A Star-Wheeled Sky

By: Brad R. Torgersen

Narrated by: Natasha Soudek

The Waypoint to ultimate power!

Over a millennium in the past, humans fleeing Earth in slower-than-light vessels discovered the Waywork, an abandoned alien superhighway system that allows instantaneous travel from star to star. The problem: there are a finite number of Waypoint nodes - and the burgeoning population of humans is hemmed in as a result. Furthermore, humanity is divided into contending Starstates. One of the strongest is based on an oligarchy ruling families, but still mostly democratic. The other is a totalitarian nightmare. War seems inevitable.

Now a new Waypoint appears. Might it lead to the long-lost creators of the Waywork? If so, there may be knowledge and technology that will tip the balance in the coming war.

Three people race to make it to the new Waypoint - and beyond. These include Wyodreth Antagean, the reluctant son of an interstellar shipping magnate, Lady Garsina Oswight, the daring daughter of a royal family, and Zuri Mikton, a disgraced flag officer seeking redemption. They are facing an implacable foe in Golsubril Vex, a merciless, but highly effective, autocrat from the Waywork’s most brutal regime. Vex is determined to control the new Waypoint and whatever revelation or power lies on the other side.

Now humanity’s fate - to live in freedom or endless dictatorship - depends on just what that revelation might be. And who gets there first.

©2018 Brad R. Torgersen (P)2018 Audible, Inc.

Absolute Enjoyment

This was an excellent story, well produced, and well narrated. I had trouble stopping it so I could sleep. It hit all the bells for me and I cannot wait for the next book in the series.

Interesting premise that just ends

Guessing this was supposed to be a series but I'm reading this 6 years after release and there's nothing.
With that in mind the story was fairly good but it really dragged at several sections and just when it seems like the story is finally ramping up everything ends on a massive cliffhanger.

Meh

I bought this book because it won the 2019 Dragon award for best Sci-Fi. I wanted to really like it and was psyched to get started, but this book just never grabbed me.

I felt the characters were flat, there was very little suspense or mystery and everything was pretty linear. The plot dragged a lot - especially in the first half of the book.

It isn’t a terrible story, it’s just middle of the road at best. Below my expectations of best sci fi book of the year.

mediocre story, strange narration choices

I had real trouble with this one. The setting looks interesting on paper, but the story steers away from the interesting parts of it almost pathologically. The character were good classic archetypes, but the narrator had trouble with characterization. As a bonus, the sound levels varied substantially within single sentences - not sure if this was narrator inflection or sound engineering, but my choices ended up being painfully loud but can hear every word, or missing out on chunks of sentences while preserving my hearing. Had to bail at the seven hour mark - life isn't infinite, and that seems like a generous amount to give a twelve hour story. Filed in my collection of Australian table wines.

A fun read with a few small problems

The production team missed several mispronunciations that really interrupted the flow of the story. I'm not going to hold it against the narrator but I found it quite irksome.