Embers of War

By: Gareth L. Powell

Narrated by: Nicol Zanzarella, Amy Landon, Greg Tremblay, Soneela Nankani, Natasha Soudek

Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins

Publisher's Summary

From BSFA award-winning author Gareth L. Powell comes the first in a new epic sci-fi trilogy exploring the legacies of war.

The sentient warship Trouble Dog was built for violence, yet following a brutal war, she is disgusted by her role in a genocide. Stripped of her weaponry and seeking to atone, she joins the House of Reclamation, an organization dedicated to rescuing ships in distress. When a civilian ship goes missing in a disputed system, Trouble Dog and her new crew of loners, captained by Sal Konstanz, are sent on a rescue mission.

Meanwhile, light years away, intelligence officer Ashton Childe is tasked with locating the poet, Ona Sudak, who was aboard the missing spaceship. What Childe doesn't know is that Sudak is not the person she appears to be. A straightforward rescue turns into something far more dangerous, as Trouble Dog, Konstanz, and Childe find themselves at the center of a conflict that could engulf the entire galaxy. If she is to save her crew, Trouble Dog is going to have to remember how to fight ...

©2018 Gareth L. Powell (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Sign me up for the crew!

This book is a great character driven Space Opera. It immediately pulled me in and kept me hooked. Great opener for a trilogy and looking forward to what comes next.
This book reminded me of A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet. However, if I'm honest, this one is better. It's better for the fact that it's character driven but it also has fast paced action that will keep you at the edge of your seat which was lacking in A Long Way (at least for me).
If you love sentient ships, space operas, character driven novels, strong female characters, adorable aliens, fun science fiction, multiple narratives, or just a great book...check this one out!

I read this first as a physical book and then we had the author on our podcast (www.litchickspodcast.com) and he informed us that the audio book was coming out. Not only was it coming out but it was a separate narrator for each character that's given narration in the book! I knew I would have to check it out. I would have to know how they gave voice to their characters. And they absolutely crushed it. Love all the narrators in this book! Hope they all sign up to do the rest of the trilogy! I hate when series change narrators!

Character Study, Not a Sci Fi Novel

This book is not a sci fi novel but instead a character study. There are moments of action interspersed between long, long descriptions about how miserable each person/AI/alien feels.The characters are all insecure, depressed, experiencing existential crises, and suffering from depression, guilt/shame, and PTSD - including the AI and the alien. All are consumed with themselves; they don't work and play well together. None of the characters were sympathetic; I hoped they'd all die just so the misery would end. The book was boring.

0 of 1 people found this review helpful

multiple narrators are great, in enjoyable story

This takes the familiar trope of dispirit rogue starship crew who have different agendas and some of who are not even on the same side and does something new and interesting with the idea. This time it's a first responder rescue ship. This really makes it stand out as abit different and makes for a very engaging tale. It helps a great deal that the ship itself is a well rounded and entertaining character. what really makes this an engaging audio book is that the tale is told by several different narrators each playing different crew mates as each chapter is 1st person from a individual characters point of view. This really really works and draws you into the tale. Highly recommended listening!

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Slow and not very original character piece

The story tries to show all the different characters and their perspectives, but none of them are very interesting or original. There is barely any story around the characters and instead of progressing the story it often goes into the characters thoughts and histories for ages before returning to the current moment. It even sometime reiterates the not very interesting situation from different perspectives just so we definitely know how every character in the scene felt about it. This seems to be a central problem where the book just keeps explaining things instead of showing it organically through the story. Here have the "History of the House of Reclamation", let me just explain these space suits, oh aren't these weird planet formations mysterious? All of these things could have been interesting if they had been part of a good story, but it is not.
It gets very exhausting and didn't hold my attention on a train ride where I had absolutely nothing better to do than to listen to the story.

Enjoyed to book and looking forward to the next<br />

Good listen and nice to have multiple performers for a change and helped to get the characters across better. Would recommend.