze this series under a feminist lens (it would be pretty interesting, though… it passes the Bechdel test in implication but it barely does in any the actual written parts).
Overall, I enjoyed reading Extinction Code quite a bit. I look forward to the next book because it’s going back to the Seif al Din virus and zombies, so Maberry should be able to switch up something, whether it’s the form or the villain, and bring me back in to where I was the first time I picked up the series.
There were a ton of things I enjoyed about this book, but most of those had a second edge on them that I feel also dragged the book down for me. It was head and shoulders above Assassin's Code, which I still cannot bring myself to like, but it wasn't quite up to the standard set by Patient Zero. The Ledger books follow a pretty predictable structure, and I think that does more harm than good in the long run. Joe's day gets interrupted by an emergency that turns out to be a pretty serious, world-threatening thing. He and his team wade through mystery, Joe gets little to no sleep and goes through a crisis of realization (zombies? vampires? aliens? you'd think everybody would stop being shocked at some point) and maybe bangs a chick or two before we arrive at the extremely shoot-em-up climactic ending.
On a high note, those endings are usually spectacular. If there's one thing Maberry does right, it's a solid fight scene. I've picked up a lot as a writer by simply reading them, and I love to read them. Joe Ledger is a magnificent warrior. Those scenes are some of the reason I know I'll never get completely tired of reading the series, despite the fact that it can be almost too repetitive at times.
Howard Shelton, like the last three main villains, has been pretty cookie-cutter. Surprise, he's an extremely rich, extremely intelligent man with a flip-the-bird, screw-everyone mentality. It's not that I don't think these men make plausible bad guys--I just want to expect more from a writer who has such stellar minor characters and insane plot ideas. (Seriously, every time I explained the plot of the book to a friend who asked, they were extremely intrigued.) Even Bones (a "minion"--I literally groaned when I read that) was too “henchman” for me.
Spoiler
When it's revealed that he is the third Governor of M3 I didn't care, and I felt like I should have. He still felt too much like a lackey.And then there are the aliens. Discussing aliens semi-seriously, at least for me, is like walking on egg shells. There are too many little details that I can't find plausible. Maberry does a decent job of briefly addressing these and diverting the reader's attention away, but I was still bothered by certain aspects.
Spoiler
I can't get over the fact that the aliens have ships that can reach Mach 24 and turn corners literally on a dime no matter the speed and they still somehow manage to crash repeatedly on earth. We can say that they wanted us to have their technology/were experimenting with us, but I still think any race who is smart enough to get to earth and can observe us for any extended amount of time would think that's a very bad idea.Unless they wanted to destroy us, but even then if they have that technology, why don't they just destroy us themselves? I don't get it. Aliens.
Moving to the characters, I will always love Mr. Church. When I would roleplay with my friends, one of them played John Church, a police officer, and an NPC was an Asian forensics guy, and after I got them to read the books, we would joke about how it was Church and Hu. I love the way Maberry has him under lock-and-key, and we only know things over the course of several books. Most of the minor characters are amazing as well. I love the Top/Bunny banter, and--as much as I grit my teeth against Sam Imura because I'm still bitter about John "The Hammer of God" Smith--I kind of enjoy the overlap between series.
There were times I felt that Maberry was forcing things to make the plot move forward, mostly when it came down to Joe vs. the Closers.
The last minor objection I have about the book is the severe lack of Grace Courtland. It was my biggest objection about Assassin’s Code as well. Joe is the most emotionally selective character I have ever read about. There were several moments (
Spoiler
the destruction of the Warehouse, namely; facing the Closers as a comparison to the enhanced soldiers in TDF; him reminiscing about Helen’s suicideHis apparent ease at moving from woman to woman kind of makes me uncomfortable, too, but that’s a completely different issue and it would take me longer than I want to spend right now to analyze this series under a feminist lens (it would be pretty interesting, though… it passes the Bechdel test in implication but it barely does in any the actual written parts).
Overall, I enjoyed reading Extinction Code quite a bit. I look forward to the next book because it’s going back to the Seif al Din virus and zombies, so Maberry should be able to switch up something, whether it’s the form or the villain, and bring me back in to where I was the first time I picked up the series.
4.5 stars. The only thing keeping this from being a 5 star book were all the silly mistakes. Misspelled names, locations noted incorrectly in the same page and continuity discrepancies that were definitely noticeable.
I met Joe Ledger in the Rot and Ruin series which happens years after his main series ends. He was a side character there and I’m so glad he has his own series so we can follow his life. This is my favorite audiobook of the year. The reader did such a good job catching Joe’s sarcasm, humor, emotion and badassery. 80% of the book takes place in a 24 hour window so it was fast paced with good amounts of story building along the way.
I met Joe Ledger in the Rot and Ruin series which happens years after his main series ends. He was a side character there and I’m so glad he has his own series so we can follow his life. This is my favorite audiobook of the year. The reader did such a good job catching Joe’s sarcasm, humor, emotion and badassery. 80% of the book takes place in a 24 hour window so it was fast paced with good amounts of story building along the way.
Extinction Machine follows the trend of DMS fighting battles against foes of legend. In this case, Aliens. Or more accurately, humans in a 50+ year secret race to recreate technology from downed alien craft (roswell et al). My opinion of the book should not block a fan from reading, or a potential fan from starting the series. This is just me being a cry baby fan boy who is potentially over critical.
Hrm.
