Swarm

Star Force, Book 1

By: B. V. Larson

Narrated by: Mark Boyett

Length: 10 hrs

Publisher's summary

Earth arms marines with alien technology and builds its first battle fleet! Kyle Riggs is snatched by an alien spacecraft sometime after midnight. The ship is testing everyone it catches and murdering the weak. The good news is that Kyle keeps passing tests and staying alive. The bad news is the aliens who sent this ship are the nicest ones out there.

A novel of military science fiction by best-selling author B. V. Larson, Swarm is the story of Earth's annexation by an alien empire. Long considered a primitive people on a backwater planet, humanity finds itself in the middle of a war - and faced with extinction.

Battle stations! Listen to another Star Force novel.

©2010 B.V. Larson (P)2011 Audible, Inc.

Agreat start ot a series

I loved this book and will read on in the series. A great premise of two warring extra-terrestrials with the earth caught in the middle.

Great series

Love this story very exciting and fast moving. can't wait for the next book in this series.

Interesting idea, not great execution.

What three words best describe Mark Boyett’s voice?

Natural reading voice is great, attempts at accents are terrible.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

Mildly entertaining story line

Any additional comments?

The premise of this book, while not entirely original, was still quite intriguing and provided a good basis for quite an engaging story. The story failed to live up to its full potential though.

The main characters were never really developed beyond a glossed over 2 sentence background story. The secondary characters didn't even receive that much attention. As a result there are no real personalities in the book to either like or dislike.

The author tries to explain the motivations of Riggs (protagonist) but it feels contrived and mechanical. I was never really in sync with Rigg's actions and thought processes given what he was going through, and as such never became invested in the character. I found myself indifferent to the danger he was in. The relationships that develop are too convenient and feel 'set-up'.

The narrative is clunky and just doesn't feel organic enough. There was no personality in the dialogue and it ends up feeling like listening to a computer talking to another computer. Which I suppose may fit with the situation, but it just doesn't make for entertaining or engaging listening.

The narrators natural voice is great when voicing Riggs, however the accents were terrible and extremely off putting. It really made the character become nothing more than cardboard thin stereotypes.

All in all it's an average audiobook, not great - but not terrible either.
I haven't read the reviews on other books in this series, but there is definitely the potential that the author can salvage the story and produce more well rounded books in the future.

Excellent, John Ringo style

I listened to ALL John Ringo books first, no disrespect to Larson, but this is why the comparison. If you like John Ringo, you will like Larson. I personally like Swarm even a little bit more, but this is a close call based on averaged Ringo's books impression (some later Ringo's volumes, specifically written in collaboration with others I rate way lower than earlier ones authored by Ringo himself. But then again, I never believed in creativity by committee, so this was another confirmation of this belief).

A Willie K Review

Excellent read I give it a good recommendation. The storyline was very fluid for an extended timeline and a medium size book. I enjoyed how the author brought a new take on technology and alien encounters previously written about. Looking forward to the next book in the series and what the new aliens do.

Excellent story. First chapter was slow but then..

After the first chapter that seemed slow the book blossomed into an excellent listen.
Great imagination. Stuff I have never heard before.
The author has a very creative mind.

yes!

Narrator is good and I love the amazing mind of B.V. Larson, I finished his undeying mercenaries series and hoping another book comes out(if it hasent Already), till then I'm getting the second book for this series!

great start

fun book I'm off to the next book Extinction Star Force series #2 AND AWAY WE GO...

Loved the story and performance, editing was not so good.

You can clearly hear a hiccup in the audio where they had spliced two tracks together. It's a bit annoying and sounds like you miss part of the story but I don't think you do.

First contact gone wrong done right.

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

There have been audiobooks that made me stop and rethink my role in this existence. This book was not one of those kind of books. But it is very well written, very well performed, and a creative fresh perspective on the concept of first contact gone bad.

What did you like best about this story?

No glaring flaws in concepts, fictional technology believable, a more realistic character portrayal. UNLIKE many series books I have read, you are not left hanging at the end. There was a logical break in the story line to justify the next book.

What about Mark Boyett’s performance did you like?

Each character had a unique speech pattern so that they were easily identified.

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

Yes, but why do you mention sitting. I listen while gardening, fertilizing the lawn, cleaning dishes, and removing old finishes from wood.

Any additional comments?

I read two other books by the same author that are very well written. Steelworld, and Dustworld that are worth a read.