Landry Stanton is kind of your generic everyman at the start of this story, however, that changed pretty quickly as things go awry very quickly for him. He is a mechanic that works on all manner of craft for the base he lives at. One of my favorite aspects of this book was the pacing, it never felt slow, nor did it feel rushed. Landry is going out on what seems like a routine run to the wastelands of Procyon 1 (Also known as Proc, Proc Rock, and Proc 1) with his pilot friend. It quickly goes wrong and all of a sudden, Landry has to figure out how to survive in the harsh wilds of Proc Rock without any support systems, or communication with the base.

A little bit of history here, there has been a war going on between the “Argoni” and humans for roughly 17 years. The Argoni are these big, nimble, linebacker-sized aliens that ruthlessly slaughter and torture humans that they come in to contact with and Landry has just found himself stuck in the wastes with an Argoni.

I was honestly expecting a kind of “The Martian” meets “Aliens” kind of thing and I was pleasantly surprised with the way Mark Healy navigated this literary terrain. I never felt lost in the story or questioned why a character would react the way they did when given the information they were. The one major complaint I have as far as the writing goes… almost all of Landry’s character arc takes place from the point of view of someone else. She is another mechanic that works under Landry, and she starts to learn things about him that explains who he is and why he is the way he is.

Travis Baldree did an amazing job with the narration of this book. His voice definitely added so much to this story. It was easy enough to listen to a conversation between multiple people and not get confused as to who was saying what (one of my biggest pet peeves in audiobooks) and it was ultimately a pleasure listening to him masterfully tell this well-written tale.

The ending of this book was a bit of a cliffhanger, but it feels like a natural stopping place for a planned second book. It left me wanting more, but not wondering what was happening in the next few minutes. Well executed ending to a wonderful book. I look forward to part 2.

Audiobook was provided for review by the author/narrator/publisher.

Please find this complete review and many others at my review blog.

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