Android Paradox

Android X, Book 1

By: Michael La Ronn

Narrated by: Erik Johnson

Length: 3 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's summary

When two equally intelligent androids face off against each other, who wins?

The year is 2300. Humans and androids live in peace after a devastating singularity and years of war.

Xandifer "X" Crenshaw is a special agent android for the United Earth Alliance. His job is to track down rogue androids and destroy them to keep the world safe.

When another android agent goes maverick and starts a killing spree, the fallout could shatter the alliance between humans and androids forever. X hunts him down, but what seems like a simple operation turns weird fast when X discovers that he's up against something far more sinister that is just as intelligent as him. And whatever it is, is also holds the key to X's forgotten past.

The future belongs to humans and androids...or is that a paradox?

©2015 Michael La Ronn (P)2015 Michael La Ronn

The Android Winter is Coming...

4.5 out of 5 stars

Meet X, an android that is a special agent tasked at finding rogue androids that are becoming more and more frequent. His human partner, Shortcut is there to keep both of them safe. Follow these two as they are trying to figure out what these rogue androids mean when they are saying "the Android Winter is Coming."

The audiobook was read by Erik Johnson who reads it in a dramatization and changes his voice to fit each new character. His inflection and voice were a welcome addition to this novel. The quality is also great, only a few times did I notice a volume fluctuation (usually only for a few seconds). Johnson is a great narrator with a great voice and I will be looking for more of his work. His narration of this book did add a lot to it, especially the style that he chose to use.

I made quick work of this book at only 4 hours or so for the audiobook -- I finished it in 2 short sittings. The story is face paced but thorough. La Ronn does a great job at describing characters and explaining their motives in such a short book. The story ended with a feeling of openness. There are a lot of places that La Ronn can go from here.

Overall, with all of the AI fiction I've been reading lately, I was worried that a book this short wouldn't hold up, but this was good. Reminded me a bit of I, Robot. A great fast-paced technothriller.

I received a free copy of this audiobook from Audiobook Jukebox in exchange for my unbiased and honest review.

I'm new to science fiction...

I just finished listening to this book and I don't quite know how I feel about it. This is the first book I’ve ever read that falls into the ‘science fiction’ genre so precisely. So if you are a science fiction fan- please take my review with a grain of salt- things that I feel are new and original concepts may be old hat for you. (I have only ever read dystopian science fiction until now.)

It's a original concept-artificial intelligence working with humanity (for the most part). It does feel like anything futuristic having to do with artificial intelligence is more of an ‘us versus them’ scenario. I liked how it was handled differently in this book. But a quick disclaimer- I am not well read in science fiction for the most part, so there could be other books out there with

Something else I liked was the primary character being black. Everything I’ve previously read always seems to have a white male or teenage girl (of any color) as the lead. It gets tedious and makes me feel like there is a ‘formula for the future’ that’s used in writing and must be followed.

There was a lot of extraneous information on secondary characters- it really slowed down the story's momentum and didn’t contribute to the plot at all. It was also odd that for about half of the action scenes there is a lot of detail and then the other half felt like they were written by someone else and ‘skimmed over’ the action sequences. It was really missing consistency. Aside from that, I felt the book was interesting and well written for the most part and had potential to be a page-turning action thriller.

The narrator did a good job throughout. He’s well suited for action, able to speak quickly and concisely.

I’m still deciding how I feel about this book. On one hand, it’s a great, well written book with original ideas; but on the other hand, there was just too much information that detracted from the plot and slowed down the book to a near stand still at some points. If it didn’t detract so much from the plot, I could easily ignore it. I think a 2.5 would be a more fitting score for how I feel, but I decided to round up since it's a new genre for me.

I received a free copy of this book from the author, narrator or publisher in exchange for an unbiased review.

REALLY REALLY LIKED THIS!

Would you listen to Android Paradox again? Why?

I might..it was quick and great!

What was one of the most memorable moments of Android Paradox?

I liked X and the first rogue droid in the beginning who was partying and smoking out...that was super cool!

Which scene was your favorite?

see above!

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I did laugh a bit...X's partner Shortcut is super funny!

Any additional comments?

** I was given a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review **

I enjoyed this from beginning t end, it was well narrated and kept my attention all the way through!

We have X an advanced android and his human partner Shortcut who track rogue androids and stop them before they do something really bad....they work for the UEA...well more and more androids are going crazy and the keep hinting that the "ANDROID WINTER" is coming...X is frantically trying to find out what that means and no one is talking!

GREAT LISTEN WILL CONTINUE THIS SERIES!

