A Very Good Sci-Fi Colony Story

In the beginning of this book, Jonathan G Meyer presents the reader with a mystery. When Al Clark wakes up in a coffin-sized box without any memory for who he is or where he is, we follow him as he tries to figure these things out. This aspect of the story is my favorite; we discover things at the same time Al does. Later, after knowing Al is on a colony ship to another planet, the theme of Al discovering new things about himself and his new home continues throughout this first installment of the Al Clark series.

The book offers some suspense and action but is mostly about Al and the community of colonists trying to establish a home on a new world. The author has written a well thought out colonization story. His narrative is exactly how I imagine humans will spread out to other solar systems and begin anew on other planets. This installment is a solid start to the continuing story of Al Clark.

Timothy McKean does a great job with the characters' voices. The author's characterizations cone through during the conversations. He could have included a little more emotion to the exposition parts, but that did not detract from my enjoyment of the story. Overall, I was pleased with his performance.

I received a free review copy of this audiobook, at my request, and this is my voluntary opinion of it.

Recommended.

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Avalon A New Home

Al Clark: Book One
Author: Jonathan G. Meyer
Narrator: Timothy McKean

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this honest review.
I always like to preface any reviews I give with this information.
I am a 68 year old female who has been an avid reader since I was around 10 or 11 years old.
I read primarily for pleasure.
I have a great many interests and do a lot of research for personal pleasure and knowledge as well.

Review: This is a review of the Audiobook version of Al Clark: Book One

The protagonist One "Al Clark" comes to consciousness as he is having a dream that suddenly ends in darkness. He realizes upon fully awakening that he is enclosed in a box that is not much larger than he is.
After a couple of tries he is able to extricate himself from the box. Alarms are going off and he is unsure of where he is and what is going on.
His clothes, his surroundings; nothing is familiar to him. He doesn't even know his name.

Upon leaving the small room he was in, he sees a name Alvin, or Al something Clark on the door.
He has no prior memories of who or where he is. Upon some investigation he is able to find key cards, old fashioned keys, a weapon, food and water. After a meal and a drink he investigates further and realizes he is on a space ship and finds an area that has been damaged by a meteor strike and can't be accessed unless a person is wearing a spacesuit as that area is open to space and he can see the stars. No computers are working.

His key cards enable him to find different areas he can access.
In the course of further investigation, he finds a young man of 18 years, in another part of the ship. This young man, Chris, explains that his hyberpod malfunctioned and he has been on the ship alone, for around a year waiting for others to come out of hibernation.

During conversation Al explains to Chris that he doesn't know who he is and that nothing is familiar.

Chris has kept a journal since he has been conscious, with drawings of maps of the habitat ring of the ship, other observations, and feelings he has had while being aware, and alone on the ship.

Chris also explains to Al that they have been on a 30 year journey to a planet called Avalon to live there.
The earth had gradually become unlivable, and the Excalibur was the last ship of 4 starships that had been built and sent out to exoplanets in the "Goldilocks Zone."
The Excalibur crew, scientists, and colonists were all in hibernation and obviously something had gone wrong.

The two explore other parts of the ship since Al has the key cards to access them. They find the hydroponics area which has been taken care of by robots that have been growing fruit, vegetables, etc.

Since Chris' mother Liz, (an electrical engineer) is on board he wants to revive her. However there is a red light on, on her pod that Al is concerned about and doesn't feel that they should revive her. So they decide to revive a hyberpod technician who can revive a person correctly and safely. It turns out that the red light was on because the pods had been operating longer than they were meant to safely operate, and of the over 1000 people who were in stasis only 800 survived.

Once Liz is revived and capable, she is able to get the computers up and running but the sensors are not working. So they don't actually know where they are in space. By questioning the computer they realize they have been in space for 40 years.

Al still doesn't know who he is and after questioning the computer finds there is no information in the computer about him either.
Several other people are revived; a physician and another hyberpod technician.


When they go to revive the Captain, they see that he has red lights on his pod that indicate there is a problem with his heart. Once revived the captain has to have surgery and must take time to recover before he can safely return to work.
The Captain has Liz and Al work on successfully getting the sensors back online. Other crew, scientists, and colonists are revived.
After the captain opens the observation area with his key card, they realize they are in orbit of their destination, Avalon. They find out that they have been in orbit for a little over 10 years and that the revival circuits were disabled by someone, and that is why no one was revived on schedule.
Once repairs are made and the damaged shuttles are repaired; planetfall is scheduled.

Once planetfall is achieved, it is discovered that there are indigenous people on Avalon, and that the planet also has very aggressive dinosaurs.

If you want to know more, you will need to read, or listen to this story.

I really enjoyed this audiobook. In some ways Mr Meyer's writing made me think of the kind of Science Fiction I grew up reading. It was very enjoyable and the narrative style of writing also appealed to me very much.

One thing I will say, this story starts out very slowly. There is so much information the reader/listener needs to know to understand the story in it's entirety. It takes a while to build the momentum but once you reach that point in the story, you won't want to stop listening, or reading this great story.

This is my first experience with Jonathan G Meyer's writing, but it won't be my last.


Narrator: Timothy McKean
At the beginning of this audiobook, I found I had a little trouble getting into Timothy McKean's narration. He has a very pleasant, mellow voice and it took me a while to get used to how he performed the different characters. He did a great job of narrating this story and I would listen to other audiobooks narrated by him.

All in all, I believe this audiobook/book would appeal to anyone from the age of 12 and above.
This is a story I will listen to again. It is a very interesting story and I hope to see more of this story line. Perhaps an Al Clark: Book 2 ? I can only hope!

