Fleet Elements

By: Walter Jon Williams

Narrated by: Victor Bevine

Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins

Publisher's summary

"Space opera the way it ought to be...Bujold and Weber, bend the knee; interstellar adventure has a new king, and his name is Walter Jon Williams." (George R. R. Martin)

Following The Accidental War, the second book of a brand-new series set in the Praxis - an epic mix of space opera and military science fiction, from a grand master of science fiction, Walter Jon Williams.

The Praxis, the empire of now extinct Shaa, has again fallen into civil war, with desperate and outnumbered humans battling several alien species for survival. Leading the human forces are star-crossed lovers Gareth Martinez and Caroline Sula, who must find a way to overcome their own thorny personal history to defeat the aliens and assure humanity’s survival.

But even if the human fleet is victorious, the divisions fracturing the empire may be too wide to repair, as battles between politicians, the military, and fanatics who want to kill every alien threaten to further tear the empire apart. While Martinez and Sula believe they have the talent and tactics to defeat an overwhelming enemy, what will prevent their fellow humans from destroying themselves?

©2020 Walter Jon Williams (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers

I know it’s a lot of work…

…but this was difficult to get through. Part of what made the first four books so wonderful to listen to was the amazing performance by David Drummond. This performance by this narrator was nowhere near the level of David, and had I listened to a sample from this performer before I purchased this book, I may have opted for the Kindle version instead.
The only discernible accents where US East Coast, and even those were inconsistent. His pronunciations were awkward and inconsistent too, immediately taking me out of any story in the moment.
Again, I can imagine how difficult performing a book like this could be, but goodness, this was an elementary performance at best, and the story deserves better.

New narrator is awful

Walter Jon Williams’ series continues to deliver. But holy cow this new narrator’s accent is cringe-worthy.

They changed the voice actor and not for the bette

for the first four books of this series, the individual who was doing their voice-overs, I thought didn't excellent job.

The voice-overs in this book, makes everyone sound like they're from New Jersey in varying ways. it gets a little better as the book goes on, but not good enough.

so if you were a real fan of the first four bucks, I would suggest reading this one as opposed to listening to it.

Good story, but I miss David Drummond

The story continues to be great! However, the narrator and performance are lacking. Don is the range of David Drummond, and in its place we have a narrator that delivers all characters the same, pronounces names and places differently than they should read and from previous books narration. I will push through the narration for the story, but I have now found a narrator I’d like to avoid.

Perfect for Praxis Fans

This book strays away from the politics of the book prior and pursues the classic Military Sci-Fi everyone loves.

The book has serious tension and I found it to be very enjoyable.

Distracting performance

Fun continuing story, but not the changes to settled pronunciations. Its "HAR-za-Ped," not "har-ZAP-ed." Distracting.

Consistent

If you liked the previous four novels, you'll like this one. New narrator is an improvement.

Be forewarned!

Whilst the story is an excellent continuation of the series, which leaves you impatient for more, the decision to replace the narrator of the previous books is baffling.

His performance seldom rises above a disinterested monotone, and apart from a character who is supposed to lisp heavily, all characters sound identical. The end result is like having a slightly lisping "Noo Yawk" Eeyore narrating a text-book.

One can only hope that further sequels, and this book, are (re-)released with mr. Drummond as the narrator

new narrator sucks!

WTF is this?! this new guy should never be allowed to read a book again... can't accent anything right... almost has a lisp...

antimaaater... Harzaaapid

Poor performance, great book

The narrator is so slow I changed the read speed to 1.1. The story itself is great but I wish they had used David Drummond again.