Earthlight

By: J. Michael Straczynski

Narrated by: Erik Braa, Pete Bradbury, William DeMeritt, Ryan Haugen, David Lee Huynh, Mars Lipowski, Saskia Maarleveld, Brandon McInnis, Stefan Rudnicki, Salli Saffioti, Christopher Smith, Marc Thompson, Will Watt, Full Cast

An Audiobook Original from Penguin Random House Audio

From the creator of Babylon 5 and Sense8 comes a full-cast action/adventure military audio drama set in the near future, for fans of Tom Clancy and Timothy Zahn.

International tension is rising as the Russian military forms an Eastern Alliance to create a new age of Russian supremacy. The rest of the world is scrambling for a united response.
 
Enter Project Earthlight.
 
Earthlight is a NATO operation under U.S. command based in the ultimate military high ground: space. A group of the best fighter pilots is handpicked from around the world to fly the first generation of advanced planes capable of maneuvering in the vacuum of space and inside the atmosphere.
 
Learning how to fly experimental planes while learning to trust their new squadron, our pilots are plunged into a high-stakes life-and-death mission with everything at risk. Can Commanding Officer Colonel Scott Dane get the other pilots on the same page in time to prevent World War III?
 
With cutting-edge soundscapes and an action-packed plot, EARTHLIGHT will keep listeners on the edge of their seats from start to finish.

Read by Erik Braa, Pete Bradbury, Jonathan Davis, William DeMeritt, Robert Fass, Jeff Gurner, Ryan Haugen, David Lee Huynh, Mars Lipowski, Saskia Maarleveld, Kathleen McInerney, Brandon McInnis, Sean Kenin Elias Reyes, Stefan Rudnicki, Salli Saffioti, Kristen Sieh, Christopher Smith, Marc Thompson, Will Watt, Michael Ann Young, Beka Sikharulidza, Stephanie Walters Montgomery, and Robin Atkin Downes

Babylon five fighters terrible story

Aged like milk, this story about a multinational force fighting a rogue Russian government using babylon five style fighter jets. They're in space using scram jets. Scram jets need an atmosphere to work. They burn air! The characters are hack. Note all hot girl spens the story. Teasing milk toast man in a uninspired love story. Thankfully it's mercifully short. The shallow writing style works okay for a forty two minute network show, with actors carrying all the weight. But here the strasinsky, flaws really shine through.

Fun Space Adventure

Fun space adventure with a great cast. I'm familiar with quite a few names in this one and they were so in character I couldn't match while listening. Frightening to think that this could really happen. Good guys won in the end. Production was excellent as well.

The First Steps of Space Force

Earthlight is JMS’s tale of the first steps of Space Force, in a realistic and entertaining story about the inevitable evolution to the inclusion of Space in warfare and peacetime. While there were nods to Babylon 5, and the Alexander was an allusion to Babylon 5, while the Gagarin was an allusion to Deep Space 9 (the knock off that was quickly rushed to production in response to B5), Earthlight is its own story, in its own world, with its own characters. It’s immediately engaging, feeling more like an old school radio drama than an audio book. The characters were three-dimensional, and the story was made more organic by virtue of the opening quotes establishing the tone and context. I could see this becoming a television series or movie. Well done.

Must listen...engaging story

Fast paced high energy and engaging story. Great sound effects add to story. Highy recommend.

The failure to do basic research.

The story isn't bad. It is short, seemed like a tv pilot. The operation of the carriers/ space stations is very Babylon 5 as is the description of the American fighters.

I felt the failure to do some basic research on real world aircraft and militaries was lazy. A few examples are Tornadoes are in no way stealth. There are no Corprals in the USAF or US Space Force. A main character is described as a Captain in the USAF, a fairly junior officer rank, but is later described as a Captain in the US naval air forces which would make him a very senior officer of equivalent rank with the C.O. of the fictional American unit. He is also described as flying a USN aircraft in the beginning of the book when he is being described as a USAF pilot. Stratcynski has no idea what a squadron is or how it is organized. a little bit of easy wikipedia level.research would have corrected these mistakes. I thought calling the American fighters Raptors was lazy writing.