Meet Bill

By: Paul Andrulis

Narrated by: Roberto Scarlato

Length: 1 hr and 38 mins

Publisher's Summary

Humanity has reached for the stars and has gained complete domination. The human empire has remain unchallenged... until now. A new alien race is discovered, and they are as human as we are. Unfortunately for Earth the aliens are far more advanced technologically, smarter than the average Earth human, and are just as aggressive. Maybe it doesn't help that they are all psychopaths.

Bill is just training to be a combat marine in a war that Earth based humanity is losing. When his base is attacked by the aliens at the end of his training, he finds himself as the hero and is propelled into a battle that he must win with the help of the lethal AI Collective to gather alien technology for study on Earth. Welcome to the new future, an alien nightmare that is not so alien, but is an all out battle to the death where Bill's allies are as dangerous as his enemies.

©2014 Paul Andrulis (P)2014 Paul Andrulis

This is the thanks you get for surviving

Bill is just a grunt, making his days through endless hours of training in preperation to fight an enemy that is clinically insane and technologically superior. He is not out for glory, he's happy to just be surviving considering every fleet that has gone against the other "human" aliens has been utterly obliterated.

Suddenly, he finds himself a war hero after an encounter, skirmish really, with these sociopathic aliens and is placed in charge of a squad that is meant to meet the enemy head on. Problem is, he has a robot as his second in command that isn't as helpful as it seems, and a squad of trainees looking to get blooded.

For a short introduction, Meet Bill holds your attention and leaves you wanting more at the end of the story. You get a great mech vs alien battle, and an ending that really makes you say "What comes next?".

The story is fun, and is set in a cool universe. The character of Bill is interesting, and you can see his changes after he gets off the obedience drugs. The real star is the insane aliens, who keep things interesting.

Scarlato is one of my must listen to narrators, he always does fine work, and here he really sets the pace and tone of the story. I love his take on the robot. I cannot say enough about his work, I'd listen to him read the phone book, if those existed anymore. Maybe and upper class restaurant menu would do the trick! Either way, he knocks this out of the park, and you really do get to meet Bill! Even though I did receive a promo code for this review it in no way influenced my considerations of the material, and in fact, inspired me to be more honest. In fact, getting a code generally makes me harsher as a reviewer as I am more often concerned what someone like Me will decide based on my review.


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Interesting aliens.

Uniquely engaging Robert Scarlato gave a good performance.and the story moved right along.
I did not like the cliffhanger ending.

A good start.

A military science fiction short story, with hints Larson, Sheckley, and Heinlein. Not bad if you're looking for something episodic and short in the genre. I'll probably check out the next one because the aliens seem to have a cruel sense of humor, and I dig that.

I was given a free copy of this audio book in exchange for an honest review.