I started off liking this series, enough to even get past the lousy, dog-awful narrator. Please Mr. Allan, get a NEW Narrator. The monotone droning on with no change in emotion or range for different characters makes it confusing and easy to 1) drift off & 2) miss changes when switching to another POV. After about Book 8 (The White Fleet), this series went from an OK, not bad for 1.99 listen, to a WHY are you writing so much redundant filler? I got it the 10th time you told me about how the Alliance were slaves once so their whole culture is built up around this ridiculous ‘code of honor’ & a glorious but pointless battle to the death is preferable over a strategic retreat. You don’t need to tell me this every single time as part of a character’s inner dialogue. Repeating the same things over and over and over and over…..is annoying!
I must be a glutton for punishment because I kept hoping the next book would get better or at least go back to be a little interesting like in the beginning. Or I’m just cheap. [SIDE RANT: It ticks me off Audible has almost no books now for $1.99 through Kindle Unlimited (never mind the free listens that were supposed to be included!), Almost everything has jumped up to 7.49 now that might be worth listening to – talk about price hikes! That’s only a couple bucks less than a credit, so why am I paying the Unlimited Monthly Membership Fee? It’s the principle of the thing, I hate that Audible/Amazon is always outrageously jacking up the prices & like the cable company (at least where I live, on an island), there aren’t many providers so they get away with it. OK, ’nuff said.] Back to this series.
I don’t ask for much, I’m pretty easy to please. All I want is some interesting characters – they don’t even have to be that well developed if they’re really funny or outrageous, some forward movement in the plot, fast paced action/adventure (marines are always nice), a spaceship & some cool tech or weapons (I don’t know quantum physics, so wormhole, jump gate. FTL, doesn’t matter, I can suspend disbelief as long as it sounds good), the usual enemy that wants to kill every last human, the corrupt politicians, the cowardly backstabbing coworker that attained rank without merit & thinks you stole their glory or the worthy rival, etc. & at least 8 or 10 hours (so many are splitting books in to 5-7 hrs to drag series out & charge more – another pet peeve – but at least Mr. Allan hasn’t done that too much, thank goodness! Though the first 9 run 11-14 hours, then drops to 10+ for 3, then only 9+ for the next 2, hope #14 doesn’t drop to 8 something!), And oh yes, don’t forget the Triple A’s: AI’s &/or Androids & Aliens!
I’m not asking for profound insights into the meaning of life or liberty, don’t care if it’s a sorta veiled parody/commentary on current politics, coming of age, good versus evil, etc. etc. Just give me a fast paced space adventure with interesting characters. Some entertainment to beam me up Scotty & out of the real world for a while.
I don’t want to be annoyed by bad narration. I don’t want to be annoyed by excessive filler. I don’t want to be annoyed by excessive repetition. I used to like Mr. Allan’s books. I’ve read almost all of them. I liked the Crimson World series (CW, CW Refugees, CW Successors), Portal Wars & Far Stars. Blood on the Stars, however, starts off OK (still has that annoying repetitive inner dialogue but more adventure to balance it or something), but after Andie’s story arc is over & it turns to all Tyler Baron/Navy it just slides downhill fast. Even with my admittedly shallow standards, it just gets ridiculous. Finally beat the old enemy (the Union) so a new one pops up out of the blue & attacks for no other reason than to bring you into their fold & ‘take care of you’? Then you finally stomp them (Hegemony) & they just happen to get attacked by their haven’t seen in 100 years old enemy (Others/Highborn) & you just join with the Hegemony to fight them? Of course, he only hinted about a 100 times that they hadn’t attacked in a 100 years so who didn’t see that coming? Geez, I said shallow, not Super Stupid. Add that to the most atrocious narrator ever (sorry, Mr. Kafer, but this just ISN’T your forte.) & it’s gotten so painful I had take a night off and write a review. It has to REALLY bother me to write a review because I just don’t have spare time right now.
Most of the stuff out here now is the same thing, over & over, but you have to at least bring something entertaining or interesting to it AND leave the inner dialogue whining out of it. I don’t know if the whole series was bad & it just took a lot of repetition to sink in how bad it was or it slid down. I’d like to think it slid down. Or maybe it was I just got sick of the whining because I didn’t have any cheese to go with it. That’s a bad line, right? Sorta like the way this series has gone, too many bad lines, told over and over and over, oops not again! I think the horse is dead. Yup. Just checked again. Definitely dead..
Who am I & what do I read? I find it helps to get an idea of the reviewer & to see how/if that fits into what you’re looking for. I have about 900 books in my Audible library, which spans @6.5 yrs.& it’s @99% fiction. And that doesn’t count what I borrow for free from the library (ezone) or on cd/playaway at the physical library. I don’t have any time to sit & read anymore so I listen a LOT. While driving, doing chores, walking the dog, at the beach, working, while going to sleep & when waking up. I started listening to stay calm on a long & frustrating commute to work in FL in the 90’s – yup, I’m over 50 (but I might not have ever grown up). I’ve gone through a range of genres, Adult & YA that in the past included mysteries, spies, westerns & biographies (back in the days when audio books came on cassettes, they didn’t have online reserving from other branches & my local library was pretty small & catered to seniors, so I went through almost EVERY one they had!)
I’ve went through Historical Romance (think Outlander Series), then Supernatural (Dresden Files, True Blood, Anita Blake, Monster Hunter Int’l, Hellequin Chronicles, Neil Gaiman…), Alternate Realities (Destroyer Men/Taylor Anderson, Ring of Fire, Safehold/Flint/Gannon/Weber…), Zombies (Indian Hill,…) to current genre, SCI-FI – Authors/Series no real order (Heinlein, Dune/F. Herbert, Brian Herbert, Kevin J Anderson, Jack Campbell, Orson Scott Card, John Scalzi, James Corey, Honor Harrington/Weber, Kris Longknife/M Shepherd, Undying Mercenaries/B.V. Larson, Koban/SW Bennett, Honsinger, Jasper Scott, Dietmar Wehr, Evan Currie, Mark Cooper, Vaughn Heppner, Richard Phillips, David Drake…. you get the idea by now, right?