Fractured Carapace

By: James Murdo

Narrated by: The Voice of Nick

Length: 4 hrs and 38 mins

Publisher's summary

Chiton’s star system vanished. It was there, and then it wasn't. How does an entire star system vanish?

The Chitchi were forced to start again.

Three hundred years ago, the brilliant Krasna established her experimental outpost on the unclaimed water world of Prebis. Her experiments are famous throughout their disparate civilisation, although her subordinates are beginning to worry over her increasingly erratic behaviour.

If that wasn’t concerning enough, Chitchi have also begun disappearing without trace....

Chathindi diligently works under Krasna. She studies the insectoid Risers - non-sentients, native to Prebis, that eject from the ocean to join a mysterious living blanket encompassing the world - and grows increasingly convinced that they are more than they appear.

Are the Chitchi alone on Prebis?

A Stand-Alone Novel from the Wanderer Universe.

Cerebral sci-fi with an emphasis on the "sci". If you enjoy hard sci-fi, complex space opera, and authors such as Iain M. Banks, Alastair Reynolds, and Dan Simmons, then this is for you.

©2019 James Murdo (P)2021 James Murdo

A vanished star system... the harrowing truth why

Received as an audio review copy from Story Origin, this is an honest review. Narrated by The Voice of Nick, Fractured Carapace is another gorgeous, layered journey that getting to the truth of what happened to cause the Chiton star system to vanish like an illusionist trick. Beautifully told from the alien perspective that breaths life into raw and realistic world called Prebis, that capitalizes upon being confounding and strange. Its ending is harrowing and deeply poignant for what it reveals... but also what is not explained. Highly recommended

An engrossing standalone in the Wanderer Universe

I love this series and the universe created by James Murdo. This is another fascinating exploration of sentience in a universe of ascended biologicals, machinelects and others. Prebis is an amazingly well imagined world. Fractured Carapace is a very accessible mystery with totally alien protagonists. The Chitchi are six limbed sentients encased in chitinous carapaces reminding me of large cockroaches. There are well developed personalities, mystery and murder and finally a reveal about the research objective. Narration by The Voice of Nick adds greatly to the story.

A well done alien perspective

It's rare to find science fiction that is completely alien definitely worth the read.

I love this series

All the books in this series are very different and deal with sentience in some form or other. This one is no exception. This book was hard to get into at first because the relationships are more formal without emotion. Perhaps it is the nature of the species. They focus on research and data. As the mystery deepened, it got much more interesting. I got this free in exchange for this review but if you like tech and galactic empire type stories then this on is a great one.

Engaging Story, Lacking Performance

I've really enjoyed the story, although hard to follow as an audiobook in some cases. Overall a good performance but felt bland in places. Some chapters end too abruptly.

cool aliens but vague stakes

it had some good ideas but the pacing was monotonous and the story did not convey the stakes in the story. i get the feeling i was supposed to have picked up on things that I didn't until much later and I would have liked to know exactly what feild of study the characters were exploring/building.
very cool worldbuilding though. i like the aliens, theor design and society. its them that make me think that the author has talent. maybe this was just not the book for me.