J.Z. Watkins

It was awesome!

Revisado: 03-17-20

The writing captures the flavor of both Starfleet and the Federation that I had grown to love when I first fell for it. Hopeful, yet room to grow, not perfect, but not bleak like the modern interpretations of Trek. It was also one of the most positive examples of the Prime Directive that I have seen in years. Normally, the Directive is presented as a straightjacket at best, too extreme dogma to be obeyed at worst. This captures its intended purpose and that made sense. Mr.. Cox did an outstanding job with the plot and the subplots, each was interesting and didn't distract from each other. Mr. Petkoff did outstanding job reading the story, with his voices, accents, inflections, even mood. I was really caught up listening to it. This is a story I will be revisiting and expect to be one of my favorites in times to come. I thank them (and the whole audio crew) for writing and making it available to enjoy.

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A Fine Finish

Revisado: 02-15-20

Another wonderful reading by Mr. Petkoff with a story that provided a fine ending to this trilogy. I applaud not taking the expected paths, for the most part with the ending and making use of all the elements and characters introduced. At first look it appeared that the extras were provided for background flavor, but everyone had their part to play. While there were a few disappointments, none of them had to do with either story and, of course, performance, merely choices I wish had gone another route. Although these were few and with one, I can see the more dramatic turn was the exciting choice, instead of a satisfying choice, the other, it felt like it was added simply for the sake that someone had to pay a price, yet I was pleasantly surprised it was only one. This was not a story with a body count, because someone felt there had to be a body count. Overall, I enjoyed it, especially the wrap up, with Starfleet and the Federation being the Starfleet and Federation I grew up admiring since I first enjoyed Star trek back when it began. Characters that were easy to invest in and a setting to love with a story that provided a framework to enjoy them with were all found in this end of the Legacies trilogy.

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Fantastic Momentum

Revisado: 01-14-20

Usually the second in a series either equals or all too often falls from the expectations generated from the first, this is one of those wonderful exceptions that exceeded its previous, first book. There wasn't a point I thought too drawn out or asked myself, why was that there, just a good pacing of events, characters that came across faithful to themselves and how they reacted to events. The performance was again fantastic, I found myself wishing Mr. Petkoff would go back to previous books and be the reader to them. Each character, and not just the main cast, was so wonderfully portrayed with narration that conveyed moods from tension to sadness to happiness and relief. From writing to performance, Mack and Petkoff deliver an engaging and delightful experience that takes the mind to the place of Trek with the kind of story I completely enjoyed.

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A Fine Beginning

Revisado: 12-16-19

Wonderful performance by Mr. Petkoff with each character distinctive and delightfully portrayed. A fine story that at times seem to be dotted with fillers that appear to be pointless, these elements all came together near the end to show they had a point. A nice use of flashback to the days of Captain April instilled an interest in that crew of the Enterprise as well as the subsequent crews to the current. Overall a fine listening experience.

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Got it Right!

Revisado: 12-14-19

Both author and narrator fully captures the feel of classic Star Trek, from character portrayal to discovering and experiencing wonder to bringing people together, this had the essence of all I loved about Star trek the original series. There were also a few nuggets of both the past, trivia wise and future, that were treats to fans but wouldn't lose someone new. It was a rewarding and wonderful listening experience.

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A Welcomed and enjoyable experience

Revisado: 06-29-19

In a sea of sci fi settings that often focus on the technological, this one is a refreshing change by retaining the spiritual side of humanity. It isn't the central focus of the plot, just a part of the setting where so many others treat the subject with extremes at both ends of the acceptance/rejection spectrum. The story itself was entertaining and engaging, from a strong female lead to a wonderful supporting cast, Ken and Ben, both the AI and the character who adopts the name later in the story, are my favorite. I would go into reasons why, but listing them would head into spoiler country. There is tech for those who like to geek out over it, like me, action, with vast battles in space, meeting strange new civilizations, touching on the different types of alien life forms (not just the suits or prosthetics added types), the 'risk all' taking chances to win, and not just a fight, but winning over that new life and new civilizations. It also wraps up the plot nicely by the end, while at the same time leaving open other stories that could be told in this wonderful setting with the character who informally is called Cat. Alexis does a wonderful job reading this story, the inclusions of accents were well done, enough so I wish some minor characters with specific ones were around longer in the story just to hear more. For some characters the voice used for them were so distinctive, I knew immediately who was talking without the 'he said' or 'she said' that names the speaker. All in all, a wonderful experience that I shall definitely repeat listening to this first chronicle of Catherine Kimbridge.

