Gods of the Machines

By: Gary Starta

Narrated by: Victor Octavio

Detective Sam Benson, a native New Yorker, is brash, opinionated, and candid. Transplanted to work on Earth's first colonized planet, he envisions a relatively peaceful job. But Benson's ruthless nature might bring it to the brink of annihilation when a series of murders occur. He suspects a non-human is responsible - an android who once shared engrams with a psychopathic human. However, the detective doesn't know other non-humans once called his new world theirs. And as Benson obsesses with making a case against the android, he is oblivious to their return and the reason why they consider machines to be their gods.

©2010 Gary Starta (P)2018 Gary Starta

Great Story!

This is a very well written and imaginative tale. The narration however can be described as sub par at best. The narrator shows great promise but several mistakes are exposed that didn't make it past the sound editing process. This fact doesn't detract from the listener's ability to thoroughly enjoy this wonderful science fiction story.

I should have liked it more.

The beginning was like a different book than the the end. AI justice is an intriguing subject but this didn't have enough meet on the story-bone.
Honestly, with a different narrator it would probably have been better. Best listened to at 1.15 speed to cover the discontinuities of the speech pattern.

Interesting I'll say that much

First I'm legally bound to say I got this book free of charge in exchange for my unbiased review. So here goes. I love the Description of the new planet and artificial life. I think some spots don't really depict how people talk to one another but it might be how that character talks so I looked past it. all in all a really good story with enough plot twist to keep you wondering the whole way through. the narrator though whoa. no inflection at all. barely any change of time for women and men. no Character voice change a few times I didn't know who was talking until I got a feel for the scene. this is a narrator that would do better as a first person narration instead of a novel narration. but worth the credit none the less I believe

Narration was not great

I liked the premise and the plot. The narrators voice and attempts at accents detracted from the story. There were longer gaps in narration when it wasn’t needed and no gap where there should’ve been, like when two people were conversing back and forth. The audio editing could’ve been a bit better as well. It took some effort to stick through this narration to get through the story but I’m glad I did.

Captivating story

Starta shows the readers/listeners (I bought the audiobook) of his great abilities to put words together to create captivating stories. Gods of the Machines is a great read/listen and I enjoyed the story, as I do with the majority of Starta's work. The characters have great depth and they relate to each other. His humanization of the robots brings an interesting characterization. The story is plot driven, and it has great sub-plots that keep the story together. It's a remarkable out of this world, suspense story.