Destruction

By: Raymond L. Weil

Narrated by: David Rheinstrom

Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's Summary

From the author of The Slaver Wars comes a new military science fiction series. To the Kleese, the Earth is nothing more than a planet full of conscripts to fight in their numerous wars of aggression. The Kleese are one of three large Galactic Empires that control the majority of the galaxy. To them, Earth is an extremely dangerous planet due to the aggressiveness of the humanoid species that inhabits it. The humans that inhabit Earth will make excellent conscripts, but something must be done to prevent them from expanding out into the galaxy.

To the Kleese the solution is simple, take the conscripts they need and then destroy the planet. Mason Randle controls the Smithfield Mining Corporation. His main headquarters is inside the asteroid Vesta. The Kleese know nothing about what resides inside of the asteroid and the role it will play in saving the human race. Lieutenant Wade Nelson is a marine taken as a conscript by the Kleese. His primary goal is to find a way back to Earth. In the meantime, he will fight in the wars the Kleese are involved in until he knows enough to take the fight to the Kleese themselves. He will bid his time in the hope that someday he will find a way back home for himself and his marines.

©2014 Raymond L. Weil (P)2014 Raymond L. Weil

Solid story with great voices, read too fast.

The two books in this series are written well, and the narrator does a great job individualizing how each character appears in tone and accent. However, the pace of reading is too quick and can be distracting. To be honest, if the vocal characterization wasn't so good, I would have given the performance just two stars and docked the overall score as well.

I recommend listeners grab the sample before purchasing. If you can overcome the pace of the reading, this is a pretty good book.

7 of 7 people found this review helpful

Whats up with the speed reading.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

He read too fast. its like he was reading from a report rather than telling a story. Just way too fast.

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

no the narrator read way too fast for me to even paint a picture in my mind of what was happening. Forget it. i will read the book.

4 of 4 people found this review helpful

fast talker/reader

What disappointed you about Destruction?

so far the guy is speed reader, with no pauses and no real stops, just speed reading . how am I going to form the film in my mind with a speed reader, I wasted money , if you ask me, but book seems decent except for the speed reading

What did you like best about this story?

premise of being under control while attempting to circumvent control

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of David Rheinstrom?

any one who would slow down and let the mental picture form before the paragraph was completed

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

defiance

11 of 14 people found this review helpful

Old Tyme Science Fiction

MORE THAN AMPLE CHEST
A lot has been said about the narrator and the speed in which he reads. You might want to check the sample to see if it is a problem for you. I had no problem with it, matter of fact I preferred it for the reading of this story. This story does not contain any great intellectual prose, no character development, no romance and no flowery overly descriptive language. Like Sci-Fi of old, it is straight and to the point, with no bells and whistles. Slowing down would have added nothing and just made it longer and boring. He actually sounded very talented and he put much in to it.

THE EARTH WILL SURVIVE, BUT HUMANITY WILL NOT
I did listen and enjoy the story from start to finish. I usually prefer some character development, but occasionally something like this hits the spot. I enjoyed the planning and strategizing. I enjoyed the concept and how it played out. It reminded me of B.V. Larson's writing. It is not going to win any prizes, but it entertains.

WE WILL MOURN THE DEAD WHEN THE FIGHTING IS DONE.

15 of 21 people found this review helpful

The narrator is on cocaine.

What disappointed you about Destruction?

The narration, and the story.

What was most disappointing about Raymond L. Weil’s story?

The story was disappointing. It never grabbed me as a listener to keep me interested. It probaly would have been better with a different narrator.

How could the performance have been better?

I had to turn the narrative down to half speed so I could follow the story and even then I got bored out of my mind.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Destruction?

Already scrubbed from my memory what I did listen of the story. Couldn't tell you.

Any additional comments?

The author needs to better learn how to keep a listener curious and wanting to hear what's next and get a new narrator.

4 of 6 people found this review helpful

Passable

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

The narration sucked. I had to play at x.75 speed.The story was good but broken up like it was abridged.

This series has huge potential!

So far this story is off to a pretty good start. I normally listen to the entire series and then leave a review but this time I felt compelled to start here. David Rheinstrom isn't at all a bad narrator, however, I get the feeling that he is new to this. If so, that is fantastic, welcome to the wonderful world of audio books! There are two distinct reasons why I came to that conclusion. First the easy one: A better microphone or a filter would go a long way to cutting out some of the excessive white noise. Now the more difficult one: I can't put my finger on it. At times the reading style and pace is good. Other times the tempo of the story seems to be out of sync with the reading. Like I said, not easy. There's also minor nuisances to the inflection of how it is read and the story's 'mood'. Other than that 4 stars seems like a fair rating.

Stopped listend before 5 hour mark

What would have made Destruction better?

The narrator made me realize how hard it is to do a great job at narration. In this case, the narrator's two challenges were:1) He tried to hard to have multiple voices; he came across as trying too hard. 2) The dialog was impossibly simple. The result was that I kept getting annoyed with the audiobook. I put it down a couple times and came back only to get annoyed again. Finally at 4:53 I quit.The challenge that I has is that there are some bench-mark audiobooks where the combination of story and narrator are amazingly good; these books have ruined me for the mediocre. What frustrates me is that this book gets such high review marks; I'll just have to read the reviews closer and listen carefully to each preview.

What do you think your next listen will be?

Just started Fluency and I'm enjoying it.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

Is it refundable?

Any additional comments?

I wish that there was a scoring systems for:a) Grade level of the dialogb) Narrator skill or appeal

Ugh. The narrator is making this book tough.

This maybe a great book. But the narrator is ruining it. Rushed monotone. It's tough. Sorry. But I bet if Mark Boyett did this book, it would be a different story.

Be Sure

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

No, The author repeats many words to become a nuisance. The story would and could be good but for all of the same lines over and over and over. 5 books should have been three at most.

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

Interesting concepts but again poor quality of loud and then too soft

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of David Rheinstrom?

Anyone else

Could you see Destruction being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

No way

Speed read.

A fairly good story ruined by a speed reading narrator who offers bad English accents.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Gave up after 5 mins

What disappointed you about Destruction?

Had to turn it off after a few minutes the narrator reads so fast I couldn't keep up with what was happening, the story might well be good but for me this was not listenable

Has Destruction put you off other books in this genre?

No but I would avoid the narrator

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Too fast felt like it was deliberately rushed, could not keep up with story

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Questionable!

Storyline wasn’t bad, but the narration was pretty poor.

Was the narrator late and running for a bus?
It was so fast I had t slow it to half speed.

Hopefully, it might improve for the next book, so will wait and see.

Entertaining story

The story is entertaining. The audiobook recording seams speed up so it's hard to follow.

great story

loved the story and was left wanting more. only criticism I have is the narrator spoke far to fast for me to enjoy it so at half speed it seemed a lot better but still not quite right