Al Clark

By: Jonathan G. Meyer

Narrated by: Timothy McKean

Length: 5 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's Summary

There is a starship in trouble, lost in the void, with no one awake to hear the alarms.

A thousand specially selected people left a troubled and unsustainable Earth for another world. Their dream was a new start on a virgin planet 30 years away.

Their ship was state-of-the-art and entirely automatic, it's passengers safely sleeping through the journey - but something has gone wrong, something unexpected.

Books two and three of the series also available.

©2014 Jonathan G. Meyer (P)2018 Jonathan G. Meyer

Dinosaurs in space!

So, 1000 people were specially selected to inhabit a planet 30 years away from earth. They were put to sleep and were to wake up at a certain time, but something went wrong! A man wakes up but has no recollection of who he is or what he is supposed to do. On his door is the name Al Clark, so he adopts that as his own name. Al meets someone who is awake and finds that something has gone wrong and they were asleep too long. They try to wake everyone else, but some of the people have died in their sleep. With the rest of the people awake, they continue to the planet they were supposed to inhabit. What they find there is equally fascinating for them as it is dangerous, because the planet is already inhabited by people, but also something else...

I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed this! It was different than what I thought and captured my attention right from the start. I mean, there's dinosaurs in space!! How cool is that, and for that fact alone, this is worth the read :)

The plot of this played out nicely. It isn't by any means very fast paced, but it had a steady pace that kept me reading. Figuring out who Al Clark is and what happened on the ship was great, but when you added in the fact that they are trying to colonise a new planet and having to deal with the locals, as well as dinosaurs, well it just made for an entertaining read.

I liked all the characters too. Al Clark is mysterious, but when you started to see who he was, it made me like him all the more! I also liked the natives of the planet and hope to see more of them in the next book.

In all, this is an easy to follow sci fi book and I'm looking forward to the next one. The new planet is fascinating and with Al finally figuring some things out, it's made me excited for the next installment.

Timothy McKean did a good job with this. He was clear and easy to follow and had enough tones and voices to differentiate the characters, I just found that I wanted a little more from his performance for it to be a 5 star one. I wanted him to put more emotion behind the reading, to really make it come alive! I mean, he read the part where the dinosaurs attack rather blandly. e could have put more oomph behind his reading and it would have been better.

I was given this audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review. This in no way affected nor influenced my thoughts.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

I like it

I received this book free of charge for an honest review. cyborg with amnesia, on an alien world, best way to make a character develop i think. hes a new person on a new world, and without his previous life getting in the way he can grow into the person he should be instead of staying what he was. i liked it personally, kinda wanted it to be longer and with more action, instead of wandering around alot of the time criticizing weather he would be accepted or not. but its ok for a series starter, issues got resolved and now its out of the way. i liked the smart dinos i wanna see how this story plays out .

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Interesting idea.

It's quite clear from this book that Jonathan Meyer has a real passion for sci-fi stories. The problem is that within this one book he tries to tell 3 or 4 different stories without any one of them really feeling like it's the main focus of the book. Some authors can seamlessly weave together multiple complex plotlines so they all fit together and feel quite natural. Sadly, in my opinion, Mr. Meyer wasn't able to do that. We have the story of a man who wakes on a space ship with no memory of who he is or why he's there. That alone is intriguing, but then we also have a story of political unrest and sabotage, a story about the new planet with an indigenous race as well as some funky quasi-dinosaur creatures. Any one of these issues on its own would make a intriguing story, if they got explored fully. Another problem is that I felt the story was told in a very passive way. With the exception of a scene here and there were are just told what happen. This happened and then that happen and then this happened later, as if I'm hearing the story third hand rather than being in the action with the characters. I merely felt like I was being told what happened after the fact. And maybe it is because of how things are told but I never felt like things were all that hard. We have problem, we have a solution. Even when people died I still felt detached from it all. Which is a shame because as I said you can really tell that Mr. Meyer is a huge fan of the genre. It was enjoyable but ultimately unremarkable. I'd definitely encourage Mr. Meyer to continue to work on his craft and pursue his passion. I just can't guarantee that I'll be along for the ride.

I received a copy of this audio title for free in exchange for an unbiased review.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Disjointed stories that don't engage.

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Not this particular book (see below), but maybe other works from the author. From his ideas in this book, I can sense that he has a real knack for dreaming up great sci-fi worlds and thus I would be interested in seeing what other worlds he builds.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

There are multiple plot-lines in this book and that in itself wouldn't have been a problem if they were handled properly and had some sort of merging to form a overall story at the end. But as it stands right now, it felt like I'm listening to four different disconnected stories. In my opinion, there should've been some hooks to join each story with the other, slowly bringing them together at the end.

Apart from that, for the most part, the stories were sorta predictable. Other than one twist, I knew where each of them were heading and I wasn't surprised / thrilled.

What I would point out as the biggest shortcoming of this book is the storytelling style. It was mostly in a third-person kind of view and it felt like watching a news report of events; instead being in the story. That took away lot of the enjoyment of an otherwise good enough story.

What three words best describe Timothy McKean’s voice?

Good, no complaints.

Any additional comments?

I received this audiobook for free from the author / narrator / publisher in exchange for an unbiased review.

A very solid sci fi story

I was given this free review copy audio book at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

I thought this was a solid sci fi story that was entertaining and well narrated. The story is fast paced and interesting. I would have liked a little more background and world building, but it wasn't that big of a deal. All in all, it was enjoyable and I'd be open to more.

Creative, interesting but predictable story

Very creative story. I can't wait to listen/read the next one. That being said, the story is very predictable(with a twist).
The narrator does an adequate job - doesn't add anything to the excitement but certainly doesn't take anything away. I will gladly listen to him when they get around to recording the second book.
"This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review."

Good solid Sci-Fi

Good solid Sci-Fi. A great take on the colony ship idea, the author has created many interesting characters and a hero that is to say the least different. My favourite character is the robot who keeps saying "sorry".
Book one in the title tells us that there will be a book 2 and I'm really pleased about that - can't wait for book 2.
Timothy McKean's narration is smooth and seamless, it makes the book very easy listening.
I received a free copy of this audio book at my own request and voluntarily leave this review.

A great sci fi read, highly recommend it.

Confused colonist

This is a story of the settlement of a new planet, told from the point of view of the security chief, who has amnesia. It is an entertaining and fast moving story. If you like basic, uncomplicated science fiction, this is your book. I enjoyed it!

Beautiful beginning !!!

When you want more you know it's good, excellent beginning for a great story!
It includes everything that should be in a science-fiction, space ships, aliens, planets, robots, and of course gadgets but most importantly the author who created a masterpiece out of it all which is not easy in those days that pretty much everything have been tried already.
There is a very great story here, I can't wait to see what the author will create from it, and the performance was perfect.
There is nothing bad I can say about Al Clark only maybe that it's to short but that can mean good that I want more so I fully recommend this book.

Never Grabbed Me

I wanted to like this story, especially considering the cover includes dinosaurs. I’ve loved dinosaurs since childhood and never grew out of that fascination. Unfortunately, this book just didn’t do it for me.
The beginning of the book attempts to create mystery and tension, but those feelings never manifested. I continued listening through the first dinosaur encounter, but what should have been a terrific opportunity to grab my interest fell flat.
As a narrator myself I try not to be overly critical of my peers not authors. In this case, Tim McKean’s voice is good enough, but his acting is not yet developed enough. He sounded like he was “reading, not telling” the story. There was not much in the way of distinct character voices either, just too subtle tonal differences. He needs more practice and refinement, but should be solid in the future.

0 of 1 people found this review helpful