Thank You Audiobookblast(dot)com

Go for it! This One's Worth a Cash Purchase!

When I first saw this book here at Audible, I thought, "Here's one that's right up my alley," but I didn't get it because it is so short. I was hesitant to spend cash on a book by an author who was a complete unknown to me, and it's so inexpensive that it's better to go for cash than use a credit. I should have gone for it: It's a fantastic listen!

To give you an idea of how my tastes run, I love John Scalzi's and Robert Sawyer's books. I love mysteries as well as sci-fi, so when the two come together, I'm in reading heaven. (I really liked Red Planet Blues.) I'm not looking for paradigm shattering literature every time I read. Sometimes I just want some fun escape, and this book delivers that spectacularly.

I'm not going to go into any plot because you can find that out plenty of places, and I hate spoilers. As expected for a short book, Android Paradox jumps right into things, but I did not have trouble following it at the beginning. There were some times that I felt some plot points needed more development because I found myself getting a bit lost once or twice, but never to the point that my enjoyment of the book was ruined, just a "whaaaa?" moment or two, which is what the one missing star was deducted for.

I found the lead characters very well developed and exceptionally well performed by Erik Johnson. His reading was, indeed, a performance and not just a simple reading. He even did a good job with female voices, which is often a challenge for male readers. I loved the lead character; LaRonn made him very easy to root for, ironically very human in spite of the fact he is an android. Although I did see the end coming before I got there, it wasn't a foregone conclusion from the beginning. I actually think it's a positive that as a reader I was able to solve the mystery.

I'm going to be looking for more read by Erik Johnson and definitely getting the sequel to this as soon as I finish this review!


Note: I received this audiobook for free from the author via Audiobook Blast in exchange for an honest review. I pulled no punches! (And I'm spending cash for the next book in the series if you're in doubt!)

Post-Robot v Human War, peace is tentative at best

The idea of robots reaching the singularity, becoming self ware and declaring war on humans is a fairly common story in books and movies (see The Terminator and The Matrix as the best known ones) but Michael La Ronn skips all that and move straight to the post-war world, when the androids and humans have made peace. Humans won the war but then went back to making androids, this time with a few limits in place. What could possibly go wrong with that?

Our main characters are X, an Special Agent android, and his human partner, Shortcut. They work for the Earth government putting down rogue androids.

The setting is interesting story has potential, but i don't feel like La Ronn made the most of it. The characters are all extreme, without nuance or middling characteristics. They just seem intense or over the top almost all the time and are hard to take seriously.

The pacing of the book seemed off.

I also feel like La Ronn didn't make good use of the book length he gave himself. It is a fairly short book (clocking in under 4 hours) but there is time used (wasted?) on subplots and things that don't feel like they do anywhere. usually things involving the character Shortcut - fights with his boss whom beat him out for the top job, discussions about his cybernetic implants and trying to get some illegal parts and an attempted romance. I guess these were all trying to flesh out the character but they all rang false to me and didn't play into the main storyline. Maybe if there was only one, two at most, but having so many seemingly pointless tangents and extras around the character just slowed things down.

There are also times La Ronn could have spent more time. Generally with the action sequences. The bare minimum is given in detail, usually falling short of what is needed. There are things like "X opened a cupboard full of guns and knives. He took one of each." It was full, but were they all the same? or 20 different things? because that will clarify how many items he took.
Another point X and another guy are in a gun fight. The whole fight amounts to "they both kept shooting, emptying their guns at each other." Are the ducking and weaving? Hiding? Just standing there doing nothing but shooting? Are they hitting each other? What damage does the gun do to an android? We are told X doesn't have to worry about being hit, but do bullets bounce off (where do they ricochet to?)? do they lodge in him like in a bullet proof vest? does the velocity of a bullet move him at all so that even if he is undamaged he can get knocked over? things like this aren't addressed at all. It makes the 'action' sequences very static.

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Erik Johnson does pretty good work with the narration. More of a 3.5 /5, but I rounded up.

He is intense in his reading, managing to carry some excitement into the static sequences.he provides a variety of voices for characters making it easy to tell them apart. He does quite a few accents throughout the book, all performed well. Easy and enjoyable to listen to, I never had an issue following what he was saying.

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This audiobook was provided by the author, narrator, or publisher at no cost in exchange for an unbiased review courtesy of audiobookblast dot com.

your quintessential sci-fi story with robots

“Android Winter is coming” is something that all the rogue android agents keep mentioning, although no one knows what it is!

In the year 2300, Androids and humans are living in peace. There are a set of rules specified by United Earth Alliance (UEA) that employs androids as special agents to work in the field and a human assistant who handles the engineering side of these androids such as fixing and upgrading them.

