Mech 1: The Parent

By: B. V. Larson

Narrated by: Mirron Willis

Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins

Publisher's summary

Bio-tech aliens battle Mechs built by humans! After centuries in stasis, a lost task force returns home. Arriving from the infinite void, the surviving ships discover that the Imperium lies in ruin. The Homeworld itself is destroyed, and nothing lives in the Ancestral System except an infestation of unknown bipedal beings - creatures soft, red of blood and warm of flesh.... When you colonize a planet, make sure the owners aren't coming back.

MECH is the story of a new Earth colony built upon the ancient Homeworld of a civilization presumed (incorrectly) to be long dead. MECH is a full novel, 90,000 words in length, by best-selling author B. V. Larson.

©2010 B.V. Larson (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Poor narration

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

I would if it was redone by a new narrator.

What didn’t you like about Mirron Willis’s performance?

Mirron's mispronunciations and extra sibilants are so distracting. One that kept gnawing at me was cryo being pronounced like Cairo.
Gaaahhh.

Was Mech 1: The Parent worth the listening time?

I am only about an hour into it. So far, the answer is no.

Any additional comments?

I usually listen while I am driving. Because of that, I can't give full concentration to plot development, character development and trying to make sure I hear the words correctly.

For that reason, I love audiobooks that come in series. I feel like I come to know the characters. When I start a new book in a series that I have already been reading, if the enunciation is good, I don't have to concentrate on that very hard. The same is true for character development. I already know the characters and a really good narrator can let me know who is speaking by their vocal inflections, accents, etc.

Combine the fact that this is a new book in a series where I have to learn all about the characters, the gist of the back story and the the difficulty in listening to a less than stellar narrator and it gets pretty bad, pretty fast.

Average

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

Not really - story was average

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

More depth needed

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

Narrator employed various voices - was too distracting

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

Never

This book needs a prologue

I had read most of B V Larson’s StarForce series and, thinking that the series was not bad, decided to try this book. The premise, as explained in the Audible description, was that a long lost race returned to find humans had taken hold of their home world. I had assumed that there would be some kind of reasonable “first contact” between rational beings and that it might be worth reading how this was resolved. But the book disappointed me in many ways. There are no “spoilers” in this review, but I have listed what about this book made me feel disappointed.

First, the description is incorrect. The “home world” itself was physically destroyed and did not, as I assumed, only contain some kind of ruins. The humans did not inhabit the “home world” but an adjacent world. That is clear in the first 10 minutes of the book. The description was almost certainly provided by the publisher and so this is not Audible's fault.

Second, there is no “back story” to explain about the religious group and the story, as it unfolds, was almost unintelligible to me. I could not understand who they were, why they were acting as they were and why anyone would choose to make the decisions the reader eventually finds they have made. I could not help comparing those people with the characters in Heinlein’s "The Puppet Masters" since they were essentially in the same situation.

Third the characters seem to be more caricature than character. The villains have no saving graces at all and are either cowards, thieves, closet pedophiles, sadists or some combination thereof. The heroes and heroines seem to have no failings at all and, in the end, only one character seemed real to me at all.

Last, but not least, I found the reading to be less than stellar and, at least at the beginning, difficult to follow. Eventually I became familiar enough with the narration that it stopped bothering me but I always felt that it was a distraction from the book rather than being either neutral or a positive addition.

Mr. Larson’s web site says of this book that people either love it or hate it and I can believe that. Although I fall closer to the latter than the former I can see how people might find all of the weirdness appealing in books that often seen to be clones of one another. This book is definitely weird but the one positive thing I can say about it is that it is not a clone of anything else I have ever read. It would have been improved (for me) if there had been a prologue explaining who the various groups were and something about the “riders”, but perhaps I am not typical.

All in all I do not feel that I can recommend this book but I do feel that some people will positively enjoy it. I will not read any more of this series but I will continue to read B V Larson in the hope that the next book will be more to my liking.

Terrible narration

I've thoroughly enjoyed other works by BV Larson in the past, however I found this story weak by comparison. There really are no characters that stick out in this book, none that you would care if they got killed off.

What really sank this though was the narrator. Mirron Willis's reading was like a cross between William Shatner and Jimmy from South Park.

Good, but lacking a little....

I loved this book, it was great. However the book focuses on the bad guys waaaaaaaaaaaaay to much. There is little to no character building for the good guys at all. I like them, but seriously there was virtually no emotional connection that i built up with them (talking about the gov and his giants).

good story, feels like early work

If you could sum up Mech 1: The Parent in three words, what would they be?

narrator distracts classic larson

What was one of the most memorable moments of Mech 1: The Parent?

interesting to see from the aliens point of view. aliens jumping out of toilets, that's why I've always been a little nervous sitting on a toilet in the dark.

What three words best describe Mirron Willis’s voice?

character voices are good, but rest of narration is distracting, kind of sounds like that guy from original star trek- George Takei.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

no, character development was not strong enough to identify with, felt kind of choppy, I got this because I enjoyed Larson's star force series so much. It feels like an earlier work, with more of a space opera tone.

Any additional comments?

enjoyed it well enough to get the next book in the series, not sure if I will stick with the series after that though, hoping it gets better.

Slow start.

The story took a long time to get started. I almost put the Book down it was so slow. I'm glad that I didn't. The book took off at the end and I was dying to know what was going to happen. I think I'm going to read the rest of the series. Fingers crossed.

Good book-ALIEN'S of the Worst Kind!

Mech 1 has some aliens that you hope does not exsist in the Universe! There worse the "Possleen from the Legace of the Aldenata" Over all it's a good listen. It makes you think! Well I'm off to Mech2 I'll let you know.

Love the story but narrator not so much

I love all of this authors work. I started and stopped this one many times trying to get into it because of the narrator. It was as if Admiral Ackbar from Star Wars was narrating the book. Once I finally got half way into the book it got easier to egnor the narrator.

Not my cup of tea

For some reason this is the first of Mr Larsons books I havent instantly taken a liking to. It seems a bit confused to me in places maybe it was just something with me. I think it was a little light in explanation of events?? I dont know about this one....