This was my least favorite of the Joe Ledger series by Maberry. It isn't that the plotline was bad, it wasn't in fsct it was really quite good. The trouble was the heavy handedness and some love interest concerns (potential love interest concerns for the main character).
With out getting too deep into the plot details, Maberry goes against his normal grain of eloquently spoon-fed details which make the plot hum and vibrate with goodness. In EM it feels more like he has trouble spinning the yarn. The only reason I can think of that there would be such a drastically change in writing presentation would be that Maberry himself has difficulty with his own plot.. As a result, various characters take turns parrotting back the same substantiating data over and over and over, beating into our heads the details needed to make the plot holes plausible. Seriously, the book would be a third smaller if this were more streamlined. Besides that though, pretty cool stuff as always.
Primarily I was vested in finishing the book because of some particularly evil sh*t which occurs and makes me blood thirsty for revenge as many chatacters were. I was also curious as to the final outcome of a particular end of world scenario, which I ultimately felt was glossed over.
Good thing for me there are two more books in the series, one novel and one collection of short stories.
Potential spoiler: Uhm. Violin is going to nail Ledgers balls to a wall and slowly de-vein him like a giant shrimp. You DO NOT F*CK with the bastard inbred daughter of a vampire... No matter how 'informal' your relationship is.
ReBlurb:
I dont know how to fix this one. I read the book without reading the back cover. Had i read it firdt, i eould have felt a bit cheated. I guess it is adequate, but I feel like it gives away plot that was enjoyable to unravel. Not worth reblurbing, but not 'great' or satisfying.
Publisher Description:
In Extinction Machine, the fifth Joe Ledger book by Jonathan Maberry, the DMS must go up against someone—or something—in search of new technology that could bring about world war
The President of the United States vanishes from the White House.
A top-secret prototype stealth fighter is destroyed during a test flight. Witnesses on the ground say that it was shot down by a craft that immediately vanished at impossible speeds.
All over the world reports of UFOs are increasing at an alarming rate.
And in a remote fossil dig in China dinosaur hunters have found something that is definitely not of this earth. There are rumors of alien-human hybrids living among us.
Joe Ledger and the Department of Military Sciences rush headlong into the heat of the world’s strangest and deadliest arms race, because the global race to recover and retro-engineer alien technologies has just hit a snag. Someone—or something--wants that technology back.
Hrm.
This was my least favorite of the Joe Ledger series by Maberry. It isn't that the plotline was bad, it wasn't in fsct it was really quite good. The trouble was the heavy handedness and some love interest concerns (potential love interest concerns for the main character).
With out getting too deep into the plot details, Maberry goes against his normal grain of eloquently spoon-fed details which make the plot hum and vibrate with goodness. In EM it feels more like he has trouble spinning the yarn. The only reason I can think of that there would be such a drastically change in writing presentation would be that Maberry himself has difficulty with his own plot.. As a result, various characters take turns parrotting back the same substantiating data over and over and over, beating into our heads the details needed to make the plot holes plausible. Seriously, the book would be a third smaller if this were more streamlined. Besides that though, pretty cool stuff as always.
Primarily I was vested in finishing the book because of some particularly evil sh*t which occurs and makes me blood thirsty for revenge as many chatacters were. I was also curious as to the final outcome of a particular end of world scenario, which I ultimately felt was glossed over.
Good thing for me there are two more books in the series, one novel and one collection of short stories.
Potential spoiler: Uhm. Violin is going to nail Ledgers balls to a wall and slowly de-vein him like a giant shrimp. You DO NOT F*CK with the bastard inbred daughter of a vampire... No matter how 'informal' your relationship is.
ReBlurb:
I dont know how to fix this one. I read the book without reading the back cover. Had i read it firdt, i eould have felt a bit cheated. I guess it is adequate, but I feel like it gives away plot that was enjoyable to unravel. Not worth reblurbing, but not 'great' or satisfying.
Publisher Description:
In Extinction Machine, the fifth Joe Ledger book by Jonathan Maberry, the DMS must go up against someone—or something—in search of new technology that could bring about world war
The President of the United States vanishes from the White House.
A top-secret prototype stealth fighter is destroyed during a test flight. Witnesses on the ground say that it was shot down by a craft that immediately vanished at impossible speeds.
All over the world reports of UFOs are increasing at an alarming rate.
And in a remote fossil dig in China dinosaur hunters have found something that is definitely not of this earth. There are rumors of alien-human hybrids living among us.
Joe Ledger and the Department of Military Sciences rush headlong into the heat of the world’s strangest and deadliest arms race, because the global race to recover and retro-engineer alien technologies has just hit a snag. Someone—or something--wants that technology back.
Obviously I love Joe and Ghost, but the little romances Mr. Maberry throws in there, in this case was Junie. I just happen to love them, too.
Joe and Echo Team do it again!
The middle part was slow.
Junie Flynn, she's kinda a judgmental b*tch, like I get it she's all smart and can't forget anything. But just because us peasants don't have perfect recall doesn't mean she needs to react the way she does when Joe does forget something (especially with his BRAIN INJURY) - like someone lady.
The middle part was slow.
Junie Flynn, she's kinda a judgmental b*tch, like I get it she's all smart and can't forget anything. But just because us peasants don't have perfect recall doesn't mean she needs to react the way she does when Joe does forget something (especially with his BRAIN INJURY) - like someone lady.
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No