Art-Aholic

A Radio Play That Has Fangs

Revisado: 02-05-23

For it's short runtime it does achieve an engaging narrative and setup for a potential series. Would want to see what the future holds for these characters if a follow up is in the cards.

Cast was distinct and all did a great job.

Those who approach it like a typical audiobook might find it lacking, just go with the flow.

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Grounded Steampunk Warfare

Revisado: 07-08-21 El oyente recibió este título gratis

*This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review. All thoughts below are fully my own.*

As the book begins we meet the major character of our story Jacob the smuggler. We've seen this before a, fateful encounter with the Resistance group who apposes the "devil" race in human form The Regime. But unlike those other stories, this isn't an easy world and that doesn't make for easy going people. There's history of loss and pain that is palpable from early on. There's grit here and it won't be an easy journey for Jacob or the rest of the resistance members.

I really enjoyed my time with the full cast in these first 3 books (first half of the series).

Too many times an author creates a character that can easily conquer the challenges in his way. Jacob isn't that at all, he isn't a master gunslinger or exceptionally strong. More then once he wrestles a devil and as they are naturally stronger then a normal human he comes out beaten and bruised. He has his vice and we see that as a driving force early on. We also see the change in him by the end of the 3rd book.

Whistler, General Rommond, and Taberah are all very themselves very different and distinct. We don't always always see the story from Jacobs POV and that was a good decision as other characters become more fleshed out and realized. We see the turmoil they don't easily show to others. Rammond for example when we first meet him is a model military man, demands his soldiers to be dressed and fit when on duty at all times. He could just be the hard ass commander but not here, why he's reserved when it comes to offensive operations against the Regime compared to Taberah makes sense during the later parts of the story.

On the point of pacing and story development. Each part of the story is named and headlined by a set piece of machinery. Each book has a dramatic climax but still have different goals in mind. Book 2 is where a large focus is on the characters and their pasts, some might think this as too much downtime and unexciting. I felt it was worth it overall as not fleshing out your characters could easily hurt it when the dramatic bits arrive.

The series is only half way done and there feels like there's so much more to explore and accomplish. I'm excited to see the rest.

CJ Bray does an fantastic job here, really brought the world and characters to life.

I will be exploring Dean F. Wilson's other books like his Coil Hunter Chronicle series.

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Engaging Space Story + Math Problems

Revisado: 06-11-21

The whole book went by in a flash. Once the main story gets going it's tough to put down. Interesting audio production dealing with a certain aspect of the book, i'm sure it's a different experience in text form. That was a great decision and definitely improved the overall performance. There's this whole kerfuffle about the Narrator not being the same as in The Martian. I can easily say that Ray Porter did an exceptional job in narrating this. I'll keep my ear out for other titles featuring him. No major issues to come to mind so that's another reason I highly rated this.

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Establishes A Few Bits of Interesting Sci-fi

Revisado: 05-22-19 El oyente recibió este título gratis

*This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review.*

With an under a 3 hour run-time this short story created a light fun earth tour ride involving a spoiled princess with the universe ending exploding power. I went in knowing it wasn't going to have enough time to fully flesh out the characters story arc but I still highly enjoyed it. There's 30+ short chapters that move the story along, world build, or simply develop one of the few characters. The tone was never overly serious and that was the right choice here. You have characters easily cursing like sailors and those humorous as intended.

Our Cast:
Our MC Guillermo is a cool collected experienced handler that typically deals with spoiled rich kids but he seems to be able to handle himself in all kinds of situations. He's cool headed UNTIL he meets our red skinned princess.

Kaiveli - The princess is spoiled, demanding, and short tempered. Her meeting someone like Guillermo who stands up to her but also tries to please her gives her pause to change even just a bit. Her rendition on the front cover instantly grabbed me.

Teddy - You have snarky AI's in a lot of Sci-fi stories but Teddy is upfront murderous. The contrast of a teddy bear to a outright hostile princess protector was a nice touch. You can see the change in his attitude towards Guillermo in the last bit, growth is there but light. Teddy grew on me quickly.

Narration: Shannon Vendemmia did a good job with distinct voices for enough of the characters. This is always an important factor in narration and I'm glad in how it was handled. Clean and easily understandable.

Everything happens lightning quick so as long as you keep that in mind I could see you enjoying this bite size short. Strong language and one adult situation.

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Grounded Future Sex-Bot Detective Thriller

Revisado: 05-08-19

*This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review.*

I really enjoy the cyberpunk/futuristic setting and this book while not far future cyber future the glimpse into what technology that's used here seems like a real possibility for us in our future.

As the book begins and our bachelor detective Zach is introduced I got the feeling I was going to have a good time enjoying his story. He's a well meaning guy with a tendency to be snarky to anyone who deserves it. For a mystery/thriller story that gets quite dark at times it still has it's comedic moments, many coming from his personal assistant AI Andy. She's not a very advanced AI so her human common sense is very elementary to say the least. This at times leads to her being a bit overbearing to taking actions that are distraughtful to our lead and gives him some anxiety. I liked her a lot.

The whole story revolves around one major case, the mystery was done well. I was guessing how the crimes were being committed it kept the details under wraps until the last quarter of the book. Other story points I saw coming as they are common in these detective stories but the resolution impact was still impactful. The crime scenes are explained in quite gruesome detail so be prepared for some bits that might make you feel unsettled. I'm glad it didn't shy away from those bits as it made it feel like a real crime happened in these places. If there's a bit of the story that didn't quite flow great for me it was the final arc once the perp is revealed, everything starts happening a bit too quickly. Guess i wanted more of a cat and mouse with the mastermind. Not to down play the last few chapters as it has a firecracker of an action bit.

The narration performance was good for me, Daniel Penz did a good job of differentiated each character. There was good use of sound fx and dramatic delivery, for example when Zach was tired it was pronounced accordingly.

As of this writing there's one more book in the series already out and I definitely want to dive back into this world again. I want to see how one thing in the end of this book plays out in the next.

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A Solid US Post Apocalyptic Tale

Revisado: 04-30-19

*This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review.*

When I first started this story I kept waiting for zombies all due to how condition I am to expect them in the majority of post apocalypse downfall stories I've read. Once I quickly got over that I started to get a feel for our main lead and by the end I can say that I do like him. As the cast grows I did find a few more characters that were interesting but there are also a batch that are named but not fleshed out enough for me to really feel like I knew them. The main focus is the MC and his very close friend.

The book is written as a story being told aby an older MC, this kind of works early on but as the story continues I honestly kept forgetting this was even the case until it's referenced as past events. Doesn't detract from the overall story.

I found the cause and explanation of the downfall of the US to be believable enough to find it unsettling. The subsequent invasion by the enemy army not so much.

Narration was solid as well, the characters that mattered had enough of a distinct voice to them that I could for the most part follow who was speaking. Narration was clear and I never had issue understanding what was being said.

Book 3 was the most entertaining book of the lot. All three had tense moments throughout and was looking forward to what happened next.

Books one and two end pretty abruptly but fortunately this bundle lets you continue right on to the next chapter. This three episode set is nicely compiled to give you an open ended conclusion if you decide to stop here. I'm sure I will pick up the next set of books in the future.

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