The best I can say about this book is that I didn’t hate it. As stories go it was ok despite a general lacking of craft (the MC was pretty over the top with a lot of exposition slowing everything down). Fortunately I rather liked the MC and the narration made it fun to listen to. Each chapter begins with an unexplained extract from what appears to be some form of inquest … that hits at some form of disaster that the MC, and his trust AI sidekick, were involved in … then it jumps into the fantastic tale of Barcus (the MC) who is the “sole” survivor of an ambush of his survey ship by unknown planetary defenses who crash lands on the planet and has to hide from the native humans hunting him in sky ships that seem to just be transports for mercs on horseback Fortunately Barcus has a super, if mysterious, AI (that is pretty sketch … echos of HAL here) and two huge, advanced robotic machines that make him pretty much invincible (when he is riding in them at least). This of course allows him to pontificate at length about the bad guys … who were truly bad … and I am sure there is a reason, but it is not really explored here. Mostly this all allows him to add to his graphic, and rather gratuitous, body count (‘cause that is what you do with bad guys). There is also the expected love interest taken from the natives and a whole mess of anger and navel gazing that was mildly entertaining most of the time. So … basically you get a survival story that is entirely predictable that brings right up to where you might expect some conflict resolution … and then stops (with a whole bunch of questions waiting for the sequel).
In addition to the decent narration, the only thing that saved the story here was the world building … it was actually interesting if not well presented or explained. There is an apparent social hierarchy that resembles feudalism with “keepers” at the top and ignorant quasi-slaves (or serfs if you will) at the bottom and very little mobility … or recourse for abuse by those in the higher cast. It can be presumed that the keepers are the ones using (and perhaps trying to maintain) what technology remains on the planet, but it is pretty much a mystery how they tie into the planetary defenses that took out the scout ship (and the 2000 souls onboard) so quickly. All in all … this has the feel of being just the setup to a larger story that might be interesting enough to continue just to find out some of the answers … may be.
I was given this free advance review/listener copy (ARC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.
#StillFalling #Solstice31Saga #FreeAudiobkFacebkGrp