John

Time travel story that was had to follow

Revisado: 10-10-24

I still don't understand what happened. A non linear approach to story telling that was interesting but not cohesive in delivery.

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Ruined by changing narrators

Revisado: 09-11-23

The story is good enough to keep my interest buy WHY - WHY change the narrator?

The new one is not so much a bad reader, although the previous one did the characters better, but just not a good fit for this story. I might buy this book again if the old reader re-read the last two books

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Existential BS of a premise

Revisado: 04-24-19

Can’t finish as the pseudo theological assault on faith makes presumptions that are even harder to believe than I can bear to fill my mind with.

The first book was ok but this one is offensive to the intellect. It’s not fun, it’s rehashed new age dogma.

Not my thing.

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Great end to the trilogy with one issue for me

Revisado: 04-18-19

Great end to the trilogy with one issue for me. I liked the series overall.

I like the “edgier” writing from Mr. Winslow. It’s not everyone’s choice, but as long as the harder stuff; the drugs, the sex and the language is not merely gratuitous, if it is part of the story that fits the genre, I am ok with that.

Ray Porter “is this series”. I can’t imagine anyone else narrating it. I very much appreciate him remaining the narrator for all three books of this series. Ray Porter is one of my very favorite narrators of all time. If it’s a genre I like and Ray is reading it, I will give it a shot no problem.

Back to the story and Mr. Winslow’s approach to this series. Mr. Winslow is a really good writer. He sets up the scene vividly without laboringly doing so. He gives plenty of writing queues to a narrator or, ever a reader to construct a seamless rendering of the story in your mind. Characters are well developed and I felt like I “knew who each character was“ from his writing. That’s the part I like.

I do have a personal opinion about something he did in this last book though. I totally support someone’s right to their political opinions, but the way Mr. Winslow made his politics part of the story in a covert manner, using different names, but clearly directed at the current administration, made that part of the story feel disingenuous for me. That part of his writing was a back handed treatment of some misrepresented so called “facts”.

By masking the names of the players involved, he created a “blind” behind what felt like an excuse to say whatever he wanted about the politics and people he was referring to without true ownership. You didn't know where the facts ended and the fiction began. So, “because it was a story” he could say whatever he wanted and not have to substantiate anything. You never know what was a parallel to something that might be true and what was pure fiction posing as “possible facts”. It was so unsettling it detracted from the story for me in this third installment of the series.

Of course, this is Mr. Winslow’s prerogative as the author, but he lost respect of his point of view from me by writing this way. It felt more like cheap shots when done in this manner. It detracted from the quality of the story for me.

Again, Mr. Winslow is a really good writer and teamed up with Ray Porter to narrate for this series, if you like edgy content, this may be your kind or entertainment.

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Excellent Story read by a very talented narrator

Revisado: 10-26-18

Straight to the point, I agree with the majority of the other reviews on this one. New author for me as well as the narrator.

I think listeners who enjoy tech about computers and mostly plausible SciFi, would enjoy this book. It is what I would call a more thinking man's SciFi rather than a "Space Opera".

Well crafted writing combined with a very versatile collection of voices.

One little minor thought was I am not sure what the narrator's actual voice is here. If he were to default to that in an obvious way for when he was surely narrating and not performing one of the many characters in the story, it would have provided a bit more foundation for me as a listener. I did find myself asking if this was narration or a character at a few points along the way. I had to ask myself if there were more than one narrator often. It was like the "narrators" were multiple characters as part of the story - if that makes any sense. But overall, the voice acting is very broad and rich. I am going to look for other books read by MacLeod Andrews now.

I am not sure if Mr. Ledbetter is writing a sequel to this work or not, but I would be interested in more content that would logically take place after the ending of this work. I am carefully avoiding any spoilers here :)

Thank you for an excellent read!

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If you want to hear music, try iTunes

Revisado: 09-11-18

I am so very disappointed! I love Mr. Connelly's work. I am dumbfounded at the production decision to put music in the background, not just in the opening of the book, or maybe a short bit at the beginning of a chapter, but throughout the dialogue.

I lay responsibility mostly at the fault of the producer on this one, but I am stunned Mr. Connelly signed off on this decision. This is not television or a movie - it's an audio book.

