TRAVELER

By: Adrian Phillips

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's summary

Human race has prospered and advanced in all areas of science and technology for many centuries now, they had even achieved space travel capability, many moons in Sol System and almost all the planets have been colonized and now human race was once again looking into the stars to expand their borders and continue their peaceful connection with the other races in the galaxy. Federation of planets was a peaceful and exploratory entity and had managed to not just live among the stars but also create a peaceful coexistence with other races of sentient beings, but all of that was about to change. Commander Paul Paterson was having a wonderful day, he was about to test his latest invention, which was the most advanced hyperdrive engine ever built, then they came uninvited and unannounced.

A vicious and predatory race of aliens attacked the peaceful federation with all the might and advanced weaponry they possessed. Commander Paterson watched helplessly from the pilot seat of his prototype spaceship as his beloved federation and everything he held dear to his heart was destroyed by the Kartanans, the savage race of aliens who were hell bent on destroying the human race. When the fast attack gunships of the alien invasion race detected his presence aboard his unarmed scientific spaceship, he made a daring attempt to escape and warn the other colonies but everything that could go wrong, went wrong.

When he entered the wormhole to jump away from Sol System his ship was struck by a massive solar flare and he was thrown off course, not just in space but also in time. Follow the adventures of commander Paul Paterson as he escapes from the vicious claws of the savage alien race and arrives in a time and space far away from his own, he will transform to what he truly is and always has been, a warrior of ancient origin, a protector, the last guardian.

Not as bad as I expected.

First of all the story was a bit simple. The technology was gloss over quite substantially, and in some cases you might as well have called it magic with a technological explanation. The story started off as an exciting space hopping adventure, but quickly turned into a sappy romance story. What surprised me was the voice recording was actually not as bad as I was expecting, I am impressed by the quality, though if you put this side-by-side with a professional voice recorder, this would only rate one or two in a comparison of 10.

The virtual voice did this book a great disservice.

This book would’ve been so much better with a real person narrating. A real person would’ve gave each character a distinct voice, and would’ve brought this book to life and thats the very reason why we pay so much money for our Audible subscription. The virtual voice narrator sounds like they’re reading a bedtime story to a child.

Overcoming adversities at every turn, masterly done that keeps you in syspence .

This is the beginning of a great opus, that threatens to upset how we thing of AI.

A review

This book is meh , despite the flatness of the virtual voice
And the obvious Ai produce story . I tend to have a soft spot for FarScape-ish storyline , so for something included in my membership it was worth a listen .
The story took a turn towards the absurd, every person would go on multiple paragraphs of praise mostly for Sam . Things are explained in a highly literary way , the interaction between characters are unrealistic and often times contradictory. Take a sci fi story and make it more about weird interactions between characters and you have this . Next time you might want a real person checking if things make sense, like funny jokes people acting like people . Don’t get me started about how often the names are used.