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Won Over!

Revisado: 08-28-17

I'm normally not one for murder mysteries, but Miss Emily won me over with her cast of characters that made the mystery something they did. I fell in love with the series years ago and now I had the pleasure of enjoying Miss Lindy's marvelous narration, bringing each character to life in a different way than what I had in my head from reading the book. I say different, but it was only with accents, otherwise, she read them pretty much as I pictured them in my mind.

The cast has a nice family feel to them, who care about each other and make their own unique contributions to solving the mystery. I loved the book series and look forward to hearing the rest of the audio book series. I'm glad I found the audio books, they are a wish come true as the print book series had been.

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Loved it!

Revisado: 07-11-16

This addition to the saga was a wonderful ride from beginning to end, it addressed a problem I felt the series had for a very long time, it not only continued with exciting space battles, but it made exploration and discovery exciting. That was a huge bonus to the military sci-fi elements of the story.

I also loved how the characters were able to come to the rescue like old school cavalry and had a few fights that were decidedly not fair (I'm not a fan of a fair fight,), it was nice to read some uncontested wins, but for those who want the struggle, don't worry, plenty of that there. I don't think you can have a military sci-fi story without the struggle of some kind and this story does not fail in that respect.

The stakes are as high as ever and the book ends on a truly epic note.

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Big ideas continue

Revisado: 07-10-16

Another entertaining addition to the ongoing story with fantastic reading, and fine writing. The battles were exciting as well as the sense of building, improving, and character lives continued in the backdrop of the dangers.

Usual gripe, the wait to use the human-AIs as the last resort remains, but by this many books in the series I should just shut up and accept that's the way it is going to be. It might be a military sci-fi genre thing, its about human lives lost as the price of war, the use of fighters instead of drones.

I am curious if any more human-AIs will ever be made. In Alien Contact, 6 were mentioned, but the other 4 were never heard of, so I presumed never made, but were in planning. Now centuries later, isn't it about time to add to the effective population of 2 of the human-AIs, especially since more alien AIs, who themselves admitted they are inferior, are increasing their populations. Oh and here might be a twist, a Careth-AI.

Love the expansive ideas, as much as I gripe about AIs, Mr. Weil continues to mix in concepts that make his stories different than the usual stock and trade space fleet sagas, orbital habitats in the earlier series to escalating with megastructures here as well as touch on theories of hyperspace travel and dark matter. Its a geek's pleasure to read.

Looking forward to the next book.

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Fantastic!

Revisado: 07-03-16

Great performance by Mr. Owen to go along with a nice story by Mr. Weil. Exciting battles, nice pacing, both fed the space sci-fi need in me. I was also glad to see nice 'epilogues' of former main characters, often a series kills them off, but here it was satisfying to read how Amanda and Hedon were settling down and enjoying life. It was a brief mention, but it was good to see that out of the limelight doesn't mean forgotten.

My only frustration was the usual, the let's wait until the last moment and then pull out our best weapon. It's like Voltron and form blazing sword, always at the end, instead of the opening move. Why always wait until you're losing and then turn the ship over to Carissa or Ariel, when you know they can kick tail better and faster. Rant over.

All in all the new series is exciting and picks up on wonderful character moments if you've kept up with the series, great battles, new tech, continued galactic political development with the other former proxy races , helping former slave races, committing to freeing the rest, its very grand, heroic and epic. I look forward to the rest of the series.

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