I would suggest they re-release this project without the background music track and offer it free to those who in good faith pre-purchased this book.

We buy audio books for the reading. If we want music, we can provide that ourselves. I am a musician so music has a separate "story" for my ears.

This is so distracting I am having a very difficult time following the story. In the back of my mind I am thinking... Wondering... Did they finally stop playing the background music... Nope - there it is again. VERY hard to concentrate on the story. Ruins the work for me.

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Flat, Thin, and lacks a dynamic heart

Revisado: 09-07-18

Ok, I am almost to the end of the third book now and I likely will not continue with the next one.

Why you ask?

This series could easily be condensed into maybe two books? There is so much “Military” filler and very little story for the money.

The reader although not as bad as many, has a very narrow dynamic character range. He also, (this is also the producer’s fault), miss-pronounces many words and sometimes with catastrophic results.

Example: I live in Japan so I know – the name is pronounced “Oh he row” (roll the r into a slight “l” as you say it but NOT “Oh hear oh” – Please! Do a bit of research before you decide on how to say words - especially when they are foreign words.

Example: It’s pronounced “Par-leigh” not “Parlee”

And the name of the main ship in the series is “Thesis” – means approximately “from / of god” but when you slip and say it “Fecius” – well that just a “s**t*” mistake. Slow down and edit producers!

Unfortunately I must agree with other reviewers that the storyline is very shallow. The exploration of social space issues is thin and not well developed – or not deep enough that I want to care enough? And as others have said, this story moves SO SLOW!

The reader, again not totally bad, but along with the weak storyline filled with all this military conversation at the cost of other more compelling potiential, gives the work what I would say is minimal on “heart”. I’m not compelled to care about the characters very much and I am tired with all the over explained (over and over again) military tech.

Lastly, I don’t review “all” the books I read but this series, I feel I have an obligation to warn people about what they are getting into. Some like this kind of thing, but this type of writing and presentation is not a compelling listen for me.

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Surprisingly Better Than I Expected

Revisado: 06-05-18

The aforementioned (by other reviewers) grittiness and deep dark world of a New York cop is so honestly believable that the sometimes course nature of the writing never seemed gratuitous to me.

Dion Gram's audio sample offered by Audible for this book did not do his ability to portray all the characters of a wide range of ethnic backgrounds justice. I truly enjoyed the wonderful talent of this reader!

Don Winslow's writing is on par with his other writing and in my opinion, is of the expected high quality of poignant realism.

I don't in my busy schedule, frankly have time to review every book I listen to. This work was so good I wanted to play forward with my recommendation to others. Between the reader and the story, this book was more than worth my time to review. What an awesome combination of professional skill sets.

My only caution is that if the use of profanity, adult themes of a graphic noir police story is not what you are looking for, this book may not be for you. If you have liked other Don Winslow works, this one should be a great listen for you.

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I agree with many of the other reviewers

Revisado: 05-26-18

The story was enjoyable enough, but was not on par with other works by the same author.

Will's voice characterizations (or lack there of), did indeed make the story confusing and hard to follow at times. Will is an actor and should be able to provide more differentiation of the characters than he does.

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Just interesting enough

Revisado: 02-16-18

Look at all this awards! I am wondering why though. Yes it's an interesting premise and in general the writing is good. It's the level of SciFi, character development and mystery I usually enjoy.

Where this one labors is the story moves a bit slow (for me) and didn't reach a real strong build to the end as I had hoped. There was a lot of redundancy of stating the same details over and over that if omitted, (some editing maybe), would have made the story shorter which in this case, would help with some of the lag issues I was feeling while listening to the book. I would say the writing could have been more concise.

Yeah, you have to read (listen to) the next one to get the "whole story". I will listen to it and give it a try I guess. It's like I said in my title, "Just interesting enough" but in my opinion with some editing out of some of the redundancy, it might be a better book. Move the points along quicker please. Use the space for more character and premise detail and development.

The narrator was new for me. Good characterizations and his French characterizations felt authentic to my untrained ear. That is challenging to pull off sometimes. It seemed, (maybe my lack of knowing the true pronunciations), that a couple French words spoken as English were possibly mispronounced. Just a little detail that caught my attention. Not any kind of show stopper. Maybe my ear is "too American"?

I'm am hoping the next book is better because I am invested in the story now.

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