Galactic Marine

The Traveler, Book 1

By: Vaughn Heppner

Narrated by: Michael Braun

Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's summary

You ever have one of those days?

U.S. Marine Sergeant Jake Bayard did when he has to cancel a hot date to board a transport plane to the South Pole, which is hijacked by aliens with hostile intent to Earth.

Bayard escapes into tunnels deep under the ice and stumbles upon advanced technology that teleports him to Epsilon Eridani.

Desperately alone and on the run, Bayard falls back onto his combat training, soon discovering that these aliens keep human herds for meat. That’s it. He enlists some of the downtrodden and declares war against the hungry oppressors.

Galactic Marine is the story of a gung-ho Terran taking on the masters of an insidious and ancient alien conspiracy.

©2022 Vaughn Heppner (P)2022 Podium Audio

1950s book rewrite

The book written like twilight zone book. It's pretty boring with m.c just thinking for hours with nothing really happening. This a definite rewrite from the 50s or 60s.

Decent book

Decent take on a Stargate like series.

My main reason for not giving it 5 stars though is that it felt like the main character needed a little bit more fleshing out in character development. It feels like the main character is a bit two dimensional in his outlook. Additionally, the relationship with the Neanderthals seems a bit rushed.

All in all though I like where the story seems to be headed and look forward to see where this goes.

Great story. Had my full interest.

Pulled me solidly along always engaged and pleased as the story unfolded. Overall, an enjoyable listen.

Dime store gold

Don’t expect Heinlein or Banks level writing. If you accept that then this is enjoyable and passes the miles while driving. I think anything under 10 hours should only cost 1/2 credit btw.

Good start. interesting premise

pretty good book. I didn't have any problem listening to the whole thing without much pause.
I didn't lose interest in it at any time and you get a strong bond to the main character.

It took awhile, but I really started liking this!

The intro to the main character took awhile and at first he wasn't all that likeable, but as the story, and then the series developed, I wanted to read more. I've now read all six books in the series (so far) and really hope that it continues as there are infinite possibilities to explore. Its got shades of science and fantasy. I like Heppner's writing style and MIchael Braun did a good job of bringing the book to life. with his reading. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys science fiction mixed with a fit of fantasy.

Lonely story.

One man. You spend 90% of the story in his head. Qhat he thinks as he does anything. Very little character development. Very few other characters. Very little action. Long boring areas. I couldn't wait until it was over.

It's different.

Sure you have the cliche protagonist who's a marine.
However what I like is the exploration of the idea of "Stargate" but in the realm of everything is different on each planet, and he has to adjust accordingly. Yet there are parallels being tied to ancient races and history in this unfolding book.
This is definitely not a space action but a man on the ground wondering what the heck is going on and dealing with the fact he may die, uncovering tiny snippets of reality or what he thinks is reality, only to find out everything modern man takes for granted is wrong, and even myths or fables, and ancient races beliefs may have some hint of truth all tieing each other to a much grander truth, but was unraveled by a massive conflict, that appears to have been entirely forgotten by some because it's been going on for thousands of years.

Yuck

Totally disappointing - really not what I was hoping for or expecting from this author. Boo

I really clashed with the protagonist here

DNF

We started on a bad footing, the protagonist and I. There's just something desperate about a drunkard Marine acting like a complete clown because he's '12 days from retirement' or whatever.

When he stripped naked and stashed all his possessions so he could blend in with a tribe of non-naked alien Neanderthals, I very much noped out.

This protagonist is genuinely... special.