The First Casualty

Jump Universe, Book 1

By: Mike Shepherd

Narrated by: Michael McConnahie

Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

Four soldiers. One war.

Asteroid miner Mary Rodrigo and freighter owner Mattim Abeeb are green draftees of the Society of Humanity, forced to fight for Earth - a planet they’ve never even seen. Major Ray Longknife and his lover, Senior Pilot Rita Nuu, are career soldiers, invested with the cause of the Unity Party - and its ambitious new president. These four soldiers on opposing sides of the battle are about to discover the true nature of this terrible war: a quest for profit - from the high command of both sides. What they will risk is nothing less than their lives. For although truth may be the first casualty of war, it’s not going to be the last….

©1999 Mike Moscoe (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Lots of Action

I enjoyed the Kris Longknife series so thought I would give this series by Shepherd a try. I discovered that the story was first published in 1999 under the name of Mike Moscoe. The book apparently is the prequel to the Kris Longknife series.

In this story we learn about Major Ray Longknife and his wife Senior Pilot Rita Nuu. They are both career military. Ray is wounded in battle and loses his legs. He is awarded the highest award for valor. Rita returns after being declared dead. Ray’s military career is over so with the help of Rita’s father, a wealthy industrialist’ he goes into politics. We also follow the story of Lt. Mary Rodrigo and Major Terence “Trouble” Tordon. Also featured is merchant Captain, now Navy Captain, Mattim Abeeb and his crew. Abeeb and crew make a “jump gate” at full speed while in a battle and end up across the universe and have to find their way home.

I am not sure what they are fighting about and who is the good guy and the bad guy. I have figured out the “Society of Humanity,” which is the earth side of the conflict, is fighting the “Unity Party” of the rim worlds. Ray Longknife was fighting on the Unity party side, I think.

The book is well written and fast paced. It appears the Shepherd is building his characters and not explaining much about what is going on. I am looking forward to the next book and hopefully will learn more about the war. This is a fun military Sci-Fi story. Michael M. McConnohie does a good job narrating the book.

Hard to be kind but wish I could

Is there anything you would change about this book?

I get the impression that the author, when needing to name his characters, merely looked about the room and randomly picked objects. With surnames like 'Whitebread', 'Longknife', Swordandshield' it seemed comical. Equal amount of creativity with the nicknames too. I fought through it because the premise was good but I've returned to re-listen three times now hoping to be able to commit to the next book in the series, but in the end I just can't.

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

Honestly, I was a little pleased I managed to get to the end.

How could the performance have been better?

I different narrator and perhaps a final edit of the book. I struggle to illustrate a point of reference for the reading performance - it seems like a cross between a not very well written 1940's radio play and maybe a late night promo for a low budget made for TV movie. It wasn't irretrievably terrible, but nowhere near the quality I've found in most other Audible works. Perhaps the reader was just cutting his teeth and hadn't hit his stride yet but it seemed like he approached it with crib notes in his script reminding him to 'use your mad voice here' or 'use your desperate voice here' and and following through with the same performance as every other passage with the same note. It's hard to describe - there seemed to be little variation between the characters he was presenting. And sweet mercy, any of the unnecessarily added sex/near sex passages made me cringe - I'm still at a loss if it was the way it was narrated or the way it was written.

Any additional comments?

I think it's probably unfair to be critical of such an early piece of the author's work but I certainly wish I knew more about what I was getting before buying this audio book. It's not awful but there are facets that seem to consistently stop me from trying the author again even though I find the premise of this novel interesting enough to want to continue the series. I'm faced with an impossible scenario to chose from (and it seems like there could be only two possible options) - either the writing gets better but the narration fails to improve or the narration gets better (with or without a change in performer) but writing doesn't. Perhaps my impression would be far different if I tried a different piece of work first. However, once I find an author I enjoy, I tend to consume their whole catalogue - it would just mean I'd be saving my disappointment for later.

Good Listen

Would you listen to The First Casualty again? Why?

A good listen that is not quite as predictable as one might think
A few twists and turns keeps up the interest
Funny to listen to

Good military SF

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I enjoyed the story after I got over the narrator.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The First Casualty?

First battle.

What aspect of Michael McConnahie’s performance would you have changed?

He read like an AM radio announcer, overly modulated and didn't differentiate the characters well.

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

No. I found the reader annoying and had to break up the listening until I got used to his reading.

It took me 2 times to start this book

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

yes, good solid story good characters, good narrator

Have you listened to any of Michael McConnahie’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No and i really like him, I'm going to search him and see if that turns me on to some new authors.

Any additional comments?

If you are familiar with the Kris Longknife universe, then your gonna love this. its about her great grandparents, and what they did to get there start and they are good fun characters that are not what you think. Haven't read a kris longknife book? its okay these are independant books set in the same universe and may be fun to start with this series!

Bad Tech

Would you try another book from Mike Shepherd and/or Michael McConnahie?

As I said in my review of book 3 (that was released 1st), the author has a LAZY writing style: good ideas but no thorough review. This causes regrettable transgressions. The most glaring in this book was people from a low gravity environment completing their daily tasks in a 3-Earth gravity environment. So, say you're a 200lb man, that would be like carrying around a 400# weight in addition to your normal body weight. Also, sometimes I get the feeling he's writing for a young audience. I'm out.

Story was pretty good

The story was pretty good but it seemed strange that the story was set in the future but all the people talk like they're in the 50's

Better than the rating I gave it

So the story was excellent. The characters were interesting, and it kept me engaged. The problem was that neither the story or the narrator provided a transition between storylines. One minute, you were hearing about one character and the next had you hearing about another without any way to tell a transition happened. In the book, there were likely chapter breaks, but in the audio version, it was very confusing at times. Despite this, it was a good story and I'll watch for the next book, but I don't know that I'd spend a credit on it. If it's on sale or audible plus, I'll likely get it.

Outstanding

This series is a great listen. If your into the Kris Longknife series, these stories fill in the gaps of her Grandparents histories. Michael McConnahie is an outstanding narrator as well. He is the "ying" to Dina Pearlman's "yang".

Good, easy listen, pretty fast paced.

If you could sum up The First Casualty in three words, what would they be?

Facts already known

What did you like best about this story?

The problem with any prequel is that you are limited to what you can do by "facts already known" by the reader. Mike did a great job of handling that. McConnahie was very good.