Omega: An Icon Story

Icons, Book 2

By: Riley Tune

Narrated by: Christopher Boucher, Jessica Threet

Length: 13 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's Summary

The decision was made.

Hunter Monroe is now the Icon known as Paragon.

The man called Infinity - nearly unstoppable, the most powerful, and fuel by rage - is dead.

The victory claimed in the wake of his death came at a price. Now a year later, the Imperial Lords are no more, and Hunter finds himself as an intern to a powerful Icon he once called an enemy.

When Hunter and his team receive a message alerting them that Impervious - their invincible leader - has gone missing in his attempts to help another world, the young Icons take action.

Now, Mo’eizus - the virus-plagued home world of Hunter’s heritage - becomes their new destination as they join forces with the rebel group known as Bravado. Old friends, rejected recruits, and powerful new allies work together as a rescue mission is planned against an enemy that is worshiped as divinity.

As they dive deeper into Impervious’ disappearance, secrets are revealed, teams are split, bonds are tested, and old foes emerge as Paragon - and his team - face a foe that even their strongest member couldn’t defeat.

©2019 Riley Tune (P)2019 Riley Tune

Great follow up to the first

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

I have listened to quite a few different super hero books over the last couple of years and this is another really good one. I would probably say that I enjoyed this one a bit more than the first one.

The powers were creative and used in some unique ways. I liked the way the author went when creating the main villain. Last time we had a villain that was a one man army of super powers and this time we get a villain with one power that can create an army of powerful soldiers. I also liked that the villain could be empathized with. She was, of course, a villain but you could see where she was coming from and see how some of her actions could be justified.

I really like the direction this book went with the main characters. The character development was good and reflected what would likely happen based on their experiences. I also enjoyed the how the relationships from the first book have evolved and grown in ways that you wouldn't expect from the start of the first book, especially with Flex and Hunter. It was good to finally get to see there was more to Flex than just flying, lifting and punching.

I also enjoyed finally getting to see what Danielle could do. We also get to see the actual relationship between Hunter and Danielle that was mostly just referred to in the first book. We got to see why they fit together so well. The banter between the two was funny. Also enjoyed how she fits in with the rest of the group. I also liked the attention paid to all the other heroes in the group. We got to see things from more than just Hunter's POV.

In the first book we got some creative world building and were introduced into a world with superheroes and in this book we got another new world to explore. However, the author left plenty of room for development for later books and I can't wait to see more of what the world of theirs has to offer.

The narration was great. They captured the personality and tone of the characters perfectly.

Can't wait for the next book.

Solid Continuation of Good Series

The majority of the story I would have actually rated 5 stars, everything dealing with the new main threat through most of the book, the introduction of Hunter's home world and the situation and people there is great. I enjoyed the development of his team's characters and his relationships with them through this portion of the book. Minor spoiler: after this conflict is resolved, there is a secondary conflict and it just, well makes 0 sense, none. The characters randomly shooting one another would make more sense. I don't understand what the goal of that conflict was and it could be removed from the story and I would have easily rated the story part as 5 stars.

The narration I have mixed feelings about, I loved Christopher Boucher's narration of the first story, I did not find any real issue with his female voices, they were good for a male narrator. Since it is only the second book it is not as bad as doing it later, but I never care for narrator shifts, though I do usually prefer a dedicated female narrator when there are a lot of female characters as there are here, it makes sense as a choice....That choice however doesn't, Jessica Threet has a nice narration voice, but it creates a serious break in immersion here for me...all her voices are British, none of Christopher Boucher's voices either previously for female characters or now for male characters. So we are left with 2 entire worlds where all the women are British, but none of the men are...it just feels weird.

I will definitely be looking out to get more Icon stories :)

I was given a free copy of this audiobook in exchange for an unbiased review.

great follow up

The characterization is on point. There's plenty of action and world building. Continues the story well and look forward to next one.

Another great Icon story!

Character development was great and the
story was great as well! Worth every minute! Give it a go!

Great Follow-Up to a Great Hero Universe

I was happy to see that the follow-up to Paragon was a few hours longer than the prequel. I loved the first book, but it did feel rushed and a bit short. Lucky for me Omega was five hours longer! The performance was amazing and while a few voices did sound similar, it wasn't so bad as to prove to be an issue. The extra perk was that there is a female doing the female voices which is a pleasant surprise. Normally these audios have just one person doing all the work. Yet another portion that was stepped up from the first book.

The story flows well and has a good balance of funny moments, action, and heart. Some portions you even actually root for the bad guys and understand the motivation for their actions. I found myself seeing things from the bad guy's point of view and understanding why they were doing what they were doing. I also loved how the characters were more developed this time around. We get to see things from a variety of characters and it makes the world feel more...real. This is especially good because some of my favorites from book one come back and have new characters with them.

