Of Humans and Empires: Boxset

Of Humans and Empires, Book 4

De: Aaron Holloway

Narrado por: Jack Voraces

Follow all of the now declassified exploits of one agent, code named Friend, as they fight their way through a galaxy filled with trouble and danger that is on the brink of war!

This Boxset contains all three novellas. Of Humans and Empires, Interrogations and Interviews, and The Great Hunts Across The Stars!

©2020,2022,2024 Aaron Holloway (P)2024 Aaron Holloway

Some fun world building

The first book is basically all world building with only superficial narrative or characters. But the world building is fun and it’s an easy book to listen to. The next two books have more narrative and characters, but unfortunately I found the main character a little annoying and not particularly compelling. If you like the tropes of humans being super combative relative to other alien species or cocky spy characters then it might be worth checking out. Since the whole boxset is so short I also want to highlight that the last 31 minutes are actually a preview for a different story.

Unique shorter stories series

I will lead with the fact I did receive a free copy to review this title. However This box set was still a unique breath of fresh air as i haven't personally ran into a setup like this before. the interview/interrogation/log progression of the story tracking the characters development from story to story was nice. I'm a lore/world building nerd and some of the small offhand comments made by the main character help to flesh out a lived in world and let you sink in to it and think about interesting little tangents as the story progresses. I deeply enjoyed the the performance of Jack V. as he gave personality where some narrators just read the words in front of them he added the depth of emotion as events developed like an actual person would. overall I would definitely listen to another story by either author or narrator again.

Patchwork quilt thru a short bit of space and time

A secret agent with multiple aliases and a dense history of sabotage and wet work shares his galactic adventures in the form of audio log snippets. The uncommon format of Aaron Holloway's storytelling allows our minds to take the information provided, mainly details of Friend's location, time, and occupational hazards, then compose them into accompanying visuals that are appropriate to the setting and action. I don't know about you, but my mind can conjure up some mighty fine imagery, and listening to this story was a blast from a pulsar cannon. In no small part due to the excellent portrayal of Friend by narrator Jack Voraces who provided not only the dialogue, but also the air of confidence of our protagonist who has seen more than his fair share of close quarters combat, and the authenticity of his struggles when dodging enemy gunships or suffering from broken ribs. My only complaint is the moderately short length of the stories, as I would enjoy listening to more of these adventures. [Disclosure: I received this title for free and listened at 1.95x.]

such a fun take on sci fi

you get spy stories and you get sci-fi stories. this was a beautiful mix of the two that was narrated wonderfully. you are drawn in and out keeps you in its grasp

monologues

The format of this big is it's greatest downfall. I am a fan of Jack Voraces for his excellent character voices, none of which we got to hear in this story as it it three books of monologues. The climax gets multicharacter dialogue which cam as a pleasant surprise after a bit of a slog. I think the first book was fine as a stage setting long prologue to the real story, but the next two books were in a format of a debrief and log recodings. if they story were told in real time perspective as events happened it would have been more exciting. the story itself was not bad, but I had a hard time trying to decide if it was supposed to be an action sci-fi that didn't quite deliver or if it was a series of comical anecdotes that didn't quite land because of the format. Either way I didn't have an emotional connection to the story because the few characters didn't have an emotional connection to who they were talking to. I look forward to the authors growth