Gil's World

Wanderers, Book 1

By: James Murdo

Narrated by: Rhett Samuel Price

Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins

Publisher's Summary

Three hundred million years ago, the galactic community was taken by surprise. A catastrophic war with a hostile entity threatened to destroy all life until the fight was postponed by a calamitous event known as the Great Conflation. With the majority of pre-Conflation empires in ruins and the Ascended Biologicals wiped out, the hastily formed Wanderer Enclave tasked its fleet with unearthing answers and continuing the fight. 

One lone ship has found something: an innocuous world it had marked for routine decontamination that may hold vital answers. 

Gil, a young woman with special abilities, battles to save the future of her commune and possibly much more.

©2018 James Murdo (P)2018 James Murdo

Audio quality needs to be improved

Could not enjoy this Audio Book the Audio needs to be done again. I am sorry but it is hard to listen to any Book if you struggle to listen to the performance. The work deserves a better chance to be presented to the listener. This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review

GIL!!!

Wow, this was at times confusing but also fascinating! I liked the chanters switching back & forth, I've listened to a few others done that way and I liked it. I think both perspectives lent well to this story, and it created a very intricate world. I enjoyed Gil's character, and her world. Very interesting! Thought the story and narration were great, and enjoyed listening! I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review. Please take a moment to click the "YES" ("Helpful") button below if you found this review helpful :) Thank you!

It's like two different books...

The premise is interesting, but I just couldn't get into it. It's like there are two different books. The odd-numbered chapters are from a spaceship. It reads like a boring history or science lesson. I had no idea what was going on. The even-numbered chapters are from the perspective of people, primarily Gil or the title, who live on a primitive world in a collective. I loved these chapters. Maybe it's because the odd-numbered chapters felt so technical. Maybe it's because there really wasn't a character to lock onto. I just couldn't wait to get through those chapters. I really enjoyed the characters in the even-numbered chapters. I loved learning about their world and their relationships to each other. I wish the whole book could have been written from Gil's point of view. Though it's frustrating to think that Gil lost the ability to speak as the result of an accident as a child and many years later, they still hadn't developed some sort of sign language or pictorial communication. Just because there's no written language doesn't mean you can't draw pictures to communicate! Deaf people make up gestures to communicate even when they don't know sign language, so that part was very frustrating to me. I really, really, REALLY wanted to like this book. It just kept missing the mark. It might have helped if the audio quality was better. The narrator has this wonderful, deep, rumbling James Earl Jones voice, but sound engineers, you have to turn down the bass or it just sounds rumbly. I could actually feel the car vibrating from the bass when I listened in the car. Maybe not reading in a monotone would have helped the technical chapters, though I think he might have been doing that on purpose to convey the mechanical nature of the narrator for those chapters. If that's what he was doing, it didn't work. His wonderfully soothing voice, with bass so strong it was hard to tell what he was saying, just kind of lulled me to sleep. I think this one might work better as a print book where I can more easily refer back to the science-y chapters to help understand what's going on as I need to, and not have to struggle so hard to understand the narrator. This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review

Well written but unfocused story

Gil’s World is a science fiction story written by James Murdo. We follow the mute girl Gil, who lives in a hunter-gatherer society. As she lost the ability to speak at an early age, she has a very hard time communicating with people around her, and she often feels a bit like an outsider. A huge part of her tribal life is influenced by peoples ability to access their ‘sphere’, a supernatural ability to feel and interact with each other over distances. Gil is fortunate in that respect, in that she thinks her ability to use the sphere is stronger than most other people around her. In a parallel story, we follow a several years old machine-like entity, and its travels through the galaxy, looking for enemies. It is all powerfull, with sufficient technology on board its vessel, to destroy suns and planets. As chance will is, the paths of Gil and the machine-like entity cross. The book is generally well written, but I found the jumping back and forth between the two stories to ruin the flow. Every second chapter is either from Gil’s point of view, or the machine-like entity, and while the former is standard low tech fantasy, the latter is hardcore technobabble science fiction, so it was quite contrasting. And as the stories didn’t really convene at all until over halfway through the book, and even then only really took hold the last quarter of the book, it didn’t work for me at all. Gils story was the interesting one, since there was actually a character going through some issues, but much of her story was merely explaining the magic system, that affected most of her daily life. And way too much time was spend on that without progressing the story much, and that wasn’t very interesting. I tend to love hardcore science fiction, and don’t mind techno babble and world building, so for the first five chapters of the machine like entity I was quite focused on following the story. But, as it turned out, most of the chapters was just world building, and after five more chapters I started to loose interest, and five chapters later I didn’t really care much about the ‘character’ or what it was doing, because there wasn’t much happening. There was sooo much world building which didn’t have any effect on the story, and that ruined it completely for me. Interesting, yes, but it didn’t do anything for the book. Also, since the entity was machine-like, it always referred to subparts of itself in binary, which didn’t help me at all. As the two stories really convened at the end of the book, the amount of time spent building up to it was just way too much, so the ending felt really flat for me. I think the book would have been much better if it was cut down significantly, and the world building was spread out over more books or cut completely. Overall I found the writing nice, and it carried a lot of the book. There were definitely some good things to be found here, but ultimately it didn’t work for me, as the contrasting stories made everything very unfocused. Most of the hard science fiction chapters was one long world building info-dump, and that didn’t work for a book that tries to tell a story. I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Rhett Samuel Price, who did a very nice job. Clear narration, and good voices, and I thought he was a nice pick for the story. I received this audiobook for free in return for a review. I have no affiliation with the author, the narrator, the publisher, or their pets (Although I am sure the latter are quite nice!).

