william

I've never heard of, or a reading by, Simon Taylor before, but I'll be avoiding him for a few years. Maybe I just don't like his style and he's a perfectly fine reader, whatever it is, I had to let this book go.
He sounds almost amateurish in spots, and has a tendency to linger on a word as if for dramatic emphasis, but it seems unwarranted. He also has an unfortunate tendency to over pronounce the 'ng' on words like long, so it sounds like long-geh. Once you notice it, it becomes annoying.

The narrator sounded like he'd never done a dramatic reading.

n/a

Better reading by the narrator.

None.

Are things so bad in the audiobook business that they'll hire someone without an audition? Or are the editors/producers just not caring anymore?

I kinda like this story, at least the setting, near future, and the premise (so far) convicts' redemption as soldiers, marines, no less.

But I find a couple things off-putting. One, which is odd, is all these soldiers addressing each other by their first names. WTF? I'm not familiar with Shawn Kupfer as an author, but I find it difficult to believe he's actually been in the military. There a lot of references to specific weapons and weapons systems, but attempts to portray intimate comaraderie in combat fall flat.

I just can't see a military team, in combat, saying things like "Okay, Todd, you take Mark, Benjamin, and Steve, and cover our left flank. Bill, Jeffrey, and Pete and I will provide cover fire with our M-4 assault rifles." And I get it, the Razor (fighting vehicle) is HUGE, it's big, got it. 24 cylinders, and it's powerful.

This is my first book narrated by Victor Bevine. I hope it's his first too. I mean, I hope he get better as a narrator. He's okay, has potential, but not great.

So, because this book has some interesting ideas, I'll give it 3 stars. If the story was any weaker, though, it'd be pushing it to give it a 2.

Wow. That's some bad audio book.

It's a book! No special effects needed! And seriously, do they not have editors for recorded books? The reader mispronounces the protagonists name for the entire book! Despite the pronunciation being a point during the previous books. Hello?!

I like good military SF as much as the next guy, and I'd seen Ringo's name associated with it, so I gave him a try. If I'd known I was gonna get a right-wing rant, I'd have chosen something else for my money. I looked Ringo up on Wikipedia and found he had been a commentator on Fox News. It all fell into place.
Unless your tastes run to Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, & Rush Limbaugh avoid Ringo like the plague he is. I need to hear more of this world-view like I need a serious case of the clap. A waste of time & money. I should have read the reviews.