Democracy's Right

Democracy's Right, Book 1

By: Christopher G. Nuttall

Narrated by: Johnny Heller

Length: 15 hrs and 37 mins

Publisher's summary

The Empire

A tyranny stretching over thousands of worlds. The grand dreams of the founders are a joke. The Thousand Families, the rulers of the Empire, care nothing for anything save their own power. From the undercity of Earth to the new colonies at the Rim, discontent, anger, and rebellion seethe, but there is no hope of breaking the power of the Empire and freeing the trillions of enslaved humans and aliens.

The Rebel

Commander Colin Walker believed in the Empire until a treacherous superior officer betrayed him, forcing him to see the true nature of the force he served and his compliancy in terrible crimes. Now Colin has a plan: He and his followers in the Imperial Navy will seize their ships and rebel against the Thousand Families, uniting the thousands of rebel factions under his leadership. Their war will set the galaxy on fire.

©2013 Christopher G. Nuttall (P)2017 Podium Publishing

A highly enjoyable listen that is recommended

The galaxy is tightly controlled by the thousand families, an ultra-wealthy ruling class that only cares for more power and money.  The many colonized worlds represent little more than resources and additional wealth and power.  If an occupied world becomes more trouble than they're worth, the ruling families will crush it with their overwhelming military might, wiping out all life if necessary.

Commander Colin Walker and a handful of military leaders have had enough, vowing to bring democracy to the galaxy.  If they fail, their treason can only be met with execution.  On the other hand, if they succeed, the economic system everyone depends on could devolve into chaos, driving trillions into poverty and desperation.

Democracy's Right is a political, sci-fi novel with a military action base.  It is exciting and thought provoking with a taste of ancient Rome in its theme.  How does a ruling class control its empire from far away with long delays in communication and travel?  The heroes are likable and the bad guys are hateful, the listener has no trouble choosing sides.

There is plenty of action to satisfy most military and sci-fi fans and a political economic background to make the struggle feel realistic.  The characters are believable with enough human flaws to make them relatable.  Definitely worth a listen.

The story is performed by Johnny Heller.  His distinctive voice is easy on the ears and creates the proper mood of the novel.  The characters are easily discernible and feel appropriate to their personalities.  An excellent performance from a talented voice actor.

Democracy’s Right would definitely fit in the space opera category, with book one setting the stage for a much larger universe.  The book finishes neatly but will have you looking forward to book two and beyond.  A highly enjoyable listen that is recommended for space and military sci-fi fans.

Audiobook was purchased for review by ABR.

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

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I give up Nuttall

I was skeptical about this book, both because I haven't managed to like Nuttall's previous works, and because there's blatant copyright infringement on the cover with a Daedalus class startship from Stargate as the cover image. I tried the book anyways, but gave up. Like his previous work the storytelling is outdated and uninspired, where only his repeated use of the word "whore" without the first half hour of the book really standing out, and not in a good way. The stolen cover image is perhaps suitable considering nothing here is even remotely original. When you then pair that with a narrator who, I kid you not, sounds like Herbert from Family Guy, you have one seriously bad audio book.

An interesting but often repetitive story

Christopher G. Nuttall created a cast of characters from within the Imperial space navy born from old Earth and ruled by an aristocracy class having little concern for anyone who were not born into that class. Most of the officers in the navy owed their position and advancement hope to one of the great aristocratic houses and who didn't hesitate to exploit those of lower position to aid in their advancement; only to discard them once their usefulness was over. There was ample intrigue and betrayal which ultimately led to a rebellion. While the story itself was interesting, I found myself not really caring for any of the primary protagonists, even though some of them survived harmful mistreatment and some even unspeakable atrocities. On reflection, it is hard to say why but my thought is that the author seem to tell the characters successes and travails in somewhat of a matter-of-fact way.

Even so, I did enjoy the novel and am leaning toward continuing with the next novel in the series.

A new story and a good start

The plot is interesting. It may take while to warm up to Collin, the main character. The author is making a great effort at building characters - he even builds characters who get killed on the the next page lol. Bringing in the concept of the family 'House' and the Thousand Family rule gives the story an interesting slant as well. Not sure about the narrator however. In some of the battles the author puts us in the heads of the Empire's fleet leader and the Rebel fleet leader and it gets a bit confusing - I had to replay that section a couple times to tell which side's Super Dreadnaught was blown up.
The narrator doesn't excel at differentiating characters very well which contributes to the confusion.
Even so, the story is enjoyable and off to a good start.

