In the Orbit of Sirens

The Song of Kamaria, Book 1

By: T. A. Bruno

Narrated by: Michael Reimer

Length: 16 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's Summary

The last fragments of the human race are forced to adapt to a dangerous new world or face extinction.

When starship mechanic, Denton Castus, is caught in the destructive path of a devastating war, he abandons his home and seeks refuge on a distant planet. However, this new safe haven has undiscovered threats of its own. Eliana Veston, a scout preparing the planet for the refugees, struggles with a deadly pandemic that is killing off colonists. The hunt for a cure unleashes a new threat to humanity - the Sirens - mysterious beings with incredible powers and a deep hatred for invaders.

©2020 Thomas Bruno (P)2021 Thomas Bruno

Cool new world

There is some really good world building in this book. The history established in this story is well thought out and the planet where the book happens is very interesting. There wide cast of interesting characters and the story is very engaging. The narration is very well done. He gives voices to a lot of different characters.

Fantastic Action Packed Scifi Fantasy

I really enjoyed this book because it was full of new species, action, love and humanity. Michael Reimer as narrator was the perfect choice his voice brings the characters and story to life making it almost feel like your in a movie plus I love his singing. This book maybe long but I guarantee you will not be bored because there is always something going on. I love the main characters especially Eliana Veston she is a truly kick ass heroine. The technology advanced Native bird like beings called the Auk'nai are creative and different. The Sirens are the evil horrible threat to the planet as well as all its inhabitants and it is up to the inhabitants to triumph. I will not give spoilers but I will say this the end shocked me because this book was one wild ride. I highly recommend this book if you love scifi, action and fantasy.

That was great!

It’s been a very long time since I’ve enjoyed a story so much. Surprising plot, complex characters, and a performance that pulled me in and made me forget I was listening to an audio book. Felt like I was right there with them. Looking forward to the next book!

Amazing sci-fi

With fantasy elements to boot. loved it! Highly recommended to all science fiction/ space opera fans.

Perfect for Explorers!

I am very new to the science fiction genre but after a glowing recommendation, I couldn't turn this down. I am happy to say that I was not disappointed at all! This title had me hooked right from the start and I was mad every time I had to turn it off to do some work or go to sleep. While I don't have the experience to compare this to other sci-fi titles or explain how it does or does not represent the genre well, I can still tell you the things that I did like.

Probably my absolute favorite thing about this book is the setting and what it lends to the story. As an animal lover and someone that enjoys learning new things, I had so much fun listening to the descriptions of the environment and its inhabitants. The scouts and their missions were the perfect way to explore this aspect of the story. The auk'nai also were fascinating to hear about as well.

The story itself was a little confusing to me here and there. I struggle with staying focused sometimes so I'm sure some of the confusion is my fault rather than the book's but I was convinced of certain things for the longest time just to be proven wrong later on, which threw me off a little. But again, I wouldn't be able to tell you right now if that's due to the writing or that I happened to space out for a bit there. I did love this book enough though to buy a print copy of it so I will be reading it again in the future to see what happened here.

I'm a big fan of the characters here. I got attached to them incredibly fast and was so worried for them along the way. I was minded of To Sleep in a Sea of Stars a couple of times so I started to become a little paranoid here and there. The author did really well with building the suspense and while there were some slower chapters in the middle, I still felt engaged the entire time.

I think this was my first audiobook narrated by Michael Reimer. I do have to say that it took me a little while to get into the narration but eventually I ended up really enjoying that part as well.

An intriguing blend of sci-fi and fantasy

In the Orbit of Sirens was an intriguing book with surprising depth and complexity. It's categorized as science fiction on both Audible and Amazon, but Bruno seamlessly blends fantasy elements into the novel. The story is set on a newly colonized world -- but one already inhabited by intelligent, indigenous lifeforms. The planet has rich mythology that comes to life as the colonists discover the god-like creatures they refer to as Sirens. The Sirens have powers and abilities that defy scientific explanations, and they are tied to the planet as Gaia-like protective deities. With the plot revolving around the supernatural Sirens, the story deviates from most of your typical sci-fi adventures to be something somewhat unique in the building of genres.

I'll admit that I wasn't that impressed with the book before the various plot elements came together and the narrative started to solidly move forward. I was about a quarter into the story before becoming hooked on the building suspense and intriguing mix of sci-fi and fantasy. Besides the unique premise, there was also good dialog and interaction, an interesting cast of characters, and an entertaining plot that was difficult to predict. While the story does come to a resolution at the end, there were also a few loose, unresolved threads that leave a perfect opening for future books in the series.

