Scattered Suns

The Saga of Seven Suns, Book 4

By: Kevin J. Anderson

Narrated by: David Colacci

Length: 20 hrs and 42 mins

Publisher's summary

The war between the alien hydrogues and the faeros rages, reducing suns to blackened shells - including one of the fabled seven suns of the Ildiran Empire. Instead of protecting themselves, the Ildirans engage in bloody civil war and the many factions of humanity are bitterly divided. Can mankind and Ildirans overcome their own internal fighting to face a deadly new enemy that is ready to annihilate them?

Newly ascended to the Ildiran throne, Mage-Imperator Jora'h must quash the rebellion launched by his mad brother before the hydrogues destroy what is left of the empire. Assailed from all sides, Jora'h turns to his beloved half-human daughter, dispatching her on a desperate mission to make peace with the hydrogues.

Hope for humanity now rests with Jess Tamblyn, who continues to seed worlds with the watery wentals, the mortal enemies of the hydrogues. And on the ravaged planet of Theroc, home to a telepathic worldforest, a dead man is resurrected to prepare for the arrival of mysterious new allies in the fight.

But Chairman Basil Wenceslas's vendetta against the free-spirited Roamers has blinded him to danger closer to home - the soldier machines that make up the backbone of the Hansa fighting force. King Peter has long suspected that the compies, built with the help of the ancient Klikiss robots, cannot be trusted. Now the shocking proof comes when the Klikiss launch their long-planned extermination of all things flesh and blood. And in the ensuing battle, humans and Ildirans alike will face their darkest choices yet.

The saga continues: listen to more of Kevin J. Anderson's Seven Suns series.

©2005 WordFire, Inc. (P)2005 Brilliance Audio

Critic reviews

"More on-the-edge-of-your-seat SF thrills....Anderson handles a huge cast and complicated plot with élan." ( Publishers Weekly)
"David Colacci's youthful, mildly expressive voice is a plus....Lots of action here, and a fully realized universe." ( AudioFile)

disappointed with the narrator

I loved the first three books, and found the narrator engaging. This one is read by someone else, and I do not enjoy his style. Also, as mentioned by another reviewer, he pronounces many of the names differently. I actually didn't listen to the whole thing, I went and bought the book itself.

Step in the wrong direction

Definitely a step in the wrong direction. Mainly, the weakness is the result of the new narrator, who (although talented), appears to have not listened to any of the previous books.
The new narrator is also inconsistent is his performance. Sometimes he calls the Compies by the hyphenated alphabet (K.R. is K. - R. ), other times he does not (G.U. is Gooo).
The narrator performs like a ham-actor who is trying his utmost to steal the scene. The result is very annoying. It's like that time on Seinfeld when George slams the girl with the chopsticks in her hair for talking about her Paap- i- eh Mache hats; it's pretentious.
Again, I blame the publisher. Do they have no responsibility for their product? The narrator is talented; he just needed someone to tell him to:"Knock it off!"
Moving on to book 4 with lowered expectations.

Still worth a listen

Although David Colacci replaces George Guidall and it takes some getting accustomed to, it is still worth a listen. If Colacci had read the series from the beginning and touched base with Kevin J. Anderson about pronounciations, there would not be a controversy. David Colacci is a fine narrator.

The most prevalent issue I have are the occasions when I suppose people are supposedly speaking over a radio, and the production uses voices that sound like they are coming from a squeaky megaphone. It is God awful! And it happens far too often. In the far future, anyone serious think that radio conversations will sound like they are tramsmitted from a 1930's AM radio?

Great book - Horrible narration

This great story is unfortunately really spoiled by the new narrator, David Colacci. I'm actually considering skipping the rest of the audiobooks and sticking to the kindle version. How a narrator can so completely ignore the previous narrator in the series, and totally mangle the pronunciation of the characters names is beyond my understanding. How a publisher could accept this travesty is even more unbelievable. The people behind this production should really be ashamed of themselves.

Still Shining Brightly!

Sometimes a series starts to burn out after the 3rd book, but not Scattered Suns. It shines a brightly as the 7 Ildiran suns.

First 3 books EA was Ee Ay not Ee uh

Narrator should have listened to prior pronunciations instead of renaming major characters. BTW Tasia (Tas cee uh not Taz ee uh).

Continuity issues -

What three words best describe David Colacci’s performance?

Listen to the 3 previous books performed by George Guidall, note how names and objects are pronounced, then re-record. Other than that great job, but the departure on how things are pronounced is overly distracting after hearing the first 3.

Another amazing chapter to the saga.

The story is amazing. Not sure when the Ildirans became British and the Roamers Southerners. Perhaps the new performer should review the previous performances and not change the pronunciation of so many characters names. it was jarring.

LOVED the New Narrator!

I just DO NOT give "5's" Lightly!!!! Been with Audible OVER 10 Years, and have HUNDREDS upon HUNDREDS of Books in my Library as a Platinum Member (And DO NOT put a "Buy Extra Credits at this special Price" offer in front of me unless you mean it, because I'll Punch THAT ad button as many times as it's put in front of me!) Point being, My Wife and I Listen to books ALMOST CONSTANTLY! We KNOW what we like (and what we DON'T)...

Now, I know I won't get many "Helpful Votes" for this review, because for some reason it seems many people REALLY have strong feelings about the new Narrator... I don't like it when a new Narrator jumps into an established book (We're talking, what, investing OVER 150 Hours of your life to listen to this ENTIRE Series???)... HOWEVER, everyone seems to agree that THIS is the way to "Write a New Universe" and to tell the story of the MANY various people and cultures!!! The STORY is what is so great about this series!

I LIKE the "New" narrator (David Colacci) who took over narration when the author changed publishers! While I liked the original Narrator (George Guidall, Who does a FANTASTIC JOB in the first few books!), once I got used to Colacci doing the reading, I started REALLY liking his style, and the New accents he introduces! I find that it became MUCH easier to tell one Race (or even each "Person") apart from the others, just by the WAY each race (or person) speaks, with racial accents, the way one race adds different inflections to words, etc... It just seemed TO ME that it became easier to keep up with "who is who" without having to back up every 30 minutes because I'd missed a character change (or even a change is Races) and didn't realize it. This is the FIRST book I can think of off the top of my head where "Changing established narrators once the Series is pretty far along, actually ended up being a little BETTER overall"... Good enough that I started giving "5 stars for all three Categories ("Overall", "Performance", and "Story"), straight across the board"!

Anyway... I know others disagree, but give the new narrator a fair chance, and get on with listening to THE STORY! IT - IS - HUGE! It encompasses the entire "Spiral Arm" during a time of turmoil, and THIS series is "It's saga"!

great book

I just wish the reader would have listened to the other 3 books so he could have pronounced many of the names and words the same as the old reader. I can understand why to switch readers but this new guy did not pronounce many of names and places anywhere close to the old reader of books 1 2 and 3. kinda bugged me alot while listening to this book. overall though, I love this series so far and will continue to listen regardless