A Learning Experience, Book 1

By: Christopher G. Nuttall

Narrated by: Christian Rummel

Length: 12 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's summary

Earth is not alone. There is a towering civilization out in the galaxy, far greater than anything we can imagine. But we are isolated from the galaxy...until now.

When a bunch of interstellar scavengers approach Earth intending to abduct a few dozen humans and sell them into slavery in the darkest, they make the mistake of picking on Steve Stuart and his friends, ex-military veterans all. Unprepared for humans who can actually fight, unaware of the true capabilities of their stolen starships, the scavengers rapidly lose control of the ship - and their lives.

To Steve the captured starship represents a great opportunity, one to establish a new civilization away from Earth and its increasingly oppressive bureaucracy. But with the aliens plotting their revenge and human factions suspicious of the new technology, it will be far from easy to create a whole new world....

©2014 Christopher G. Nuttall (P)2016 Podium Publishing

SJW"s will hate this book. so i loved it.

cant wait to get into the next book. if your a independent thinker then you might enjoy this book

great concept for a story

I will not be listening to the other installments, the original concept of the story changed, now the next 3 books are gynocentric, before it was neutral and libertarian in nature. but this installment was very good. so I recommend it, but I do understand the author and why he made the next books as he did, he wanted his work published and that is how you survive in this business you go SJW.

Fine story destroyed by "USA is greatest"

Have you ever read a classical political story ment to shape the opinion? The Germans and English made some interesting ones before and during VW2. This story is a more modern version, so politically colored it overwhelms everything.

The narrator does a really good job, but when the storyline is so politically colored it overwhelms the narrators work..

Back to the future

This reminded me of the Space operas I grew up reading in the 60s and 70s. There was very little science in sci-fi back then because much of the technology we take for granted now did not exist. So Burroughs, Asimov and Heinlien could wing it. Not today. Nuttall's storytelling is too weak on science and biology. I.e., aliens who have pincer like claws capable of using equipment developed for a bipedal race with opposable thumbs! Every species in the galaxy conveniently breath oxygen?

Too many conspiracy theories

The book had many good aspects, but i quickly grew tired of stupid conspiracy theories about current earth politics.. If it hadnt been for those the book would have rated higher

It was a ok story but it was just strange.

Would you consider the audio edition of A Learning Experience, Book 1 to be better than the print version?

The book would be better because the narrator sounds too much like a hillbilly. I didn't mind the power he took after finding the ship because what he wrote is true about the world governments and how they would take it and top secret it. Other comments say the author was on a power trip but I don't agree.

Would you recommend A Learning Experience, Book 1 to your friends? Why or why not?

No. I didn't mind the story but it could have been written better. It was weird how events happened. Not enough description I guess. Like thoughts of the characters as they went along.

Great story

Love this story and its characters. "Baen's Bar" made me laugh.
Thanks for a great story.

Don't Let the Politics Fool You

I rated this a 4 because the reader is too wooden for this story. He narrated the Lost Fleet series, which I thought was better suited to his style of reading. However, the story is far more nuanced than one would first think. So much of the nuance is lost because the reader does not capture well the complexities of the problems faced by the protagonists.

Essentially, a small group of ex military Montanan ranchers who despise government while loving the ideal of America seize the opportunity to create a new nation state based in space. After being abducted, they turn the tables and capture alien technology. What they learn, which is a great lesson in this time of political polarization, is that simplistic, libertarian ideas don't work. They are faced with complex, ambiguous, dangerous decisions with no best choice. The edge between dictatorship and freedom and privacy is very narrow. They learn that creating a government is not simple. Preventing a hated bureaucracy is not only impossible, but necessary. In the meantime, they face off against a horde of incompetent, violent aliens and push humanity into a rapid technological race for survival in a universe of warring interstellar civilizations. In short this is an engaging coming of age story, with humanity coming of age.

A "Redneck" planet becomes a galactic power.

A warrior race chooses the wrong set of humans to abduct. Resulting in humanity being set on the road to becoming a galactic power.

great story

Narrator not best but more than adequate. Story awesome. Humans are underdogs whose only trade good is mercenaries.