The narration in the audiobook version is something of a mixed bag. Some parts of Michael Reimer's performance are excellent. For example, his character voices (especially using a synthesized voice for a marine who uses a cybernetic voice box) are very good and, for the most part, distinctly unique. It helps that Bruno describes his characters well, making it easy to attribute accents and speech patterns -- and Reimer replicates these well. However, at the start of the book, Reimer's default narration voice felt flat and monotone and was a bit of a turn-off. The lack of voice inflection was so bothersome that I almost stopped listening after only a few minutes. However, once character dialogue became prominent and character personalities became more evident in POV text, the issue narrowed to become only a rare and minor annoyance.

Special thanks to T. A. Bruno, who provided me with this book at my request.

Exciting new author!

Never a dull moment in T.A. Bruno"s "In the Orbit of Sirens", an epic genre blending sci-fi with original twists, memorable characters, and remarkable critters. As the tale of a young colony on a colorful new planet becomes a battle of epic proportions, Bruno weaves an original backstory of the non human 'Sirens', and follows a group of colonists scouts adventures in the struggle for control of the planet.

Very good.

Very good book one. We have a good bad guy to hate here. The planet and the world are interesting. Will buy book 2. I did get this as a free sample to give my honest opinion.

An epic story the likes of which I have come to expect from this author

I have read/listened to many books by Bruno and have enjoyed them all. Tbh, I found this one to be a bit slow to start but well worth the wait as the universe, characters and plot lines was created. Stick it out the creation process is essential to the storyline and makes it so much richer. The world building and characters are extremely well done, races, technology, all of it. This is a story that can develop into many many tales to come. The sirens are awesome, there is an evil lurking in humanities past that can haunt their future, their neighbors are amazing. The plot twists in the song were awesome. Get it and enjoy it. I was voluntarily provided this free review copy audiobook by the author, narrator or publisher

Action, Aliens, and Exploration scifi adventure!

Excellent classic sci-fi story full of action, adventure, planetary exploration, and alien contact, with bits of mystery and even a bit of light horror to boot. The world building and story shine bright for me in this book. I found the author’s inventiveness and attention to details in describing all the nuances and gadgets, biological aspects, etc. of the planets and space tech/travel to be so entertaining. It really sucked me into the world of the story. The plot is very classic sci-fi – straight-up, with no-nonsense characters that give it a very relatable quality. And it is an epic scale journey! I found it to be very cinematic and was pulled into the narrative, which speaks about our expansion into the stars and how we deal with surviving what we encounter, whether it be environment or alien species. Looking forward to #2!

A wonderful, beautiful & strikingly emotive sci-fi

Disclaimer: I was provided a copy of this book, free of charge, in exchange for an honest review.

Ok, I have to be honest, I am but a simple beast and my love for Sci-fi books usually revolve around SpaceShips blowing each other into scrap or mech-armoured marines having battles with titanic warmachines on far off worlds. Due to this I was unsure as to how I would fare with this book and honestly expected it to be somewhat of a slog; how wrong was I.

This is the tale of the humans who flee their homeworld of Ganymede due to a war that threatens their very extinction and how they seek to find a new home amongst the stars.

The story jumps between various times with the majority initially being present day with scientists on a new homeworld of Kamaria desperately seeking a cure for Lunglock, a disease that is causing the death of many colonists and that of the refugees escaping Ganymede and seeking integration into the outgoing sailboats through deep space.

With writing that beautifully paints images of an alien world and civilisations akin to those found in Edgar Rice Burroughs' best works, this has a lot going for it right from the beginning but then we meet the Undriel and everything takes a much more dark, horrifying turn.

With amazing flights of imagination, a very original foe with terrifying tactics and the beautifully paced revelations of the different timeframes it needed a very powerful narration and I'm pleased to say that Michael Reimer is at his absolute best here with clear narration, strong character identity and (dare I say) a surprisingly good singing voice and so I would strongly recommend this to all fans of fantastic tales that have a real mixture of sci-fi and the fantastic.

An interesting story.

I was given a free copy of this book and I'm leaving an honest and voluntary review.
This is a great story of humanity's survival. The amount of detailing is remarkable, very nice world building, the characters have a great deal of depth to them. All in all its a great listen.
The narration is flawless, making this experience one thats very enjoyable.
I would recommend this to any sifi, Fantasy fan.