Smashing story; well-paced on a crescendo of action blended with just enough intrigue and a steady blossoming of the greater picture of a burgeoning space opera. Not quite as nuts-and-bolts as my usual preference with science fiction, but such isn’t missed in the grand scheme of things. The narrator in this particular recording is… my least favourite aspect of the audiobook, to be honest. His character acting is a bit one-sided, but not to the point that there’s ever any confusion about who’s speaking or such. I mainly found it a bit hard to listen to him growling through 75% of the words in that fierce tone he takes for almost the entire narrative (including the chapter title announcements, some of which sound downright angry), and a fair bit of the dialogue. Also, as a personal stick – his attempt at a Scottish accent for Keith Maker is just plain annoying. I grew up with a slight Aberdeen tint to my own English, courtesy of my gran being born and bred thence, and I have to say that it would have been better to simply not attempt the accent than to produce what this narrator did.
However, I don’t want to scare anyone off of the series. For all the negatives I just referenced, I do want to emphasize that the fever pitch of the storyline does truly come through very well in this performance. Personal quibbling annoyances aside, it’s far from the worst narration I’ve ever heard, and very much worth getting through in order to get started on this awesome series.