Dreamer

Silent Empire, Book 1

By: Steven Harper

Narrated by: P. J. Ochlan

Length: 14 hrs and 55 mins

Publisher's Summary

It is through first contact with an alien species that humanity learns of the Dream. It is a plane of mental existence where people are able to communicate by their thoughts alone - over distances of thousands of light-years. To ensure that future generations will have this ability, human genetic engineering produces newborns capable of finding and navigating the Dream.

They become known as the Silent.

Rust is just one planet among many in the Empire of Human Unity. It's nothing special, nothing unusual...except for the fact that it is home to an unknown boy who may be the most powerful Silent telepath ever born - a Silent with the ability to possess the bodies of others against their will. This mysterious child may be causing tremors within the Dream itself.

For now, only the Children of Irfan know about him. A monastic-like order of the Silent, the Children protect their members even as they barter their services with the governments and corporations that control known space. But power like that cannot be hidden, and soon every Silent in the universe will know about the boy - and every government will be willing to go to war to control him.

And if the Children of Irfan cannot find him first, the Dream itself may be shattered....

©2001 Steven Harper (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

not a bad story, just know what you're getting

I didn't know who Steven Harper was, so I didn't realize that that is the pen name Steven Piziks uses when writing his gay-friendly science fiction. I have nothing against homosexuals, and have voted against the anti-gay propositions in my state, but I am in fact a straight man, and I found the gay scenes in this book to be quite a hindrance to my enjoyment. The story wasn't bad, and I'd probably get the next one in the series and keep reading, except for the gay love and gay flirtation scenes.

For all of that, the story is OK, and if you can be entertained by a story including gay characters, gay flirting, brief descriptions of gay sex, etc., you would probably enjoy the series. Unfortunately for me, the inner straight guy inside found it all a little hard to take, and I only finished the book in an expression of will-power, wishing to be open-minded and then think about the experience for a week or so before responding.

So here's my summation: decent story, credibly written, and probably quite entertaining, even validating, for someone who is either homosexual, or at least far better acclimatized to homosexual themes than someone like me.

As far as the qualities of the audio book itself, the reader did a great job. He used different voices for the different characters, and they sounded good to me. His Australian accent sounded credible to me, though I'd swear he learned it watching John Safran videos on Youtube.

Overall a pretty decent book, but just not for me.

A refreshing diverse sci fi story.

This is the book I have been looking for ages for. Great diverse pov characters, a gay lead in an epic sci fi adventure.
An exciting realized world with cool speculative concepts.

Dreamer review

This is an odd book. I liked the characters and the general arc of the plot, but there were a lot of little details that bothered me. Slavery is everywhere in this book, including among the good guys, so it was hard to root for them or accept that their government should win. Nah, man, y'all should all be overthrown, none of our y'all are ruling responsibly.

The narration is clear. And easy to follow. But also very stilted. Which kept dragging me. Out off the story. Much like. This paragraph.