Stand Alone

Wolfhounds, Book 1

By: John Van Stry

Narrated by: Kyf Brewer

Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

Chase had it all planned out.

Do a little time in one of the emperor's jails, say a four-year stretch, for getting rid of some trash that no one would miss, and when he got out, the path to leadership would be wide open. It wasn't enough to be one of the gang's rising stars, or better lieutenants. He needed jail time, serious jail time—not that juvie crap or just going to county, to garner the respect he needed and deserved.

Unfortunately, his bastard of a father, the same one who left his mother to die in poverty and him to run wild on the streets, took an interest. Seeing him sitting on the bench when his case went to court was a shock. But not as big a shock as being sentenced to ten years in the Imperial Navy.

That's just the first of Chase's nasty surprises as he finds himself among the Emperor's Own—The Wolfhounds. How and why his bastard father sent him there is a secret that only the base AI knows the answer to. When that same AI decides to use Chase to fulfill its own orders, Chase soon finds himself in a situation where if he doesn't die honorably in combat due to the enemy, his own side will arrange those circumstances for him.

Unfortunately for everyone involved, Chase is proving to be just as tough of a bastard as the man who sent him there.

©2023 John Van Stry (P)2024 Podium Audio

Great story but the voice actor not so much

The story was great which is not a big surprise since everything I've read from John Van Stry / Jan Stryvant is great. the voice actor on the other hand could be better. there was little to no difference between male and female voices which could get confusing on who was speaking. Now he does try to have the male voices sound different and a few do but the majority are in his reading voice. He doesn't really have any female voices, if any, in his retinue of character voices which makes it hard to tell if the person who is speaking is a girl or a guy. The emotion that the characters express does come through so he doesn't have a monotone voice which is the only thing keeping the performance at two stars.

I hope the voice actor can diversify his range of voices in the next volume otherwise I may stick to just reading them

Review with Spoilers

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS SO KEEP READING AT YOUR OWN RISK

Point Of View(POV):
The POV jumps between Many characters but only for a very short time then back to the MC. Normally I hate it and won't even listen to a book if I know that there are more than 1-2 POV's but because the POV is very short when it's on other characters and only stays for a longer time at the MC i don't mind it as much.

What Is The Book About?
it's about an orphan named "Chase" who have been living in the streets since the age of 12 (now 18-20) he is a lieutenant in one of the empire's capital city gangs and for him to higher and eventually take over the gang he needs serious prison time so he kills some scumbag that no one would miss even all the evidence against him was all "lost/misplaces" by the police.

Then when he is about to be sentenced his dad that he has only seen once in his life shows up as the judge and sentences him to 10 years in the military in the Wolfhound fleet instead much to Chase's dismay.

The Wolfhounds is basically the Emperors private army and only he can command them

He arrives at Wolfhound base and gets into Cryosleep and was supposed to wake up in 3-6 months time instead when they wake up they discover that 10 years have passed.

Chase of course don’t care but many of the others do so while chase and the other “mechanics/engineers” is running around trying to fix the thousands of things broken or otherwise from the 10 years lack of maintenance while at the same time dealing with crew going insane worrying about their families and friends, The Command Staff/leaders comes up with a plan on what to do.

they arrive at (can’t remember the name and is to lazy to check) where they discover that 10 years ago the Emperor and most if not all of is family was killed and that Speaker Neil and his henchmen has taken over the empire, and made women in the military into sex slaves on ships and many, Many other things just as bad.

The Wolfhound Command staff comes up with the idea to select a random crew and make a “Fake” prince so that they have the legitimacy to keep looking after a “real” imperial family member still alive. And then when they find one, then give the “fake” a heroic death.

They ask the base AI to select someone from the crew and the AI knowing something they don’t but have been sworn to secrecy selects Chase as the “fake” prince.

BUT when they tell Chase that the judge that sentenced him was a real Imperial Prince and that they are going to pretend that Chase is his son so that they have an Imperial and can legitimate search for the “Real” imperial prince/princess in an is still alive. But what they don’t know is that Chase is ACTUALLY the son of the judge aka the Imperial prince.

