Deserter

Kris Longknife, Book 2

By: Mike Shepherd

Narrated by: Dina Pearlman

Length: 14 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

Kris Longknife had no choice about growing up rich and pampered. When she did have a choice, she joined the Marines. But now, a friend needs help halfway across the galaxy - and with a military heritage coursing through her blood, it's time for Kris Longknife to be a hero. Kris boards the next ship to Turantic, the last place her friend was seen alive. But there's more to the rescue than meets the eye.

Turantic is not only the most twisted hellhole in the galaxy, but it's also under quarantine because of a deadly plague. And after a sudden, suspicious loss of communication with the outside world, Kris realizes the length some enemies will go to for a life-threatening bait-and-trap. But she is willing to go even further - and deeper into Turantic's secrets - to survive.

©2004 Mike Moscoe (P)2009 Audible, Inc.

Great followup of the first book

Where does Deserter rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Among the top two, I started listening because I got bored of Kristine Kathryn Rusch - Deserter is written in similar style but narrated much better - and the story is better done

Who was your favorite character and why?

Chris Longknifes computer is just fascinating, it shows many of the perks I got in my own computer systems - but in a much more amusing way

Which scene was your favorite?

The scenes where Abby Nightengale show more and more of her skills are the top ones - but there are so many small scenes with her that its impossible to choose

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

When she destroyed the ship of Calvin Sandfire

Dreadful sequel to an average book

The tech was ridiculous. The personal relationships were ridiculous and forced. The action was preposterous. Save yourself the aggravation and skip to the next in the series. It can't be worse.

Not very good

I liked the first book, I can't believe this is the sequel. This has some very bad writing. Expect sentences such as "The men left standing were running". ?? Well, which is it, were they standing or running?? Also, all of a sudden Kris seems very desperate for male attention. One second she's teasing her bodyguard Jack by asking him what he thinks of her ass, then 2 pages later you hear that being straddled by her old friend Tom is something she's been "dreaming of for so long". Which by itself is fine, I suppose, but sex-starved heroines was not what I was looking for when I bought this book. I wanted a female heroine that kicks ass and judging from this book, Kris is not it.

I almost felt sorry for the narrator, who is forced to read this and not groan at some of the mainstream cliches and the author's wishful thinking about what women are like and how they react to men. But I didn't pity the narrator too much, because she's exaggeratedly dramatic all the time, regardless of what pitiful, unimportant sentence she's reading. At the same time, she reads all the dialog with a flat bored voice. For example, the text goes "'Oh my god!', the agent gasped" and the narrator reads it like nobody's gasping at all, with a completely flat and unemotional voice. It's difficult to explain how she sounds, sorry. But it's confusing, and it gets tiresome very fast.

Author should have quit while he was ahead!

The first book in this series was interesting, a bit "campy", with bits and pieces that reminded me of the old space operas. This 2nd book is incoherent, repetitive, poorly researched -- two sailboats racing on the same leg of a "race track", one close-hauled, the other running before the wind -- and generally nonsensical. I think I'll pass on the rest of the series.

Narrated by Dina Pearlman. I found the voices used to be uneven and not comfortable to listen to.

I was not drawn into the story by the readers voice. Her accents would drift off character to character. Her adult female voice was a bad southern old lady voice. The personal computer voice was an even worse British voice, and she would drift the accents from one character to the next when going from person to person. I have listened to many "books on tape" over the last 30 years and I think this person would do better to just read without using character accents, just concentrate on reading with intent the words.

Feeling Duped....

The only thing that makes this book mildly enjoyable is the narrator.

The rest is....

This book is closer to a YA (the main character is whiny, needy, jealous and lucky for no reason) - than it is to Military Sci-Fi. I can't recommend this....to anyone....at all.