Debt Collector Season One

By: Susan Kaye Quinn

Narrated by: Max Miller

Length: 12 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's summary

What's your life worth on the open market?

In this sexy, gritty future-noir, debt collectors take your life energy and give it to someone more "worthy"...all while paying the price with black marks on their souls.

Lirium plays the part of the grim reaper well, with his dark trenchcoat and jackboots - he's just in it for his cut, 10 percent of the life energy he collects before he transfers it on to the high potentials, people who will make the world a better place with their work and their lives. That hit of life energy, a bottle of vodka, and a visit from one of Madam Anastazja's girls keep him alive, stable, and mostly sane...until he collects again. But when his recovery ritual is disrupted, he has to choose between doing an illegal hit for a girl whose story has more holes than his soul or facing the bottle alone - a dark pit he's not sure he'll be able to climb out of again.

Originally written as a serial, Lirium is season one of the Debt Collector series and contains the complete story of Lirium. Each season is told from the perspective of a different debt collector.

©2013 Susan Kaye Quinn (P)2013 Susan Kaye Quinn

WOW Great for adults

Lirium's job is to collect debt, but in the future that is done by taking life energy. He does his job for what it is worth, drinks vodka, and indulges in sex workers to keep him sane. That is until the sex worker sent to him isn't what she seems and sends his whole life into a whirl-wind, one you won't see coming and you won't be ready for it to end.
What can I say but, wow! This was awesome, Susan Kaye Quinn has hit another grand slam with this series. Lirium is the bad guy you just fall in love with. I had the audiobook and Max Miller was a great Lirium, his narration was so good I will definitely be looking for more audiobooks narrated by him in the future. But whichever format you choose you can't go wrong with this series, it is that good. Now do I go ahead and get season 2 or wait for it to come out on audiobook as well?

A solid genre mashup

'You never know when it's your time to go.'

But what if you did? What if someone could tell you when your time was up - or how much you have left?

'Youth is wasted on the young.'

Further, what if someone could take that time from you, or give you more? What would that life be worth? How much would you pay? Is the reverse true as well - how much money can you get for your life?

Such is the world of Susan Kaye Quinn's "Debt Collector." Lirium, our trenchcoat-and-jackboot-wearing protagonist, is sanctioned to take life and give it to another. Good work if you can get it, but it's not as easy as it sounds. The job takes its toll - physically, mentally, and emotionally. He grows throughout the book to learn what he can and can't - and shouldn't - do.

I love a good genre mash-up - paranormal romance, historical mystery, even military courtroom drama. With "Debt Collector" you get the combination of science fiction and the noir crime novel. The combination works pretty well. The key to making it work is knowing how to work the formulas of each style in concert. For the sci-fi side, the book takes one thing ("taking your time"), changes it, and sees how society might react. That works really well for this concept as we get to see the good and the bad.

The bad is where the noir side kicks in - gangsters, prostitutes, smuggling, corruption, and hard drinking. More importantly to the noir concept than setting, though, is the idea of choices and consequences. The protagonist deciding who is going to be - choosing to do the right or wrong thing, and weighing the cost of doing so. To me that inner struggle is what makes or breaks a good noir and we get it in spades here. Lirium really struggles with what he is - how to be a good man doing what he can do. That struggle makes for compelling characters and good storytelling.

Max Miller does a good job with the narration. There are a lot of accents to juggle throughout the story and he handles them well. Kudos to SKQ on her selection of narrator; he fits the noir style like he is a gumshoe from a 1930's detective movie. It really helps set the mood throughout the book.

I mostly know the author from her young adult offerings. This book completely breaks that mold - it's definitely not for kids! What it is, though, is a great piece of speculative science fiction wrapped in some good old-fashioned noir storytelling. If this is what "not for kids" looks like, all I can say is "give me more."

How Much is Your Life Worth?

What made the experience of listening to Debt Collector Season One the most enjoyable?

The serialized format is interesting but this is not a story for the faint hearted. It's dark, dystopian and often not very pleasant to listen to although it is well told and kept me coming back to find out how it ended.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Debt Collector Season One?

The scene where the professor, Joe and his mother discuss her medical treatment is interesting.

Which character – as performed by Max Miller – was your favorite?

Ophelia is the most interesting character. She's spunky, sexy and has an interesting sense of humor.

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

It's pretty grim but not particularly emotional.

Thrilling Ride

This was a great story. I loved all the twists and turns and I really grew to care about the hero. Wonderful narration!

Loved listening to Lirium

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Of course. The world building is great, and this is one of the best audio narrations I've heard to date.

Who was your favorite character and why?

LOVED Lirium. He's so tortured, and whilst extremely naive, he's also heroic.

Which character – as performed by Max Miller – was your favorite?

Lirium--easy choice.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

This wasn't possible for me due to time constraints and the length of the title.

Any additional comments?

I was gifted a copy of Debt Collector Season 1 by Susan Kaye Quinn in exchange for an honest review. Seeing as I own every episode in Kindle format, and also the entire Season 1 in print, I think we can safely assume I was already familiar with the story. However, the audiobook brought something new to the table. Because I had a HUGE crush on Lirium whilst I originally followed him in his antics, and having a male narrator put vocals to Lirium’s story took the experience to a whole new level … or so I hoped.
In all honesty, I wasn’t sure whether I would enjoy listening to the audiobook. I don’t own any other audiobooks, which is due to the fact that, whenever I’ve tried out the samples, the narrating voices have always sounded too mechanical for my liking. However, Max Miller, narrator of Debt Collector, seems pretty adept at almost all vocal tones, making this one enjoyable experience. Female … male … he did a decent job of them all. As for Lirium’s voice? Oh, yeah, I was more than happy to listen to him for the entire 12-ish hours of Lirium heaven.
Anyone who has read my reviews for all of the Debt Collector Season 1 episodes will know how wowed I was by the world building and storytelling, and how wooed I was by this tortured and (naively) heroic MC. So, I really have little more to add on that front, other than to say whatever the format I’ve tried for this story, I have had hours of great entertainment and virtual/fictional company. The only minus that goes in the audio versus print/e-book match is the difference in time length it took for absorbing the tale. I can be a fairly fast reader, and listening to someone else tell you the story can be quite a bit slower than ploughing through paragraphs for yourself. That being said, it was also pretty awesome to be able to stick on my headphones, sink into my pillow in the dark, and allow Lirium’s masculine tones drift me into blissful relaxation.
This is one audiobook definitely worth checking out.

Last two chapters squelching noise only

No idea how it ends as a minute into chapter 50 it began to"skip" then squelch then silence then squelch. Sorry I spent time and money on it. Am going to go be entertained by Terry Prachett and a disc world novel I've not read.