DebB

Loved this, great story, well narrated

Reviewed: 08-03-22

I know this book well, read it and the next two several times, and am impatiently waiting for book 4, so I knew what I was letting myself in for. I couldn't find anything new I wanted to listen to, and this book was gently knocking at my brain letting me know a re-read was needed, so I decided to listen instead. It's really well narrated, although I worried about the narrator's throat, she makes Graydon so gruff - it'll be interesting to see if she keeps it up for the next one (already downloaded!). This author writes good books, with fine leading ladies, but Kira is my favourite.

Here's my Amazon review from 3 years ago:
This is good - it catches the attention from the off and never drops. Heroine is a capable, intelligent, resourceful woman - and I mean woman, she’s a veteran with a troubling history who’s been around a bit. There were echoes of the authors Aileen Travers novels for me - in both books the main character is a loner, forced by circumstance, and things she can’t control, into co-operating/working with people she really would rather not.

This is, as another reviewer has said, sci-fi lite. The nice aliens are utterly humanoid as far as I can make out, while the nasty aliens are not. There’s no detail on how space travel is undertaken, no FTL drives, or jumps - Kira is technically capable, ably assisted by Jin, but we don’t hear much of the detail. I thought the razor dust was a neat idea!

There’s some good and well described world building, there are powerful people who manipulate others for their own, or higher, ends, there are old colleagues with grudges, questions and long memories, there are snotty arrogant Tuann, with some maybe not as bad as the others. There’s a big cast of characters here, and I did lose track a bit at times of who was human, who was Tuann, who was friendly and who wasn’t. A cast of characters would have been handy.

There aren’t any friends, apart from Jin, and he has his limitations, so Kira is very alone, not helped by her determination to not get close, not get involved, and to make her escape back to her solitary, scavenger life. Yes there are old colleagues from what used to be a cohesive team, but Kira left them, and they’re pi**ed with her.

Kira has a big secret that isn’t revealed until quite near the end. There are vague hints, but nothing to really sign post what’s to come. There’s one of those James Bond moments where the baddies are chortling about how now they’ve caught someone they really, really want, they’re going to kill them. The executioner is all lined up, but with all the gloating and chortling, a fairly credulity stretching escape is effected - using the big secret reveal, and giving me a "What the...?" moment. But it really doesn’t matter - by that stage you’re whooping them all on! I was wondering, towards the very end, how the author was going to deal with the circumstances she’d created, but she does, of course. She's the author!

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Engaging characters, bit slow to get going

Reviewed: 08-03-22

This isn’t a deep book - it’s heroine is 14, and it’s told entirely from her perspective, but she’s an engaging young thing who ends up having to deal with far, far more than you should at that, or any, age. It takes a while to get going and some of the events that transpire are a tad obvious, and some I thought obvious didn’t happen, so what do I know?! The latter part did pick up pace and it then rattled along to a rather good conclusion.

However, I was surprised to hear it read in UK English, by an American narrator. The narration, and Mona, are read in a rather cut-glass RP (received pronunciation) that, to be fair, the narrator holds well, but to my UK-English ears it sounded a bit carefully over-annunciated. Others characters came from all over, a bit of Irish, a bit of Australian, a bit of generic-rustic-yokel (think Sam Gamgee in the LotR films), and sometimes it was all a bit of a blend. I didn’t get why Mona, raised from a young age by her aunt and uncle, spoke so differently to them, and far more like the ruling classes. Mona is a baker, an ordinary girl, and no one else from her family, or the others we meet that she knows, speak that way. I thought I’ d get used to it, but I didn’t, and it nagged at me all the way through.

I’m not a young adult, or even an older child, so I’m not the target audience here, and I’m not criticising the story - it’s good, the characters are utterly engaging, the lesson that grown ups can’t always fix things is well learnt, there’s a battle at the end that is rather bloodless (lots of whacking and hitting), and,

SPOILER

just in case these things bother you,

someone you get to know as the book progresses dies. And it’s sadly done.

But the accents annoyed me. I mean, American author, American narrator - why go England-English?

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

Written for YA but fun for OAs as well

Reviewed: 20-02-21

I enjoyed this once it got going. Spensa is, at the start, tooth-grindingly annoying at times, and given her upbringing as the daughter of the Coward of Alta, I found it surprising she still clung to certain naive ideals. But this does get going quite quickly, and it’s then enormous fun. MBot and his adaptive sub-routines are just wonderful, and if the supporting characters are maybe a touch thin, the circumstances of the plot make that understandable. Mostly written from Spensa’s point of view, but with a few short sections from just one other character.

My old-adult inner-realist raised her head at times with the occasional, "yes but how/why/what/..." but I battered her into submission and just got on with enjoying the story. The final section is exciting and tightly written.

Narrated well with a plethora of “Old-Earth” accents, including MBot who seems to be Scottish. I’ll be downloading book 2.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

Excellent part 2 - lots of action

Reviewed: 31-10-20

A good Part 2. This follows on a few months from the first book, Stars Uncharted. The blurb, which sets it up pretty well, ends with “What could possibly go wrong?”

