Junkyard Cats

Shining Smith, Book 1

By: Faith Hunter

Narrated by: Khristine Hvam

Length: 5 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's Summary

From the author of the best-selling Jane Yellowrock and Soulwood series comes a tough new heroine who is far more than she seems.

After the Final War, after the appearance of the Bug aliens and their enforced peace, Shining Smith is still alive, still doing business from the old scrapyard bequeathed to her by her father. But Shining is now something more than human. And the scrapyard is no longer just a scrapyard, but a place full of secrets that she has guarded for years.

This life she has built, while empty, is predictable and safe. Until the only friend left from her previous life shows up, dead, in the back of a scrapped Tesla warplane. Clutched in her cold fingers is a note to Shining - warning her of a coming attack.

With dread, Shining realizes: Someone knows who she is. Someone knows what she is guarding. Will she be able to protect the scrapyard? Will she even survive? Or will Shining have to destroy everything she loves to keep her secrets out of the wrong hands? 

©2020 Faith Hunter (P)2020 Audible Originals, LLC.

Would be a great story, if most of it wasn't missi

Imagine following Harry Potter with no explanation of why anyone cares about him. Imagine following Frodo through Mordor with no background on why he needs to take the ring anywhere. Imagine dropping into Hunger Games with Katnis without any of the history of what led to this dystopia. This experiment in imagination will prepare you for the constant confusion that plagues this story.

I really wanted to like the story. The world could be quite interesting, and would be even better if I had any idea what was happened, what the acronyms stand for, and why I should care about anything I am hearing. I know there are aliens, I know there are motorcycles, I know there are cats, I know there are bugs. Beyond that, I just did my best to follow the ramblings and ignore everything that I could not follow, which is most of the story.

Hopefully the writer will eventually add the rest of the story that seems to be missing from this book. Even a glossery or appendix covering minor background of the characters would help.

At least it was free.

Save your free download

I can listen to just about anything, but this is truly awful. Too slow. Too complicated, nonsense jargon. Too cliche.

Awful.

Great world building, Action. Terrific heroine

Junkyard Cats is a post-apocalyptic tale of survival. Shining Smith is doing all right in her piece of the wild. She runs her junkyard and isn’t bothering anyone. But now folks want something hidden in the junkyard. Something even Shining didn’t realize was there. But she isn’t about to let anyone expose her or take her home.
This is an exciting tale with a strong independent heroine, a cyborgish sidekick, some AI snark and of course junkyard cats. I thoroughly enjoyed this action packed tale and look forward to future adventures with Shining Smith and friends.

A Challenge

Interesting story well performed, but I had difficulty visualizing the scenes and characters. Plus, the story was hard to follow - what was going on and why. The author finally provides some background about 4 hrs into the 5 hr read, which is too late. I kept feeling that I had missed an earlier book, but this is the first one of a new series. OK as a free listen from Audible but I will not buy future stories in this series.

A treat

I really enjoyed this book! That is saying a lot for the monthly offerings in “audible originals”, they’re usually pretty bad. Please, stick with it as the first can be a little dry and narration “nasally”. It gets much better! There is a lot of action,dialog(great dif voices), some nice humor and the cats are STARS. Not a huge sci-fi fan but when I find really good books in the genre I do enjoy. The tech stuff is pretty interesting. I liked all the characters, the writing was well done. Am def going to look into her other books, hoping this will be a serial. Again, give this a chance,you shouldn’t be disappointed, especially with those Junkyard Cats!

Stunningly Imaginative, Surprising, & Intriguing

I could not stop listening, even though I had other things to do. As always, Khristine Hvam provided just the right voices for the characters in this audio book.

I've been a fan of Faith Hunter's various books for a number of years.

I'm delighted by this very different world, its characters, the inclusion of AIs that have personalities, the astounding armament for the battles, the plot lines, and especially the Junkyard Cats, who are amazing beings.

Another outstanding success, Faith! Thank you.

Do not buy this garbage

Let me preface this by saying i basically got this for free and i regret getting it.

I've read some bad books before, some truly awful, horrid books, but this one, ohh this one. it just takes 1st place. This book drags on and on and ON until you wish for the sweet release of death. The bulk of the story is basically over the span of a few hours. But you'd swear that its longer just because you want to jab the nearest stabbing object into your ears to make it stop.

There aee a number of things that get repeated in the book. and i dont mean motif or you know anything that a writer may use to convey a specific point across. Noooo, i mean the same event is covered an absurd amount of times, over and over. imagine if harry talked about how his wand selected him around twice per chapter every chapter of the book. That is how absurd it gets in this story, i actually lost track of how many times the chracter mentions to herself that military satellites would see her junkyard fire weapons. And i lost track after about 37 times or so.

