Jesse

Just bad

Revisado: 07-24-23

Stupidly bad. An American Retired special forces dude (Delta Force apparently) happens upon a murder on a rural Australian road. Kills the bad guys with little to no effort and then proceeds to clean up the small town he walks over 100km to get to. It just makes no sense. Save your credit there are better spy/military thrillers out there.

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Excellent!

Revisado: 03-20-23

Hunter carefully crafts this story and Bob Lee Swagger’s legend. He had me hanging on every chapter. I do have a couple of Marine Corps nits to pick though. When telling about Bob Lee’s ambush in Vietnam where his spotter Donnie gets killed he has Swagger yelling for “Medic!” That’s an Army term and would never be used by Marines. We say “Corpsman!” or “Corpsman Up!” as Navy Hospital Corpsmen serve as our field medics. The other not is when Bob Lee is go8ng through his fathers shoebox of mementos and he sees the Medal Of Honor for the first time along with a “Distinguished Service Cross”. A DSC is the service cross awarded by the Army. It is the second highest award for valor next to the MOH. In the Navy and Marines it is called the Navy Cross and has distinctly different ribbon. Other than that Hunter gets the Marine Corps spot on.

Progressive liberals will take umbrage at the liberal use of the “N-word” and its variations. It depicts a different time in the south when awareness of civil rights and treatment of black Americans was just beginning to take hold. That’s the way people talked back then and that’s the way blacks were treated - as second class citizens. If you can’t stand to hear the word uttered by a white character then you’ll probably want to take a pass on this book. In addition there’s a lot of generic cussing going on too.

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I tried …

Revisado: 06-05-22

First off, the narration is by a British woman. Her voices are almost indistinguishable from each other. I can’t tell if the character is male or female half the time. Her delivery is just awful. Very hard to follow the dialog. I’ve listened to other British narrators like Steven Brand and John Lee and they were a delight to listen to but this narrator just complete.y turned me off.

Then there’s the story. Maybe because I found the narration so poor I was unable to grasp what was going on but whatever it was I didn’t find it the least bit interesting. A generation spaceship heading for a new earth like planet that apparently is already inhabited. Everyone wants to earn “minutes” of hyper sleep so they’ll stay young enough to colonize this new world. This because there weren’t enough sleep chambers for everyone except the rich. But the trip is decades still to go so I don’t get the minutes angle. In any case I threw in the towel after about 5-6 hours in. Just couldn’t maintain any interest and the narration made it worse. Save your credit and find something with a known excellent narrator.

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And the saga continues

Revisado: 04-09-22

The story moves along as the survivors contend with restarting civilization while being threatened by humans who have become monstrous. And the age old question of murder vs justifiable homicide.
I have a few quibbles about the dialog and the delivery by Ann Lentino but overall it’s a worthy performance and a well thought out plot with some surprises. I will be getting the next book in the series.

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Above average Post Apocalyptic story

Revisado: 04-05-22

UPDATE:

Folks, I am 7 or 8 hours into Troop of Shadows. I was reluctant to take on a post apocalyptic audio series narrated by a female. Let me tell you how wrong I was. Ann Lentino is just absolutely excellent. After the first hour I no longer thought about the narrator, she’s just that good. And that’s a mark of excellence when you no longer notice the narrator. A previous reviewer called Lentino “awful”. Man , I don’t know how high your bar is but it must be in outer space somewhere. Lentino is a great narrator.

Nicki Huntsman Smith has crafted an engrossing tale of the survivors of an extinction level pandemic trying to find a place to rebuild. Granted, all the major post apocalyptic tropes are present but she does it so well that you’re drawn into the story of each group of survivors. I’ve read so many post apocalyptic novels that most of them bore me now. Not this one. I’ll be buying the next one in the series and if the writing (and narration) continues at this level of excellence I’ll get them all.

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Excellent

Revisado: 01-11-22

The Exforce has RC Bray and Skippy. Andy Weir’s Grace has Ray Porter and Rocky. What an adventure. Well done Andy.

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A not bad first contact novel

Revisado: 07-14-21

As these things go this wasn’t too bad. A fairly green Lieutenant gets thrust into a command of an old freighter after aliens destroy his ship for apparently no reason. His second in command mutinies but he is saved by the Marines and from there the adventure begins. Ancient artifacts, a pirate who turns to the good side, implacable aliens and new technology that the Terran Union must have all falling on acting Lt Commander Samson’s shoulders.

Some minor nits: Samson’s voice sounds much too mature (and upper crust British even though he says he grew up in a lower class neighborhood) for a fresh young Lieutenant. He repeats himself too much. He lets the mutineers off being shot but then gives them responsibility while saying he still doesn’t trust them. Scott Aiello does a workman like job so no real complaints about the narration. He’s good.

I give it 4 stars across the board and I’ll get the next one in the series.

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A chilling story

Revisado: 03-16-21

That explains a lot about Cork O’Connor’s mindset and values. A mystery wrapped in an enigma that ultimately provides a satisfactory conclusion. I think you’ll like this one.

David Chandler is excellent as usual. I’m so used to listening to him narrate CJ Box’s Joe Picket stories that at first i was almost waiting for him to say “yup” as a reply to a question as Joe Pickett often does. But it’s clear Cork O’Connor is not Joe Pickett although they appear to,share many similarities. Would not mind seeing a collaboration where the two team up to solve a mystery together.

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Another Joe Pickett nail biter

Revisado: 03-08-21

Joe and Nate have gotten themselves into another dire situation and the action and suspense is as good as anything CJ has given us to date. And the ending, while satisfying for Joe sets us up for the book focusing on Nate’s retribution.

Chandler is his usual outstanding self. Can’t imagine anyone else narrating a Joe Pickett novel.

If you’re a Joe Pickett fan, you won’t want to miss this one.

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Just awful

Revisado: 03-02-21

First let me say that offering a “publishers pack” of the first two books totaling a little over 11 hours is not giving us anything. A normal “audiobook” is around 10+ hours anyway so you’re not getting a great deal. I hate that this is the way of publishing these days with a lot of authors.

So on to my review: our protagonist goes from being a new age cop who hesitates to shoot a crazed druggie who is shooting at him to a bloodthirsty soldier on a hot as hell planet filled with deadly creatures. He gets captured by the aliens, who are human in form, tortured to within a millimeter of his life and them miraculously jumps up, overpowers his guards and escapes with the other inmates in a stolen ship. And let’s not talk about the military nomenclature. Ok let’s. They’re fighting for their lives and refer to reloading their rifles with cartridges when it’s clear they mean magazines full of cartridges. No seriously, the soldiers say they are swapping out cartridges. One time, I could let it go as an editing mistake but numerous times over a couple of chapters? Then later, after going back in time, they are inventoring their weapons and correctly talk about rifles with magazines.

The military jargon is like something out of a computer game.

So, back in time to try and change history. Earth humans have figured out time travel. It’s supposed to be secret. They go back as a team and lo and behold the evil alien torturer is also there. No explanation.

This whole story at least up to this point is implausible and the storyline is very poorly executed. I’m not going to waste my time with the rest of it. Two words. It sucks. I don’t return books on audible but I’m tempted this time.

Bronson Pinchot is, well, Bronson Pinchot. I personally don’t care for his narration in general. Some people do.

My advice is save your credits. Not worth it.

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