The story starts with one of the UEA agents, Brockway, going rogue while still on duty, leading to a massacre of more than one hundred people. He escapes the police and is assumed to be hiding in Aruba. That’s his last known location, because once UEA loses his trail the entire island where Brockway hides also gets disconnected.

Xandifer “X” Crenshaw (referred to as X) is one of the best androids created and whose task it is to find such rogue agents and kill them. Along with X his human assistant Shortcut are assigned on a mission to find Brockway then look into his blackbox to figure out what went wrong with him. They are being helped by a little boy named Sparrow.

Alongside this story of trying to research what goes wrong with a once loyal UEA android agent, android parts are being stolen and the human assistant of X, Shortcut, is falling in love with an android, Brielle.

Overall, it is your quintessential sci-fi story with robots and humans, suspenseful, action-packed and at times thrilling. With such a short story, it is worth mentioning that the author managed to frame great characters with nuances of humor and emotion. It gets a little slow for about 20 minutes in between when the author mentions the history about how humans and androids went into war, and how they can now exist today without killing each other, but other than that, it will keep you hooked. If the author would have described the fight scenes in greater detail, it would have definitely added more to the story.

The narration by Erik Johnson was outstanding with very different and unique voices for all the characters in the story, his narration only beefs up the story. The production was good too.

Audiobook provided for review by the author.

Please find this complete review and many others at my review blog

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Great book - and wonderful narration

I really enjoyed this first book in the series, and I'm looking forward to the next book.

The narrator did a wonderful job, and the story was engaging all the way through.

Michael La Ronn did a great job with convincing me that Android easily could be part of our daily life in the future, and of course he touches upon the usual things that will be part of any book or movie about androids/robots in almost any form: the complications involved when they learn to think for themselves - what will happen?

But actually, that's not the main theme here at all. We are. Us. The humans. We are flawed. And deeply so.

The characters are rich and well developed, and even though it is a rather short book, the author manages to get a lot of information and backstory told, along with creating a believable setting for the time we're in, without it ever being boring, or making it feel like an info dump.

Loved it, and I'm ready for the next one!
Android Winter is coming.

Android on Android action

If you could sum up Android Paradox in three words, what would they be?

Technical, History, Intellectual

Have you listened to any of Erik Johnson’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I really like how he modifies his voice so he can be a man, woman or Android.

Any additional comments?

I think this is a good book to read when you are awake not trying to sleep as it does make a lot of twists and turns a sleepy mind misses.

The more things change...

It's the year 2300. You'd think life would be pretty different, and in some ways you'd be right: global governance has become a reality, artificial intelligence has made enormous strides, and humans are also able to be technologically enhanced. But some things haven't changed: our penchant for pizza and soda, for instance. And we still haven't quite got the whole waste disposal thing perfected. Aruba is still a tropical vacation spot, but you can go virtually now. :)

This is a fun story. It's an action story, where the protagonist is a good guy, trying to foil the bad guys...but he has to find them first. Four stars for me is a high rating because, let's face it, not every good book can be a Rowling or Rothfuss, right? As part one of a trilogy, I'm definitely looking forward to the next books.

In addition to being a fun adventure story, it also raises some questions about humanity. X, the lead character, is an advanced android. As such, he is always analyzing the human condition out of need to work with them. This enables the reader to reflect a bit too, without being banged over the head with heavy philosophy: just what does it mean to be human?

Finally, the narration. Five stars. The voices are well-done, which makes it easy to discern them from the actual story-telling. It flows well, at a good pace. Since this was my first audiobook in quite a while (the last was on cassettes!) it took me just a bit to get used to listening at a pace slower than I read myself, but once I did, it was very enjoyable.

The little anachronistic jolts that reflect current society first jarred me, but I came to like them. They make the story seem very real. Whether or not *these* are the things that are still around in 300 years is arguable, but history has shown us that despite great progress, we don't move ahead smoothly but in fits and starts. And yes...some things remain the same.

At the same time, I still also want to see what X and the bad guys do! Highly recommend.

Intense Sci fi story

This is a fairly short but intense sci fi story about an android in the future looking to stop a rogue android from killing people, which turns out to be part of a greater conspiracy, with world shaking consequences. It has engaging Characters, especially X, the main android, who is reminiscent of Sonny in I, Robot. Anything to get the job done. The pacing is fast, with well drawn fight scenes, and an interestingly created world that you will want to hear more about, and will, since there are sequels. Erik Johnson does a fine job of bringing the characters to life, using tone and inflection to differentiate characters, and keep the story moving along.