Well, lots actually. There are several odds-defying escapes from utterly impossible situations, and the scrapes come thick and fast - at one point, after surviving being blasted in space, a space walk by a non-spacer, crash landing with one person thrown unconscious into water, savage local beasties, and then… I did find myself thinking “Oh for heavens sake, can’t something go right for once?”. But I had faith that the authors weren’t going to wipe out their entire cast, so I hung on in there. One of the baddies does chortle with “Haha, now I have you I can kill you” a bit often, when you know damn well that because he’s wasting time by chortling and gloating, something's going to happen to save the imperilled character, but at least he's consistent

There are two new characters Alastair and Cam, who have their own story arc and back history. There are parts narrated from Alastair’s point of view, more from Josune and Nika, and the odd bit from others.

Alastair needs to find Nika. A company man with not nice intentions really, really wants to find Nika. The Justice Department want her. Others want Josune, others want Alastair, someone really nasty wants Snow… Cue lots of dodging and diving. Nika and company should, of course, lay low, but she needs to fix Roystan, for which she needs a fancy genemod machine, so out into the big bad world they go.

When I reviewed the first book I said how convenient a modding machine is, people can get blasted and burnt and broken, and all they need is to pop into a machine to be as right as rain again. It's the same here - one character in particular seems to have a bad time of repeated injuries and fixes.

Whilst there’s a lot of action, there’s also introspection from the main characters, Nika maybe goes on about modding a bit much, and there will be those that criticise this for times of drag. I didn’t find that. I enjoyed the play between the main characters, enjoyed learning about Alastair, enjoyed the time out to ponder. In this, the book is typical of the authors’ other books.

The end could be “The End”, or it could lead to a part 3 - it ends with a plan for a future - quite a complicated one fraught with potential problems, so there's scope for a return…

note - the description of Alastair’s “apartment” is amazing - I want me one of those please! Oh, and Alastair needs to tell Cam he loves him, ;-)

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Excellent! Well read, good characters and ideas

Reviewed: 03-10-20

Just listened to this again before listening to the next one, Stars Beyond. It’s nearly a year since I last listened to it, so I don’t remember everything, but I enjoyed it, and had no problems with listening to the whole thing again.

There’s another review for this audio version that complains about superfluous information, and too much detail about modding, and I agree that at times I found myself thinking, yeah yeah, we know, just get on with it, but this is a book to get absorbed in, and just go with the flow. It gets there, it rarely drags, there’s enough excitement, with several mildly implausible escapes and rescues. The amoral baddies are suitably unpleasant, and there are possibly some triggers for domestic abuse, so be aware if this troubles you. What’s nice is the gradual bonding, the building of a new team, the learning to trust. “Modding” is a tad too convenient - broken arm, no problem just pop into this machine for a bit, need to change your appearance, no problem, just pop into this machine for a bit longer, baddies over done the beatings, face burnt off by acid? No problem, just…. but hey, it’s the future, it’s a novel, it’s allowed convenient technology.

This isn’t a whizz, bang, whop, crash, panting lust kinda book, - it’s a character driven novel, much like the authors’ Linesman series (also very good, but also takes it time). Very well narrated with the narrator managing a range of characters and accents (including French Jacques, and Spanish Carlos), but she gets a bit soft spoken for some of them, which can mean upping the volume at times. I didn’t notice any pronunciation or editing bloopers.

I rate it!

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Excellent as ever...

Reviewed: 24-04-20

This is first and foremost a love story. Yes the escaped fae talked of in the synopsis is part of the story, but there are two other strong strands to this book, and while there is danger and battles and injuries (my how Mercy gets battered, in every book), what made this different, and really enjoyable for me, was the love story - it's not schmaltzy or girly - this is a grim determination to stand and fight for what you want, and in this case, it's the person you love.
There's are inner monologues from Mercy, sometimes at times of high intensity when I'm thinking, just get on with it girl, enough with the introspection, there's bits and bobs of input from some of the favourites plus a few who haven't featured much before, but this a very much Mercy's show, there's a Wulf issue that goes nowhere, and after the revelations about Sherwood in the last book I was hoping for more on him, but he's not around - but overall I very much enjoyed this.
Brilliantly read as always.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

Entertaining, thought provoking, & very well read

Reviewed: 03-11-19

I enjoyed this - it’s not my usual audio book material, but Amazon just keep waving it under my nose, and eventually I caved in and took a look. So, Luke Smitherd, say thank you to Amazon!

This is well narrated. The male narrator manages the female voices without going anywhere near parody - the Brigadier is excellent; his accents are all solid, and he brought the book to life. He conveys distress, weariness, elation, terror… really well read.

The main character is on the autistic spectrum, and his occasional ponderings around emotion, or his lack of it, are well drawn. The story rolls along pretty well - there’s the odd section when I found myself thinking, ok yes, I get it, you’re conflicted, just get on with it, and generally, he did. The latter third is gripping, really gripping, and the ending? Well, it made sense to me in most ways, altho the news blackout didn’t…

My gripes? The occasional tendency to being a tad long winded, and, when another narrator takes over, his inner thoughts don’t match his spoken accent. Silly maybe, but it annoyed me that he thought in RP and spoke with a regional accent. I recently listened to the audio version of a book I read and re-read endlessly as a child, and was horrified to hear it read in broad Yorkshire. Not because I’ve anything against Yorkshire, but as a southern kid, I read, and “heard” the book in my own accent, while accepting it was set in that vague “Up-North” us southerners talk about. So the split in accent between thought and speech bothered me.

