Melanie
Written on May 10, 2016
After reading a few reviews of some of the arcs around, I decided that I would give the audio a try. Once again, this isn’t a book that I would normally pick up. I don’t read a large amount of science fiction, but I liked the idea of this story and the suspense that goes along with it. I thought I would give it a try. I’ve not read Sean Danker, nor listened to Johnathan McClain before this book.
We start off with four people waking up on a dead ship on a what appears to be a dead planet. One of the characters is only known as “The Admiral”. That is what was on his sleeper container, but he won’t tell anyone his name or anything about himself. He just goes by “The Admiral”. The other three are all new recruits. They all have completely different backgrounds with different strengths.
As we read (or well, listen to) this story, we continue to learn more about the three recruits. They are all pretty unique characters. They work great as a team with The Admiral as the leader, even as one of the recruits doesn’t trust him one bit. They work together to come up with a plan to get off the planet and get rescued.
It seems that every plan they come up with fails. It wasn’t because their plans were bad ideas, it is just because they are on a very inhospitable planet with very little resources. It only gets worse when they find out that they aren’t in fact alone on the planet. There is a life form that lives on this planet and it isn’t friendly.
We do learn more about who The Admiral is, but you have to wait until the final few chapters to learn more about what is going on. I was glad to finally learn more about who this guy was. It was a little frustrating not knowing who he was throughout the entire story. He was one of the mysteries to me. I’m glad that I got that information before the end of the book.
This story is filled with suspense and humor. Add to that the very complex and fun characters and it made for an entertaining story. While this story is science fiction, it isn’t so sciency (is that even a word), that it would be off putting to non-sci-fi fans. I like how they have to work to find ways to work through difficult situations. MacGyver is something that comes to mind when you read this story.
Narration
This is my first book with Johnathan McClain as the narrator. I thought he did a great job. I liked his voices for both the male and female characters. There aren’t a lot of characters to voice. There is really just the four people, until the very end of the story.
**I like to thank the publisher for providing me with a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.