I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.
TLDR; Great book, in a Sci-Fi setting, more of a character story than anything else. It does have a religious element and gets a little preachy, but the intent is good so I’ll let that slide.
First off, I really enjoyed this book, it’s a great exploration of some characters and there are a couple of scenes that really hit you. I would call this less Sci-Fi and more character piece, not that there aren’t space battles, really you’re following the main character through parts of a war, you could replace the Sci-Fi element with a war on Earth and still hold onto the parts of the book that are the best. All that said, I can’t give this a full 5 stars, mostly due to some, at times cringy, religious overtones. Generally speaking, I’m not opposed to religion playing a major part of a book, but this had several sections that came across as preachy, characters hashing out ancient religious/atheistic debates using the same talking points. The unfortunate part is that I can see what the author was trying to do, and given how good the rest of the book is I think he could have gotten those parts to shine as well, but as it stands they sort of missed the mark.
Overall, if you like great character pieces, and can look past a few blemishes, this is a great pickup. Highly recommended and I’m looking forward to listening to the next one.