Hecate

By: J. B. Rockwell

Narrated by: Elizabeth Wiley

Length: 12 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's Summary

Black Ops - the intelligence arm of the Meridian Alliance Fleet came calling with an offer Henricksen couldn't refuse: a ship - an entire squadron of ships, actually - and crew to command. A chance to get back to the stars. Too bad he didn't ask more questions before accepting the assignment. Too bad no one told him just how dangerous this particular skunkworks project was.

They call the ship the RV-N: Reconnaissance Vessel-Non-combat, Raven for short. A stealth ship - fast, and maneuverable, and brutal as hell. On the surface, Henricksen's assignment seems simple: train his crew, run the RV-Ns through their paces, get the ships certified for mission operations and job done. But an accident in training reveals a fatal design flaw in the Raven, and when an undercover operative steals classified information from a Black Ops facility, the Fleet Brass cancels the tests completely, rushing the faulty ships and their half-trained crew into live operations. On a mission to recover the Fleet's lost secrets.

Out of time and out of options, Henricksen has no choice but to launch his squadron. But a ghost from his past makes him question everything - the ships, their AI, the entirety of this mission, right down to the secrets he and his crew are supposed to recover.

©2017 J. B. Rockwell (P)2017 Tantor

A Prequel

I read “Serengeti” last year and enjoyed it. Apparently, this book takes place before the happenings in the “Serengeti” book.

In this book the main character is a human being not a AI in a Starship. He is Commander Henriksen who is in command of the Meridian Alliance Hecate. Hecate is an Aurora-class vessel. He is led into a trap and the Hecate is destroyed. Henriksen is then assigned to a black ops mission. His new ship is RV-N (Reconnaissance vessel-noncombatant) named Raven; a stealth ship is an experimental design. A spy obtains information and the Admiral sends Henriksen and the Raven after the spy even though the crew is only half-trained and the Raven has a deadly flaw.

The story is well written and there is lots of new characters in this story. The plot twists and turns more so than most sci-fi stories. The pace is fast. I am looking forward to the next book in the series.

The book is almost thirteen hours long. Elizabeth Wiley does a good job narrating the book. Wiley is an actress and an audiobook narrator. She has won the Audiofile Earphone Award.

14 of 15 people found this review helpful

Good story, mediocre editing

The narrator was ok, but she didn't remember which voice she used for which character, only mildly annoying but still made for inconsistency in the reading. There were at least three places where sloppy splicing left artifacts in the audio, and one place where repeated content was left in the audio as well.
The story itself wasn't bad, even if it was a bit too predictable. I was especially irritated by how long it took the characters to figure out the distruction of the first raven. I thought it was about as obvious as it gets.otherwise a decent story, and I already have another one in the series I will listen to now while I recover from the flu.

7 of 8 people found this review helpful

good audio book but not a great story

story lost me a bit, it was too drawn out, too many references to current day Earth practices and environments for a story purportedly taking place well in future, ending looks abrupt and forced and generally the entire story will probably for into thirty odd pages, rest is just fluff.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Glad it's over

The book started good with some action but I really don't know why she named it after a character that died in the first of the book and really had no significant part of the story other than the X captains feelings. Most of the time I felt like I was sitting in a mall food court listening to other peoples meaningless conversations. The story took way to long to progress and then finished abruptly without any resolution to the story in the book. This would have been a great 4 hour audio book if all the stuff that had nothing to do with the story was left out.

Excellent Syfy book with a great sense of humor.

Excellent sci-fi book with an emphasis on character development not necessarily battles. Wiley expertly narrates the story with humor and intensity when needed to create suspense, longing, sorrow and humor. Rockwell puts a great twist on AI Characterization. The book is an interesting blend between Andromeda and