But this was good. I’m even going to recommend it to my other half, who isn’t really a sci-fi/unexplained mystery kinda guy.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Long, mostly engaging story with a lot of twists

Reviewed: 22-08-19

This held my attention over 18+ hours of listening.The story is principally Sanda’s but there’s a fair chunk from her brother Biran, and another much smaller chunk from somewhere a long way away that has a lot less input, and at times I forgot where things had been left when the book next returned there. There are also a few brief interludes from another couple of people who get a few short bits. You get a date at the beginning of each chapter with a brief descriptive heading, such as “Chapter 43 - day 41 just got harder”, that sort of thing. I struggled mightily to remember to catch the date of the third, far away, storyline and then remember how it related to the dates of the other two stories, but it took a long time for me to get them straight. In retrospect it doesn’t really matter that much, and there’s an interesting correction right towards the end that caught my attention.

There’s a large cast of characters that are well read. The narrator differentiates well between them all, and his females are dealt with well. He has a large repertoire of accents he makes use of - I did wonder how so many “old Earth” accents could survive across the stars, but that was a very minor niggle, and it made scenes with several characters easy to follow.

Anyhow, the story. Hard to précis without giving away some real twists, some caught me out, some I saw coming, albeit fuzzily! Brother Biran annoyed me, totally fixated on determining his sister’s fate and unable to contemplate that there might be a bigger story. He does redeem himself somewhat, but he annoyed me. Sanda is great - dogged and determined, with a steely sense of what’s right and what’s not. She deals with the various hammer blows the fates deal her with a gritty determination to get through, to cope, to survive. The author has a habit of ending one chapter on a knife edge and starting the next with one of the other characters, leaving you waiting to find out what the hell happened next. Another reviewer says the book ends on a cliff hanger, I’d say it was more of a taut ending! You’re left knowing where everyone important is, and very interested to know what happens next. The far far away storyline remains fairly distant, but a connection emerges towards the end. It is a long book, and at times it’s a little slow, but lots happens with lots of surprises, so it never dragged for long. Worth the listen, and I’ll look out for the next, as long as it doesn’t take too long to arrive.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

Hoist by the time travel petard…

Reviewed: 13-04-19

I enjoyed this initially, but it was indeed, just one damned thing after another. At one point I found myself thinking, “oh for heavens sake, can’t something just go according to plan for once?” It’s well written, with a strong main character, and a (very, very) slow build romance that is finally consummated in a rather fine, abandoned way!

But, but, but… if you can go back to the past, complete with knowledge about what happened in that past, and how that past impacted on your future, nothing is going to be a surprise. Any relationship, or friendship, or catastrophe is known to you before it happens – so I began to question the motives, or spontaneity of some characters’ actions. Then I began to ponder the entire time travel dilemma – and time travel stories don’t really take pondering and questioning. For some reason I can’t now work out (it’s a few weeks since I finished the book) I got annoyed with things in the story, annoyed on Max’ behalf, felt she was being manipulated for ends I, and she, didn’t know about.
The historic bits felt a bit like the author showing us how much research she’d done, and at times went on a bit. So what with the breathless procession of “one damned thing after another”, the nag of time travel dilemmas, and the overlong history bit, while I finished this one, I won’t be reading any more in the series

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Excellent continuation of Nell’s journey

Reviewed: 13-04-19

You can’t drop into this cold – you have to read the preceding 3 books to understand what’s going on. Reading the more recent (as in 2017/2018) Jane Yellowrock books will probably also help, but I’m behind on those, and didn’t suffer for it, just wondered what the devil had been happening down New Orlean’s way!
The books have all had a strong storyline involving non-human problems and mischief making, all involving Psy-LED 18, with its witch, empath, two weres and human hacker, but it’s Nell who shines in all the books, making her way from an apparently human woman, living on the edge, threatened, alone - a recluse - to a capable non-human, beginning to find peace with herself and those around her. The long slow love story continues without any silly obstacles or bumps in the road, although in this book poor old Oakum (or Occum) is on his own journey back from death by fire in the previous book.
You need patience; the author takes her time here, but it’s well worth the patience. I did feel Tandy’s Lichtenberg lines were over mentioned – we were told about them several times as if for the first time, but that’s a very small niggle. Beautifully read as ever by Khristie Hvam, complete with Appalachian back woods accents when Nell drops into “church speak” and “dang nabbits”.
The storyline is a doozy, black magic, a powerful, old curse, a revenge served very cold, something very dark and awful, a new boss (courtesy of those missing Jane Yellowrock books I think), Mindy, the vampire tree that clearly sees itself as something very different, and powerful, blood-hungry Soulwood with its massive trees and deep, deep calm.
This is an excellent series by a competent author, who creates and develops strong female characters without emasculating the men around.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful