Salvaged

By: Madeleine Roux

Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller

Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

A woman on the run. A captain adrift in space. One of them is infected with an alien parasite.

In this dark science fiction thriller, a young woman must confront her past so the human race will have a future.

Rosalyn Devar is on the run from her famous family, the bioengineering job she's come to hate, and her messed-up life. She's run all the way to outer space, where she's taken a position as a "space janitor", cleaning up ill-fated research expeditions. But no matter how far she goes, Rosalyn can't escape herself. After too many mistakes on the job, she's given one last chance: take care of salvaging the Brigantine, a research vessel that has gone dark, with all crew aboard thought dead.

But the Brigantine's crew are very much alive - if not entirely human. Now, Rosalyn is trapped on board, alone with a crew infected by a mysterious parasitic alien. The captain, Edison Aries, seems to still maintain some control over himself and the crew, but he won't be able to keep fighting much longer. Rosalyn and Edison must find a way to stop the parasite's onslaught...or it may take over the entire human race.

"Salvaged scared the hell out of me, and I write horror for a living! Madeleine Roux conjures real darkness with a brilliant novel that any fan of ALIEN will simply devour. Brava!" (Jonathan Maberry, New York Times best-selling author of V-Wars and Rage)

©2019 Madeleine Roux (P)2019 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"Elegant and inevitable, this is the prose equivalent of playing a survival horror game. Each piece feeds perfectly into the next. Beautifully written." (Seanan McGuire, New York Times best-selling author of Middlegame)

"Madeleine Roux’s Salvaged is a breathless, claustrophobic twist on the SF thriller, full of deep space dread, conspiracies, and malevolent alien spores, with a woman at the center whose courage was forged in all too human trauma. This is the Alien we need right now.” (Christopher Golden, New York Times best-selling author of Ararat and The Pandora Room)

"Salvaged is riveting and brutal, a study in scars. The masterful writing and bittersweet beauty of these characters will haunt you long after you finish reading." (Ann Aguirre, New York Times best-selling author)

Outstanding story

Great story did well on description great narration minor gaps but still good all the way .

started out great

The story started out great, had an interesting premise. But it goes nowhere. I'm sorry, I wanted to like it. Narrator is excellent as always.

Another solid hit

Holy buckets on a stick it was a ride. Roux hit the sweet spot in flow between a movie and story heavy RPG.

Throughout the audiobook the theme that kept getting pushed is no matter what... be present. When it all starts to fall apart and the fan has drowned, forward doesn't exist without first being present.

Every character has a purpose, and feels relevant to the story, to the moment. And they drive it. For all the talk of gore and violence it has a purpose and a place that makes the story work instead of just being put in for zazzle or shock. And after it all finished, I only really have one question... about little talking roots.

Do yourself a favor and pick this up today.

Started out really good….

Then after some great gore and creepy times it got really really slooooooow. Nothing was actually progressing in any way as they meandered through space. Then BOOM ending action and then it was over with very few answers. Easily could have cut a few hours out.

So good

So spooky!! Some scenes were so cinematic, this really needs to be made into a movie sometime. I also loved how fleshed out, smart and believable the characters were. It's a treat not to have characters make obviously stupid decisions just to move the plot along.

Emily Woo Zeller also did a fantastic job with the different voices and accents. Each character has its very recognizable way of speaking, and she even nails the voice of a little boy. That can't be easy. Like for all my audiobooks I did speed it up to about 1.3x.

I did miss a little more science concerning the main problem (trying to avoid spoilers here), and more details about the motivations of certain baddies. But I'm still really glad I picked this up, and some imagery invoked by the book I will never forget, and I mean that in a good way.

Very slow burn

This was an interesting concept for a book but it ended up being overall kind of boring. It felt like the same events were happening in sequence, over and over. The ending is predictable.

A Fantastic and Interesting Sci-Fi Read

I’ve been eyeing this one up for a while – I didn’t read too much about it, I just knew based on the cover that it was something I wanted to check out. Then when I saw that Emily Woo Zeller was narrating it I was completely sold. So, having not read anything into it, the book was fascinating to me feeling similar enough to other books I’ve read while also being completely new and unique in its own way.

Salvaged is one of those books that feels like we’ve been here before. It tells of an ‘alien’ lifeform, but not the type of aliens that we’re expecting. It tells of a takeover but not like any takeover you’re used to reading. Roux wrote an insanely complex and interesting story. The story of salvage recovery could have been its own story to itself. Throw in the substance abuse and story (that we hear much later in the book) from Rosalyn and that could have been its own story, too. But then throw in the third and most interesting part of the book – mix it with the two others I mentioned and you have an insanely deep book that covers a lot of ground in 12 hours.

I liked this book a lot. It was a book that made my skin crawl one moment and the next it was lulling me into a false sense of security. Roux was able to build up such suspense that by the end I honestly couldn’t have guessed the ending if I’d tried. Twists and turns throughout really helped bring the suspense home.

Emily Woo Zeller did a fantastic job with this one. Roux wrote such complex characters and an especially unique and interesting main character. I don’t know if a lot of other narrators could have nailed Rosalyn the way that Zeller did.

Overall, a fantastic and interesting sci-fi read. One that’ll intrigue me for days to come.

Whisper Narration

The story line is pretty good. Not enough science or engineering for space faring story.

Narration isn’t suitable for a Male Audience. The continual use of whisper mode for non-speaking parts is particularly unsuitable. Men have difficulty hearing these pitches and tones, even on the highest volume settings. This makes it very hard to follow the flow because so much of the story goes off into the ether instead of the ears.

Original take on a familiar trope

I very much enjoyed Salvaged by Madelieine Roux. It ticks all the boxes for me as an audiobook consumer: damaged, yet strong heroine, deadly alien threat and sweeping conspiracies.

There are tropes that modern sci-fi readers will recognize as made popular by franchises like Alien and The Expanse. The insightful twist comes with how the menacing alien threat is portrayed. I'd seen this hinted at with other works, but not in this particular way where one comes to question their own mental state.

An excellent spooky read

Madeleine Roux brings a powerful story of the horrors of trauma and the strength to overcome them. Emily Woo Zeller's voice is a welcoming, velvety, haunting voice for a story about loss of control and psychological horror. A great read for the Fall and Winter seasons.