I’m pretty sure I have it figured out though… This book is being marketed as sci-fi to trick high-school students into learning while being minimally entertained. I’m almost positive that the author is an Intro to Micro-Economics teacher and he has written this book to explain the most basic elements of his field to teenagers who aren’t willing to read their textbooks.
In spite of starting off like a space adventure novel the book quickly devolves into an unbelievably slow-paced description of life on a trade ship and the aforementioned explanation of micro-economics. I am 2 hours from the ending and for the last 6 hours there has been no conflict or struggle or attempt to build towards any kind of tension. The author just blithely describes the main character’s mundane life… and a little supply and demand theory.
That said, the prose is well executed and the text has been properly edited. And this is what kept me listening for much longer than I should have. I assumed that if the writer is this competent, surely he was just taking a little too long to get going but was attempting to lay background for the series.
But no. It just keeps going on and on. At this point I can’t justify wasting any more time even if the spaceship does eventually get hijacked by space-aliens. I’m giving up because even if at long last this plot twist happens I’m just not that interested in Space Alien demand curves and market saturation either.
In light of all this I’m also confused about the number of five star reviews… There just can’t be that many English speaking, high-school, micro-economics teachers out there who also have audible accounts.