The science fiction aspect borders on the fantasy magic more than science. And i could probably write the entire story in about four paragraphs. In fact let me spare you the torture of listening to what surely will be the CIA's new torture audio file.

spoilers:

main character receives a junk tesla that is supposed to have black market weapons instead ot has the corpse of her dealer and its covered on ants. genetically modified ants that were meant to eat battlefield corpses that accidentally got mutated with nanomachines and now have swarm intelligence. protagonist got attacked by this species as a child and survived. she burns the body and a few hours later a biker dude(picture super buff roid middle aged man) is coming to her junkyard.

her rescued friend now stuck in robot dude tells her about it. there is some story about him being eaten by chinese nanites, yada yada. There was a world war chinese self replicating bots attacked the USA and bikers helped defended it and became a paramilitary org. Her father was part of it and so was she. she is going to pretend to be a southern belle and bluff the biker. Biker informs that he is here because a patch on her riding jacket sent an SOS about chinese bots. at this point everyone freezes as if somehow talking about will make the bots attack. Even though they have been around for a bloody week. cats act intelligently and somehow despite being biological win figths agaisnt robots...

biker dude and girl enter office and activate defenses. she has a huge level of hots for him. (at one point because he reminds her of her dad...and because she is lonely) now we grt to talk about how her survival of the ants changed her and once she also survived a chinese factory bot she was changed. and now she had nanobots in her. which aparently could infect people and bend them to her will over time if they survived the transformation. at this point some heavily armed hells angels show up and attack the place, cats eat the humans that die.

the chick decides to enter the spaceship in the backyard and turn on the AI which is a southern girl persona. she learns more of the ship is under trash in her junkyard despite having had years to learn this. and that her android best buddy was the captain of the ship. the hell angels are attackkng because the 2nd in command who was also attacked by ants wants the tech. cats drink main character's blood and talk by showing her images. She leaves the ship to enter her officewhich is actually an alien bug ship with superweapons and cooks the hells angels. (deus ex machina)

the end.

Absolutely loved this new world!!!

This book is fantastic and I listened to it in one setting. I love that Shining is literally just realizing her potential. Having lived alone for years without having to test her limits Shining comes up against a lethal enemy intent on stealing her secrets.

As the only life she knows is threatened can Shining save her junkyard full of secrets worth dying for? And can her cats help her? Amazing new dynamic and a fascinating team of new heroes evolve in a way even Shining wasn't expecting. I was riveted by this new tail and I already need more Shining and Junkyard Cats. This is a must have for Faith Hunter fans. I promise you will love this new short story from her!!!!

short read and fun

proved to be way more interesting than I originally thought. builds out a world in a short amount of time and takes you along for the ride

Highly Entertaining

This short story was highly entertaining and thought provoking. The performer was versitile, seamlessly moving between distinctive accents and even different genders. Great job.

New genre, same old mesmerizing storytelling

My only complaint is that is too short, but again, I knew this when I purchased the audiobook. Fantastic job both - Faith Hunter and Kristine Hvam. Looking forward toward new book in a hopefully long series!

Short but good.

I am a Faith Hunter fan but, her consent repeating of the titles of peoples professions in a short story starts to grate. ie- the inforcer of the omw. I would like to listen to a longer story before making a decision on if I want to continue.

Enjoyed more than expected

Wasn't sure to begin with, the accent of the narrator almost put me off, but it grew on me . . . as did the story as it unfolded. Clever, a mixture of out-of-this-time tech and all time human emotions . . . . scary believable . . . .

It's all about the cats!

I auto buy Faith Hunter and I am never disappointed. It gets even better when Khristine Hvam picks up the narration. I digress, Faith drops us into a dystopian junkyard belonging to Shining Smith. The apocalypse has already happened and the alien bugs settled the score, it left people to eke out an existence where they can. Shining is happy-ish and is way more than she seems, she lives alone apart from the junkyard cats and a war-bot she rescued.

But the world is now run by bikers, the biggest group the Hell's Angels have heard rumours that she is hiding something. Her only warning of the coming attack the note clutched in the dead fingers of her father's last friend. Then Jager arrives ........

fast paced action

Action, action! action as the back story is slow,ly teased out. character development an be convenient, jarring abrupt! subtly nuanced and contradictory. Let's see what comes. Shining Smith I suspect will. be around for some time

It got going near the end

A slow starter and slow narration, I had to increase the speed by 25% to stay with it.

Couldn't stop listening

I couldn't stop listening to this book, and got through it really quickly. Great story, characters and introduction to this dystopian world. Its a shame it's not a very long book, and I felt like it ended very abruptly. Great narration. Looking forward to reading more of this series.

Not as good as I hoped

Having avidly listened to the Jane Yellowrock series, been happy with the Soulwood series and even enjoyed the Detective series written as Gwen Hunter I had high hopes for this book.

Its OK but I didnt get as hooked as usual- not a lot happens and the characters are barely sketched out. It felt like the introduction to a longer book and I expected it to continue. It stops fairly abruptly with a clear direction for the next book.
The series has potential and I am sure I will listen to the next one but it didnt really do it for me.

Maybe the pace will pick up in book 2 and there will be a lot more to involve me but this one didnt really grab me.

Narration up to normal standard just the story was a bit weak

I’m hooked!

I got sucked into this story more as it went on, and was sad when it was over. I can only hope this is the start of a new series as I love Faith Hunter’s books, and Khristine Hvam’s narration.

Superb!

Strong heroine, interesting side characters, innovative ideas, lots of sarcasm from the AI. Cats! Really looking forward to more of this story please!