Light Sci Fi romp thru the galaxy with stereo typical religious zealot aliens, a worse xenophobic ‘alien’ alluded to, bent on the destruction of all life, (of course!), except the romp wasn’t fully realized. Suspension of disbelief required in spades & then some, but hey, it’s sci fi, right?! Things don’t have to make sense or be believable! I REALLY wish Audible would list whether it’s audiobooks are YA, Children’s or Adult Fiction! I suspect this is supposed to be a YA series, though I found no confirmation of that anywhere! I also REALLY wish Sci Fi Authors would STOP using Jeffery Kafer for narration! Is there a sale offering a discount for hiring him to do the narration?! He seems to be showing up all over Sci Fi lately! I really find it hard to tell how good (or bad a book is) because I get so annoyed when he narrates! The characters always sound so juvenile! The same level of tension is used throughout, I don’t know how he keeps that hyped up feeling going (& going & going & going)! Every sentence ends in an exclamation point! There’s no ebb & flow to match what’s happening (or not happening) with the characters! The characters all sound the same! It makes it hard to tell when dialogue changes from one character to another! It sets a monotonous tone! It carries throughout the entire story! Bloody annoying! Isn’t it?!! The story gets lost in the bad narration. It’s sad when what I remember most is how painful the story was to listen to. I can’t be the only one who’s bothered by this narrator, can I? I’m sure he’s a great in other categories, maybe Children’s books or Non Fiction perhaps? But PLEASE! Authors (& Audible) do yourself and your readers a favor & hire someone else to narrate sci fi. There’s plenty of great ones out there. Despite the narration, at the end of this I was a little curious to see where this story would go & ordered the next book, but I should’ve listened through the end of the excerpt that was included in this one. If the rest of it follows in the vein of what occurs when they land on the first planet in their ‘power core quest’ (I swear the reason given for why this was necessary changed from book 1 to book 2! Not a good sign when such a simple & small cast of character’s stories can’t be kept straight.), I’ll be seriously considering returning it. I’m surprised because I have enjoyed other books by this author, most recently the Orion series. Sorry I can’t say more positive things about this so far. The cover is cool, part of what got my attention in the first place. I guess, based on that, I should have expected it to read like a ya manga or anime wanna be. I think what is really missing for me to raise this story up is a little more camp. A good dosing of witty banter & snark. If the humor was there, it would make everything easier to swallow and actually fun (along with a new narrator too, of course). Sorry, this one wasn’t a win for me.