Outcast Mine

By: Jamie Craig

Narrated by: Jack LeFleur

Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

There is nothing Aleron Pitre can’t steal, nobody he can’t con, and no situation he can’t slip out of until he’s sent to the prison planet Tantoret, where every sentence is death. If the prisoners don’t kill each other, they’ll die slowly and painfully from mining the poisonous drug chojal. Yet Aleron still hopes that he can escape.

Only 30 Athaki guards keep the chaos of Tantoret in check, a race of aliens stronger and faster than their human charges. Most intimidating of all is the head guard, Jasak, who has his own reasons for being sent to Tantoret.

Amidst the darkness and desperation, Aleron and Jasak share an unexpected attraction. An attraction neither can resist when Jasak claims Aleron as his mate to protect him. Then they discover that both guards and inmates are planning a coup, while a traitor from an enemy nation threatens the whole planet. Suddenly, escape from Tantoret isn’t just Aleron’s dream - it’s a matter of survival for them both.

©2011 Jamie Craig (P)2011 Harlequin

Not Bad...

Surprisingly good romance combined with a pretty action-packed story. Really good narration as well.

WOW!!

I listened to this thinking would good background noise. But was captivated instead. The dishes can wait.

Awesome!

Completely amazing! After listening, it’s easy to see why this book won awards. And, Jack LeFleure does a fantastic job narrating – I wish he’d read every book from now till the end of time! I loved it so much I visited the author’s website looking for other Jasak/Aleron stories – but, sadly, there aren’t any others as this is the first book (in what I hope will become a lengthy series). Forget the phobe reviews here and download – you won’t be sorry!

Jack LeFleur is the only good in this book

Is there anything you would change about this book?

It needs a plot, a point, and a revision.

Would you ever listen to anything by Jamie Craig again?

Maybe.

Have you listened to any of Jack LeFleur’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I bought this book because I love his voice. He was the only reason I kept going. But even he couldn't make me finish this mess of a novel.

Could you see Outcast Mine being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

No. Just no. Of course with all the crappy books out there that have been made into films....

Any additional comments?

This book had a good start. But it just began to drag on. I didn't know what was going on, and I didn't see the point of what was happening. It felt like the author was manufacturing actions to force the story forward instead of allowing them to make logical choices. The characters were stupid. Not badly written but made to do things that were silly. Like if one had to choose between A or B and B was the best answer, the hero would choose A for no logical reason. And the author didn't write the character as if he were rash or illogical...or stupid. The choice was just there to set up some action scene later on. I was seriously annoyed by this book, to the point where I stopped halfway through it. Right now I am trying to force myself to finish out of pure principle.

Story was great, a lot sweeter than I thought it would be

I thought it would be more hardcore. The picture, the setting of a prison with vicious aliens, I put off listening to this book until I thought I was in the mood for something more erotic than sexy but I was surprised at how sweet and gentle the two main characters were. The narrator unfortunately had a hard time with the number is characters— he only seems to be able to pitch his voice to so many levels with so many differences of speech patterns so the ending had several characters that all sounded the same making it rather hard to tell who was speaking. But admittedly their was a large cast of people and after awhile I assume people do start sounding the same— a young male voice with a higher register and another one’s are going to sound basically the same but it just made for some confusion. Having said that I very much liked the story even though I was expecting it to be different which is of course why one shouldn’t judge a book by its cover...

Great Sci-fi story, too much sex

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

I acquired this book based on it's sci-fi aspect and did not expect the inter-species homo-erotic aspect. The story here is well thought out and the idea of a prison planet where the guards are as much prisoners as the inmates is an interesting concept. Both of the lead characters are strong well defined characters with interesting backgrounds. This story can stand alone without the erotic romance aspect.

Very good

I like the world the author cresated in this book - its a brutal and unforgiving place where both the prisoners and the guards are s... out of luck. But the love between the prisoners and the chief guard is heartwarming and the story about the other prisoners and the way the guards have their own motive for being there are not easily predictable. Well done!
Jack LeFleur is always good, and this is no exception.

Flawed but I enjoyed myself thoroughly anyway

Though there are some structural issues in the story, I liked everything enough to imagine listening to this again. My biggest issue is just that there was so much potential for so much more, and we don't get it--but what we do get is right up my alley. I gobble up strange alien customs and mismatched pairs.

There's a "mate"/"bond" element to the story, and it's handled in a unique way I really like. Though ownership language like "mine" and "claim" are there, the bonded pair feel truly equal. Most bond/mate stories fall into the trap of making one partner lesser while paying lip service to equality, but this book's version established true equality that I really appreciate.

Our prisoner lead Aleron is a skillful thief/con mon, but my biggest gripe with this is that we never actually see this at play much. He seems like a bit of a damsel in distress in multiple situations. I would have liked to see him use his supposed cleverness to engineer surprising ways to outsmart and beat his enemies, but he doesn't. Instead, he's dragged along by the plot and everything dangerous is resolved by brute force dished out by Jasak, the powerful alien guard. This is a huge disappointment, but if I ignore that Aleron is supposed to be some master con man and just take him as he's actually written, he makes for a likeable normal guy. This is satisfying enough to me.

I was also disappointed that Aleron's duplicitous plot to escape Jasak is never discovered; that would have been a very engaging conflict. Instead, once he changes his mind, it's never revealed that he almost exploited Jasak's kindness. Oh well, even without angst and misunderstanding, Jasak and Aleron have an enjoyable dynamic even if it's not as fraught as I would have expected in the setting.

I started to feel claustrophobic in the prison setting, but the character interactions are so engaging that I stayed gripped by the story. The entire time, I wondered why the big powerful aliens who aren't poisoned by the material they're mining weren't the ones doing the mining. It makes very little sense to me that they'd just accept guard duty and not kill all the human inmates. This seems like a pretty big plot hole, particularly as more details about their assignment to the cold planet are revealed. I just chose to ignore it and stay focused on the story, but I can easily imagine this issue bothering other readers/listeners a lot more if they aren't as interested in the characters as I am.

I really wish there was a sequel so I could follow these characters on new adventures. The world building in the book is spaced out carefully in small digestable pieces, giving us just enough to understand and leave us wanting to know more. And I really do want to know more.

The narration is great. There is just the right tone for all the narrative and dialogue with emphasis and shifts in tone exactly where they belong. This is a perfect performance!

Hooked

I never intended to listen to the entire book. I expected to lose interest and forget about it after the first few chapters, but this book roped me in. I was pulled deep into the story, it was well written, had a solid plot, and the characters had personality. The ending could have used a bit of work, and the dialogue could have been better, but all and all it was a solid story.

Definite Recommendation!

I bought this book in pdf form and read it in hours. I could not get it out of my head, I loved it so much that by the next day I came to an important realization. I couldn't be away from it, so I bought it here in audio format and took it to work with me. Whatever I had missed in my initial read, came across amazingly. The narrator is perfect. Ten+ delicious hours of listening and I started listening all over again. The world that the authors (Jamie Craig are two authors) build is so vivid you can hear and feel everything described. The despair, the fear, the hate, the love, the determination that the characters show is portrayed brilliantly. I recommend this as one of my top 5 best and favorite gay romance novels!