Interesting story lackluster presentation

I enjoyed the story but felt like the narrator’s monotone pacing and tone took away from it. The narrator’s style made it very difficult to finish listening to :(

Poor audio production quality, good story.

Audio quality was subpar, lots of hissing and rumbling. Sounds like the narrator was to close to the mic and audio was adjusted after the fact, poorly. Good story, narrator does terrible women's voices, always sounds like they are whining. Just give them a difference, don't try to sound feminine, it doesn't work with your voice.

Gil's World

I really enjoyed this story and performance. I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

OK

My problem with this book, like many other reviewers is that part of the story is told from Aliens/machines. I still don't really know which. It also doesn't help that the author gaves these characters numbers instead of names which confused me a lot because the author gives us a history of what happens until they get to the point where they meet up with Gil. Now this is not a bad thing but because there are many characters that are numbered I got myself really confused with who was who and I found it really boring because it felt like I was listening to a text book being recited more then a story. This did not help because I switched off at times. If there is a test based on this book then I would fail. The only part I did like was Gil's POV. There is dialogue between the characters, we get to know their society they live in and it is not long. The only thing that made me listen to the audiobook is I wanted to know what happens to Gil and her brother. There is also something that happens in the book towards the end that I was not expecting and I wish the author did not do. I must admit I shed a few tears. The book does end on a cliff hanger. Do I want to know what happens next? The strange thing is I do. I want to know what happens to Gil and her village. I hope the next book is better. There is no sexual content or profanity but it does have some violence but it is mild. The ironic thing is I would recommend this book. If you can get over the other POV then this is not a bad book.

I found it hard to follow, but I will listen again

The numeric character names didn't suit audio, but the story was interesting. I will listen again to better my understanding (and many I don't bother doing that with).

A great story

I was given this free review copy audio book at my request and have voluntarily left this review. So glad the audio was fixed because this was a really good book. I really enjoyed the story and thought the author did a great job world building. The characters were interesting. The narrator did a great job with the voices and really brought this book to life. All in all, I think this is definitely worth a listen.

PERPLEXING

FOUND THE WHOLE BOOK INTERESTING YET PERPLEXING.FELT THAT I KNEW VERY LITTLE MORE OF WHAT WAS GOING ON AT THE END.NOT SURE WEATHER I SHALL CONTINUE WITH THIS SERIES OR NOT WILL PROBABLY LISTEN TOO IT AGAIN TO SEE IF I CAN MAKE MORE SENSE OF IT SECOND TIME AROUND.VERY INTERESTING OVERALL CONCEPT.

A Great Adventure!

This book took me on a journey of intrigue which had my heart racing at times. I'd listen and at times even broke out in a sweat during precarious situations. I loved being able to listen deep into the night after everyone had gone to bed so I could just immerse myself in the story and journey through the space adventures right along with the characters. Great story! Highly recommended! I received a free review copy of this book and am voluntarily leaving a review.

great book

Three hundred million years ago, the galactic community was taken by surprise. I enjoyed this book very much

Interesting start to a series

Initially I didn't enjoy the split between the two separate storylines that make up this book because early on you just end up not being invested enough in either half, but gradually it drew me in and by the end of the book I was looking forward to finding out what would happen next. While the two stories eventually intertwine, their scale and setting is vary different from the outset, Gil's story is on a much smaller and more personal scale to the larger more cosmic setting of the other half, but both halves build nicely together. The performance by the narrator is an interesting one, serving to give the book a greater sense of gravitas with his tone, while also managing to keep things sufficiently distinctive within a disparate cast. Overall, an interesting start to a series that got stronger as I listened to more of the book. [Note - I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.]

Kill, evolve and reach for everything. Or die.

Several days have passed since this reader finished listening to Gil's World: Wanders I. The enormity of this book in terms of time and space is, quite honestly, overwhelming, millions of years and races, both biological and machine, have evolved, spread, and many have died. We learn little about the vast majority but focus, instead, on the few and in particular, the Wanderer ship, which travels the galaxy collecting and recording Everything - yes, that's everything with a capital E. From technologies and species down to the minutest moments, incidents, things. It has all the time it needs as it slowly moves, absorbing, contemplating and sometimes communicating, especially internally. It has been travelling in this way for many,many millennia. And it encounters a small planet which shows signs of infection by Synth Space, hated and feared for past destructions, to be eliminated at all costs. Simultaneously, the reader is introduced to Gil, a young human, living in a smallish hunter gatherer community, with her beloved twin brother, Tor. Because of an accident when she was a child, Gil cannot speak but can still communicate with her village companions and, most easily, with her brother. Other senses seem to have been enhanced since her loss of speech, in particular her sphere, a sort of intuitive bubble that can reach out to sense the presence and feelings of others. All of the people in the community have this, but Gil's seems more developed than that of the others. The book alternates between the space history and Gil's story - the sense and the specific. It was difficult initially for this reader to find a comfort zone, not understanding the vastness and not diagnosing with the villagers, but at some point, not too far into the story, everything seemed to fall into place and the enormity stopped being overwhelming and became a truly thrilling adventure taking place in slow motion. Beautiful and quite remarkable. And very funny on occasion, as well. So, as anyone can probably tell, this reader still has no idea how to write this review. The narration by Rhett Samuel Price is excellent, the story both near infinite and locally specific, both coming together, intriguing each other, various outlooks and all wanting life. This is a book I will be reading again, something I almost never do. My thanks to the rights holder who, at my request, freely gifted me a complimentary copy of Gil's World, via Audiobook Boom. To all who enjoy science fiction, I recommend that you read this remarkable story. See what you think. I personally look forward to the arrival of volume two.