There is also the added pressure of how events in book one can be felt in book two. Some books, especially superhero books, leave this out because the characters are so godlike. I've read from his social media that there are three more books left in the series and I can't wait to see how it all unfolds especxially if there are twists and surprises to match THIS sequel.

Five stars and now the wait begins for book three!! I highly recommend.

Good sequel but a couple issues

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.
Narration has some cut off words(not many) runs out of separate voices to use for people, and some mic issues where it is bumped or something and is left in, overall between the 2 books I honestly don’t care much for the narrators level of quality, I hope he gets better but until that time an editor or someone to help him catch these kinds of issues would be nice.

Story has lots of lighthearted fun with enough depth to keep it interesting, but for me it flips view points far more frequently in book 2 and less obviously. It got distracting how suddenly and frequently it would happen.(especially because it didn’t seem to benefit the story for the constant changing of view point)

Otherwise I’m liking the series overall and hoping for more!

Overall great story

Totally inconsistent scoring on my part having the overall higher than story. But truthfully, the story dragged a bit in places. That being said, the performance was fantastic and the story was thoroughly enjoyable. I’m definitely getting the rest of the series as soon as they come out. Also, I LOVE them using two narrators. It improved the flow and characterizations over single narration by leaps and bounds.

A Bit of A Let Down.

The first one was good, not great. But it was charming, it had potential. This one on the other hand really missed the mark in my opinion. Honestly, you could just sum up this entire book as "Flex being ridiculously overpowered for 43 chapters." There's really no low point for Flex in this book. He genuinely doesn't take a single L the entire book. How am I supposed to be invested in a character that already has everything? Much less buy into the rivalry between Flex and Hunter when clearly Flex is just way more powerful than Hunter for no goddamn reason. Considering Hunter is the main character, and the supposedly super strong alien being, there is no reason why the power gap between them should lean so heavily in Flex's favor. And beyond that, the way the writer finally closes that power gap at the end is lazy as fuck and is in general, complete bullshit. The villain in the first book implied that Hunter wasn't using his powers to their fullest extent, and that there were ways he could harness them and become stronger. So the whole time I kept assuming he'd learn some special Alien techniquie that would give him a power boost and put him on the same level as Flex. But nope. Apparently, the author seems to think that would make too much sense. The world also is just not quite as fun as the first one. The villain isn't nearly as good as the villain in the first one. The author really wasted the subplot about Flex's sister. And overall it just felt a little overly complicated compared to the first one. There's so much new information and it's not as hard to keep up with. The first one is simple. Straight to the point, easy to like, easy to follow. Superhero world, powerful mc, powerful rival, on a superhero team together, bad guy steals people's super powers, they take him down. It's simple but it's charming and it works. This one on the other hand is more like a series of adventures on a new world. They're fighting in an Alien war, they don't really do s good job of explaining why the villain is bad. And why they're fighting on the side that they are. They're going up against Aliens with weird powers. There's a disease plaguing the Aliens on this planet, the villain is trying to cure the disease. Meanwhile back on earth there's the subplot with Powerprince and Flex's sister. idk. There's a lot going on, and it all just feels like too much. It lost the charm that the first one had going for it imo.

Lovely

Great read. I can’t wait for the next entry in the series! I hope audible has it soon.

This story has gone to some really cool places

I loved the installment as much as the first. The end was satisfying and left me eager for the next story.

Good but very different from the 1st book

This was very entertaining but not quite what I wanted from a sequel to this series. The first book was a refreshing superhero story with young heroes dealing with moral issues in a urban setting. This book was more of a fantasy story. The hero abilities changed from feeling like hero powers to magic skills and it was set on a magically world instead of a urban setting.

There was more focus on the female heroes this book which I enjoyed but didn't like the female narrator's choice of voice for Paragon's girlfriend (a bit to jarring). The rest of the female voices were okay and the main narrator was great.

I enjoyed some of the character development from the first book especially with Paragon and his interactions with other team members.

I will read the synopsis of the next book for starting to see if peaks my interest.

[Note - I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.]

Impressively expands the scope of the series

This book can be read as a standalone, but you will definitely appreciate it more if you have already read the first book in the series as you will already have the connection with the characters and I'd recommend that people don't skip the first book.

With the events of the first book having a fairly dramatic impact on the main cast, the author could have taken a lower key approach to this follow-up, but he opts not to do that, throwing much of the cast into a civil war on an alien planet with the net result of the team seeing even more dramatic changes by the end of this instalment.

The narrator's tone helped to enhance the book overall and his range for the wide cast was also suitably distinctive.

Overall, a strong follow-up, it will be interesting to see where the author takes this team in subsequent books.

[Note - I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.]