Of course because Chase have lived on the Streets he don’t trust easy and don’t tell anyone this and commands the AI to not tell anyone since the AI’s first loyalty it to the Imperial Family first and the wolfhounds second and since Chase apparently have an inactive imperial interface that you can only get by being blood related to an Imperial the AI must obey him even though he repeatedly tries to persuade Chase to tell the truth throughout the book.

Now since Chase Maybe need to die and heroic death, of course they don’t tell him that but he is smart enough to figure that out himself, they send him to Mech school under the tutelage of (can’t remember her name and is to lazy to check) an baroness much to her displeasure having to teach an lowly orphan to become a Mech pilot.

We then follow Chase Training to become Mech pilot while also learning how to be an Imperial Prince and while the CO wants to tell him what to say and do Chase has other plans and does whatever he wants just as an Imperial Prince would do.

Now comes the hard part finding Replacement part to the tens of Thousand of broken things in the fleet and at the same time keep dodging Assassins that is after the 10 mil. credit bounty on Chases head.

While also keep stringing the Command Staff along and preventing them from finding out that he is ACTUALLY an “Real” Imperial Prince before Chase is ready and has gathered loyal allies he can trust to his side.

Romance?:
YES no explicit content but the MC quickly immediately falls in love with ******** and spends almost the rest of the book realizing that and so does she and I can't wait for book 2 so that i can watch their relationship blossom.

good book. good performance

I really like this book and look forward to the next. I own it in paperback and now audio.

sometimes a hoodrat is more than he appears. after a couple. it appears that he may become a emperor

It’s a bit different but good

It’s a bit different than the Author usual novel series but it was quite good. I look forward to the next novel series.

Great book

This book was great I enjoyed every minute of it. I just hope the second book comes out soon that book will be a instant buy for when I see it.

An Old School Space Opera

I have a soft spot for space opera, and I thoroughly enjoyed this one. Well-drawn characters, a strong backstory for the MC, a believable supporting cast, and a rocking space battle. There are a few weak spots, such as using genetics to create the implants where nanites might have served better, and the mechs in the story more closely resemble anime Gundams than classic war machines. Still, it's a well-crafted story, and I'll be following it in the future.

Good story, crap voice acting

VA sounds exactly the same for every character. It made it really hard to differentiate between characters. The story on the other hand was good, kind of dry at points but overall very entertaining.

outstanding book.

It flows well with the story getting more compelling as it progresses it ends with a promise of more of the same for book two.

you definitely should pick this one up

right up front I'll say that I recommend this book to anybody reading this review. I tend to take it easy on the first book of a new series as in my experience new book suffer from the shakes even from tried and true authors. in this case I didn't need to take it easy at all. I am a fan of the author's past works and I'm happy to see that this story was written very well. the story was entertaining and the performance from the narrator was phenomenal. I've never come across the narrator before but I would look forward to enjoying his future works. the story in a nutshell is a coup that results in a fabled military unit being lost for 10 years. when they come out of stasis they find that the new government has been abusing its people on World's across the colonized Galaxy. Our Heroes have orders for just such an event though with 10 years having passed there in a bad way. The Purge has also eliminated all the Royal Blood and thus they need somebody to give them legitimacy. Q our main character who has grown up on the Mean Streets, orphaned early, and with a powerful father who would just assume kill his son as pretend he never existed. if you get to the ending of this book and are eager for more than I've got good news for you as the sequel is out in ebook form. personally I'm not going to be waiting for the audio but when the audio does release for the sequel It's just a convenient excuse to go back and enjoy the story all over again. with that I'll simply say Well done to everybody who had a hand in bringing the story to us, the audiobook listeners.

good story

Good story. I liked the main character. Found the story interesting. I immediatly got book 2 on kindle, since the next audiobook isnt out yet. Wasnt impressed with the narrator but he is ok.