A Story Well Told!

This is book 1 of 2. I decided to write this review before listening to the second book. Science Fiction, especially military Sci-Fi with a touch of drama is my favorite. I do read in other genres at times, but this type of Sci-Fi is where I spend the majority of my time.

The last time I was so impressed by a story, it was the book "Ready, Player One." I thought that book should be considered to be made into a movie. That movie is now in production. This book by Nuttall fits into that category. Since I have not finished the entire story, I cannot say for certain.

The first half of the story was terrific. I finished the book in two days. Enough space military to make Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, and Star Wars fans happy and enough human stories to couch the story nicely with some characters to love and others to despise. I do not want this to be a spoiler review, so I will not mention the story.

Nuttall jumps right into the story. The background nicely unfolds as the story moves forward. No flashback to 30 years ago or 300 years ago. No history lessons before the story begins. It does very nicely unfold with the story. I found that to be a very nice piece of writing.

I would highly recommend this book to Science Fiction aficionados. For those who only occasionally read something from the Sci-Fi genre, I would recommend this as one of the times to foray into Sci-Fi. This story, so far, has become as interesting Jack Campbell's series with Black Jack Geary. I doubt it will rise to the fandom of David Weber's Honor Harrington Sci-Fi novels, but the first book was a story well told.

Lost in space with pompous elites

Book 1 of Christopher G Nuttall's latest series, Democracy's Right is another fine offering by an author with a knack for being able to take current socioeconomic and cultural issues and infuse them into a futuristic space based format at the level typically in line with Star Trek. In this case, the universe is "run" by an elite group of wealthy families that control the political and military reins of power in a far flung empire that spans a considerable portion of our galaxy. Into this mix is a disenchanted space commander who decides to mutiny and overthrow the evil empire and slowly evolves an ever growing band of like minded individuals.

The sci-fi elements are minimal with "flicker" drives providing faster than light travel. Weaponry is fairly conventional along with a tinkering of cyborg tech. The main theme is the black and white picture of the society where the ruling class favors the brown-nosers, while anyone with competency and ambition is sidelined. Patronage, corruption, and depravity are the key resume builders for the corporate/family man. Societal outcasts run the gamut of geeks, nerds, pirates, and the space equivalent of motorcycle gangs. The battles scenes are well crafted, but unremarkable. Most likely with sectoral dominance achieved. one can expect an ever expanding empire such that contact points grow exponentially. There is also likely to be a few surprises in the form of "family" squabbles and outside adversaries to keep things interesting.

The narration is well done with a good variation in characters of both both genders. Pacing and mood are nicely aligned with plot development.

forgettable

I've listened to several books since this one, and I can tell you all about them, all except this one. I listened to the whole thing and it left no impression on me. It was probably okay, but certainly not a hum-dinger.

The narration takes a while to get used to. Heller's voice is tight and high. After a couple hours it starts to feel right for the story, but it's just weird.

I'm glad Nuttall is cranking out books in his so many series, but this one didn't do it for me.

Hit it out of the Park again

As with a good number of his books Nuttall has woven another great tail that left me listening well into the night and eyeing my budget to see I could spare some credits for the next ones

A special combo of bad writing and poor narration

A couple big issues with a book that I really wanted to be awesome based on the premise.
The story is a cut and paste from any Roman or English empire premise. The sci-fi aspect is greatly lacking as the author appears to be some one who is a student of history and lacks the ability to incorporate a somewhat believable space based science concept(s). The conflicts are predetermined quickly with no detailed writing; every battle fast forwards through anything that could possibly build drama or suspense.
The other issue is the narrator, who sounds like the Pepperidge Farms guy from the tv commercials. Hearing him read a sci-fi novel topped my list of things to never do again. There was also a creepy grandpa feel when he reads the love scenes or recites the author's references to "budding breasts". It is something you cannot un-hear, do not torture yourself.

A good listen.

A fun, fast paced story and a good reader to pull it together, looking forward to book 2.

Slow Burn

Slow start, but don’t let that put you off. Once I got into the book I thoroughly enjoyed it and am looking forward to Book 2

Pedestrian plot - not very interesting

narrator did a great job of keeping things interesting, but unfortunately the plot is missing intrigue and excitement.

A bit of a journey

Like any first of a series there is a lot of scene setting going on. As a result there's a tendency to over decorate. Hopefully, the future books will be leaner and have tighter storylines. After all of this the plot is good enough to sustain a longer arc.