A confusing tale about space and life
3 out of 5 stars
I couldn’t tell what this book was supposed to be about. Was it about how bad a class system is? Or about long/eternal life? Or about crushing someone’s dreams and crippling depression? I honestly don’t know. All of these elements were in this story, but I couldn’t get one singular direction from the whole thing.
Maria Hunter Welles narrates The Settlers and does a pretty nice job. She tried to give each person a new voice and succeeds in most areas. I had a few small problems with her narration. One, there was background noise/buzzing in the background of the recording. Probably due to being recorded at home without good sound blocking equipment (I know, it’s not cheap). Two, the voices were either really good or really bad. Some of the accents and areas were awesome, while others fell really short/flat. The one thing I will give her is that you could definitely feel the emotion in her delivery. At one point in the story, she gets so into it, you forget that you’re listening to an audiobook and not someone’s diary or something like that.
I feel bad, I had some high hopes for this. I believe I grabbed the book for free (it’s still free on Amazon) and then paid the $1.99 for the audiobook from Audible. I love a great deal. But this just fell flat for me. If the author could have picked one direction OR done a better job of differentiating the story into different parts relating to the different issues going on with this space station I think it would have been a home run.
I almost gave up on this a few times. It just felt lost. But, I stuck it out and I ended up enjoying it somewhat. I’m not sure I will continue the series, though.
Book Description:
The Settlers by Jason Gurley
Narrator: Maria Hunter Welles
Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
Series: Movement #1
Published by Self Published on June 10, 2014
Genres: Science Fiction
Format: Audiobook
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Earth is on the brink of ruin. Great storms destroy cities. Rising seas reshape the continents. Afraid for its survival, mankind constructs a fleet of space stations in orbit, and steps off-world. Among the humans fighting for their future are Micah Sparrow, a widower who uncovers a plot to return mankind to the dark ages; Tasneem Kyoh, who undergoes life-extension treatments and begins the search for humanity's next home; and David Dewbury, a prodigy who believes he knows where that home might be. But in space, the rules aren't the only things that have changed. Man himself has changed, and with the Earth in tatters behind him, man turns his attention to the one thing left to destroy: himself. The Settlers is the explosive first book in Jason Gurley's Movement Trilogy, the epic story of man's small step into space, and the great leaps humanity must make to save its own future.
©2013 Jason Gurley (P)2014 Maria Hunter Welles
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Don’t you just hate a book that goes like that!! I always find it hard to finish a book that is confusing.
If it was separated into a bunch of short stories in the same universe, it would have been a little more enjoyable.