Scion of Conquered Earth: A Science Fiction Space Opera Adventure

By: Michael J. Allen

Narrated by: A W Dickson

Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

Alien fighters bombard Earth's ruins. Cannibalistic aerobics instructors hunt the wastes. The last free survivors struggle against starvation and enslavement. It's become a world where friendship costs too dearly and heroics verge on suicide.

One young man can't resist either until a fed-up AI steals him off the planet. Alone with only a sarcastic, broken-down starship, he braves a whole new verse full of strange new enemies and tech he barely understands.

Help and harm beset him from identical faces, forcing Earth's last free scion to decide who he is, what he holds dear and just how far he'll go to protect both. The right choices could save Earth. The wrong ones could cost galaxies...

©2016 Michael J. Allen (P)2018 Delirious Scribbles Ink

I NEED MORE.... GREAT START TO A SERIES.

I lover it. Great book. It has action romance well hell a bit of everything.

really liked this one a lot

I was given this free review copy audio book at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

This was a great sci fi story full of action and a good dose of snark. The story was written/narrated well and made for a very entertaining listen. Definitely hope this is a series!

Scifi

This is post apocalyptic mixed with scifi. This book is very violent and I would not recommend you listening/reading to it whilst eating. It will make you sick.
However, it is fast paced and a lot happens. I feel like there are two parts to this book. The first part happens on earth and then after a while the second part happens in space. This surprised me because I was not expecting it and what happens there.
The author really knows how to write because he keeps you listening until the end, even though you want to slap the main character at times but the AI does that for you (vervally). Which I really liked.
As I mentioned there is graphic violence but some moderate sexual content. The main character acts at times like a hormonal teenager and there are some innuendos and there is two senes in a brothel.

Takes long before story reaches space

I settled in for a space opera, but the first 8(!) hours take place on a dystopian earth. MC is a teenager who has lost his memory and needs to survive. There's a lot of explicit psychological torture and duress. I guess the author wanted to give the MC a fleshed-out background and a reason why he's so adamant about freeing slaves and why he wants to eventually return to earth, but 8 hours felt like a long time only to accomplish that.
Finally MC reaches space so I again settled in for the 'opera' part. But found it not. Teenager now suddenly and inexplicably has lost his helplessness and knows how to lead interplanetary trade missions, and how to strategize together with an alien AI.

I really missed a character development arc here, a quest, a struggle of growth. At least some awe and surprise that the universe is filled with many peoples and alien races. Plot however is not character-driven, which leaves the story itself. The time in space is filled with either (rather boring) trades, some flight lessons and some minor action scenes that to me could have been more suspenseful. To me, the MC was the male equivalent of a Mary Sue character.

The novel ends on a cliffhanger; however, at the end there are some bonus minutes of the second book in this series so you get a taste of where the story goes right after that cliffhanger, which I think is a good idea for people who tend to get frustrated by cliffhangers ;-) and will help listeners decide whether or not to buy the next book in the series.

Narration was good; here and there it was difficult to discriminate between different characters.

All in all I think this might be more suitable for teenagers of about 15 years - same age range as the MC. Hence the 3 stars overall.

~ I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review. I was not required to write a positive review and this reflects my honest opinion of the work.

Space opera adventure is the right title

What an adventure... A slave fighting for his freedom and humanity struggles to free himself and save others. Even later in the story, he fights to save the people around him. Take a ride on this journey to freedom and the fight against oppression.

"I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review."

Feels like 2 stories mashed together

It was an interesting journey. It felt like two different stories mashed together. For the first 3rd or more of the book, a nameless young man (who later is called Alaric) is trying to evade all sorts of bad people. Earth has been hit hard by an invading alien force. But the lines are blurred by the humans who help hunt down the remaining free humans as well as another type of alien in the area that is at odd with the Welorin but perhaps also want to conquer Earth.
Then there’s this lawyers weirdness thing. It looks like anyone who used to be a lawyer or even assisted lawyers are now rehabilitated somehow into zombie monsters? Ugh, I’m still not sure. Anyways, Alaric and other free humans have to avoid them too. And I think aerobics instructors were lumped in with the lawyers…. Sounds a little like some personal dislike seeping into the storyline, doesn’t it?

So eventually Alaric is captured and there’s a little insta-luve scenario that was sappy sweet. But then there’s an escape and Alaric ends up on a spaceship. It’s actually a merchant ship manned by the AI Cassi and Manc Shepherd. At this point, the story is a big space opera and there’s no more mention of that weird lawyer thing, so I never did figure that out.

The space opera part was a lot more fun than the first part of the book, but it did feel like a non-sequitur. There’s lots of action and a few small space battles and alien! Very exciting stuff. And Alaric gets a pet dog to keep him company.

Then there’s the ladies, which all seem to be fascinated with Alaric and are usually sex symbols (looking at you Tyne!) or romantic interests. The ladies left something to be desired. I also have to say there’s little to no character development. Alaric is pretty the same guy at the end of the book as he was at the beginning of the book.

The story left me with lots of unanswered questions and also feeling like I was a little dumb for not figuring out some things. However, the space opera part was a lot of fun and I hope the series sticks with that. 3.5/5 stars.

The Narration: A. W. Dickson did a good job with this story. He had a great voice for Alaric, capturing his various emotions throughout the story. His female voices were believable. And his various regional accents were well done. The pacing was perfect and there were no technical issues with the recording. 5/5 stars.

I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Audiobookworm Promotions on behalf of various authors, narrators, and publishers. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.

not your typical boy meets ship or disaster story

I'm not typically into post destruction of earth stories -this one is so much more though. If you like the original 3 star wars you will enjoy the space exploration parts of this book also.

great story loved the crossover

really like the crossover type story, can't wait to start on the next book. keep rooting for the runt!

Great Concept and Story

I will first say that this ended up being a really good book and the start to what I believe will be a great series. However, you have to get past the beginning of this audiobook before you will be able to enjoy anything... After that, you'll be hooked into a great space adventure story.

The first 3 hours or so of this book might as well be an entirely different story but does give the background for the main character. While the main story is a page-turning space adventure, it starts out on the ground in what is essentially a post-apocalyptic world. In the near future following an alien invasion, the earth has devolved into chaos and society has collapsed under the boot of alien overlords. The main character is struggling to survive and the story follows him as he evades the aliens and their human allies, hunts for food and shelter, and falls in love.

However, the beginning gets truly gruesome... I almost stopped listening thinking the entire book was going to be nothing but visually descriptive torture fantasies better suited for a horror book than anything space sci-fi. It also seems to go on forever (hours) with what seems like no hope in sight.
While I'm VERY glad I continued through this, I really thought the book could have done without some of the more horrific scenes. This part of the book could have been shortened by 1-2 hours and been better off for it because of the rest of the story literally seems like a different book with the same main character.

Once the main character escapes on a sentient alien ship and sets off into space, the book gets quite good. He is determined to trade and earn enough credits to return and free his homeworld from the second-rate space thugs who have subjugated earth. There are space battles, pirates, and great characters. Looking forward to the next book!

I thought the narrator did a great job and was the perfect voice for the main character. Top-notch performance.

I requested and received a free review copy of this audiobook from the author, narrator, or publisher in exchange for an unbiased review. I was NOT required to write a positive review and this reflects my honest opinion of the work.

Wow! This was a roller coaster ride!!!

Top tier sci-fi, space opera, thriller, slightly romantic....this book was a very thrilling experience. Elrick's brother's caustic chatter was funny. Now that I have completed the first audiobook, I'm hitting up Audible for the rest of them in the series. I highly recommend this book and series. Now for the obligatory: "I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review."