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Al Clarke

A tiny pinprick that causes light to enter his testing place is what wakes Al Clarke. When he manages to get out of the box he's in, he investigates his surroundings. He's on a space ship. He eventually find a young boy named Chris. The two of them continue the exploration of their surroundings. They awaken someone who helps them start to awaken the other people on the ship. The only downside is that Al doesn't remember who he is. This story follows his adventures in discovering who and what her is.
Timothy McKean is a fantastic narrator who embodies Al.
Fantastic audio and story

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1 person found this helpful

Dinosaurs in space!

So, 1000 people were specially selected to inhabit a planet 30 years away from earth. They were put to sleep and were to wake up at a certain time, but something went wrong! A man wakes up but has no recollection of who he is or what he is supposed to do. On his door is the name Al Clark, so he adopts that as his own name. Al meets someone who is awake and finds that something has gone wrong and they were asleep too long. They try to wake everyone else, but some of the people have died in their sleep. With the rest of the people awake, they continue to the planet they were supposed to inhabit. What they find there is equally fascinating for them as it is dangerous, because the planet is already inhabited by people, but also something else...

I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed this! It was different than what I thought and captured my attention right from the start. I mean, there's dinosaurs in space!! How cool is that, and for that fact alone, this is worth the read :)

The plot of this played out nicely. It isn't by any means very fast paced, but it had a steady pace that kept me reading. Figuring out who Al Clark is and what happened on the ship was great, but when you added in the fact that they are trying to colonise a new planet and having to deal with the locals, as well as dinosaurs, well it just made for an entertaining read.

I liked all the characters too. Al Clark is mysterious, but when you started to see who he was, it made me like him all the more! I also liked the natives of the planet and hope to see more of them in the next book.

In all, this is an easy to follow sci fi book and I'm looking forward to the next one. The new planet is fascinating and with Al finally figuring some things out, it's made me excited for the next installment.

Timothy McKean did a good job with this. He was clear and easy to follow and had enough tones and voices to differentiate the characters, I just found that I wanted a little more from his performance for it to be a 5 star one. I wanted him to put more emotion behind the reading, to really make it come alive! I mean, he read the part where the dinosaurs attack rather blandly. e could have put more oomph behind his reading and it would have been better.

I was given this audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review. This in no way affected nor influenced my thoughts.

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6 people found this helpful

Loved it!

I really liked this book! It's fast paced and action packed. The narrator is great.

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Creative, interesting but predictable story

Very creative story. I can't wait to listen/read the next one. That being said, the story is very predictable(with a twist).
The narrator does an adequate job - doesn't add anything to the excitement but certainly doesn't take anything away. I will gladly listen to him when they get around to recording the second book.
"This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review."

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1 person found this helpful

Confused colonist

This is a story of the settlement of a new planet, told from the point of view of the security chief, who has amnesia. It is an entertaining and fast moving story. If you like basic, uncomplicated science fiction, this is your book. I enjoyed it!

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1 person found this helpful

Easy, uncomplicated listen

This is the first book I’ve read/listened to by this author and I would listen to another. I am curious how this series will continue. This book had quite a lot going on. It is entertaining, uncomplicated, and has a fast pace without a lot of extra details. The dinosaur thread feels almost incomplete, but I’m guessing it’s because we hear more about them in the next book(s). The book ends with a conclusion and about a year summarized. It does not make it obvious where the next book will pick up.

Al is the second passenger to awaken. The survivors of the starship learn someone sabotaged their ship and they have been in space, asleep, for 30 years longer than planned. Eventually making their way to the planet’s surface, they find there are people already living there. There are also dinosaurs. Al has amnesia yet circumstances bring some of his history to light.

This is the first book I’ve listened to by this narrator ( Timothy McKean ) and I would listen to another. He does not vary his narration/cadence much, so he falls between reading versus performing the story, yet I still think he did well with this story. He has very little differentiation between some characters, (Elizabeth / Al / Captain / Chris) and uses accents to differentiate others. His female characters are natural.

There are no explicit sex scenes, excessive violence or swearing.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and voluntarily left this unbiased review.
Please feel free to comment on whether you found my review helpful.

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good start to a series

I received a free copy of this book in return for an unbiased review.

This book started off very strong. This was in fact the very reason why I decided to listen to this book. The beginning had me hooked. Both the writing and the narration kept me in suspense as the story as to who Al Clark was and where as well as why he was where he was.
I would say this book started off very much like M.R Frobes forgotten series and slowly morphed into something similar to the movie Avatar (closest comparison I can think of). Definitely a shift between the two settings, and while a decent transition, may not appeal to everyone. This was the main reason I gave it four out of five stars. While I did enjoy both aspects of the story, I would have definitely liked the first half to last a bit longer. Overall enjoyable story with some memorable characters. The narrator does a wonderful job (first time listening to this narrator) and does a good job of differentiating between characters. Definitely a fun light read and very much not hard SciFi. If such stories appeal to you then this story may as well. Great job by whomever chose the passage for the sample as I was hooked when listening to it!

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1 person found this helpful

Good solid Sci-Fi

Good solid Sci-Fi. A great take on the colony ship idea, the author has created many interesting characters and a hero that is to say the least different. My favourite character is the robot who keeps saying "sorry".
Book one in the title tells us that there will be a book 2 and I'm really pleased about that - can't wait for book 2.
Timothy McKean's narration is smooth and seamless, it makes the book very easy listening.
I received a free copy of this audio book at my own request and voluntarily leave this review.

A great sci fi read, highly recommend it.

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1 person found this helpful