Palindrome 656

The Palindrome Series, Volume 1

By: C.F. Waller

Narrated by: Charlotte Kyle

Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

When a ghost ship turns up in orbit after a half decade of silence, the powers that be are going to want answers. And when you are the only person still breathing, you can expect an interrogation. Hannah, the Empire's leading lady of counter-intelligence, is about to go head to head with the Union's best interrogators in a life or death battle to find the answers to some seemingly simple questions. As she decides what to answer and what to leave out, none of the stories she is about to share will paint her in a positive light, but in her case, they rarely do. It's said that the "winners" write the history books, and while the Union continues to demand answers, it seems that Hannah, whose greatest victory is managing to stay alive, is the only one holding a pen.

©2016 Cosby Media Productions (P)2016 Cosby Media Productions

Creative Sci-Fi with a fun and tough Female hero.

Would you listen to Palindrome 656 again? Why?

Yes .....but would prefer if some editing were done to improve the experience.

What did you like best about this story?

It is refreshing to have a Space adventure with a strong female character as the main attraction of the plot.

Which character – as performed by Charlotte Kyle – was your favorite?

Our hero of course.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

It was not difficult to listen to the entire story it is a fun read.

Any additional comments?

This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review.

SciFi

I liked listening to the narrator in this audiobook, I thought she did a great job in voicing and giving the characters their own personality. I did find it slow going to begin with but it gets better once we progress more into the story.

Holy crap that was good!

Waller does it again...... what is it that he does? I’ll tell you, he completely blows me away. If you have not read anything by this author I encourage you to pick something up immediately. He always tells completely original stories and his characters are well thought out, sometimes lovable, sometimes not but you will never be let down.
When authors say that they are often asked that old boring ‘where do you get your ideas?’ Question this one makes me want to ask! I think I’ve read or listened to everything he has published.
Jazz/Hannah is hard to live and even harder to kill. She has more has nine lives and we just aren’t sure how high that number goes. Not even space can kill her. She denies she has human feelings but occasionally you get a tiny glimpse of them.
Sophie is her constant companion and the source of endless entertainment.
Wait until you meet here two!
While Jazz is a small woman I envision her as Charlize Theron. In my mind she is a bad ass lethal goddess!
I’d be so happy to read more adventures with Jazz but I’m also happy with how this one turned out.
Narration was spectacular. Not sure if Waller picks his narrators but they always do an excellent job. I will be looking for more by Charlotte Kyle. She has made it to the top of my female narrators list.
I received a complimentary copy of this audiobook from the publisher/author but voluntarily give my honest review.

Really good sci fi story

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

This was an interesting sci fi tale with a strong female protagonist. The story is told from the main character's perspective as she recounts the events leading up to where we first meet her. I actually thought this would make a good movie. The narration is, and felt right for the story. All in all, I'd say this is worth a credit if you love sci fi.

A Good read / listen

C.F Waller has a talent for writing science fiction thrillers, and this book is a great example of that talent. A little slow in places but the story builds and the tension and need to know carries you thru the slower parts. Once absorbed into the plot - you just need answers to know what happened. It's not all action - "think Apollo 13".
Great narration fully in tune with the story and tempo. Audio quality is excellent.
I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

Great sci-fi listen

Loved this complex sci-fi listen! Great story and characters with plenty of humor. I loved Hannah, she’s snarky and tough and I loved learning her story, she is above all a survivor. Great performance by the narrator. I received a free review copy of this audiobook at my request and I have voluntarily left this review.

A humourous tale of survival

When this story started out, I wasn't entirely sure whether I would enjoy it. But, as usual, C F Waller has provided a thoroughly interesting and compelling story.

The plot is simple. A space mission gone wrong, one person returns, and during her debriefing, Hannah reveals a tale of hope, deceit and survival against all odds.

But Hannah isn't being debriefed by her own team. She is being held by her country's enemy, and in order to buy time for her own people to gain her release, Hannah slowly reveals the truth about her survival, often in a humorous manner.

I thought the characters were well defined, the plot interesting and the pace consistent with the story line.

Charlotte Kyle does a great job with the narration.

My thanks to the author/narrator for providing me a copy of this book, free of charge, in return for an unbiased review.

A well paced thrill ride

Ever read a story that feels a little slow? This one actually had me checking my read-speed to see if a bit faster reading might help. I really think this was the narrator. Charlotte Kyle did an excellent job with the story and characters. However, it all felt slow to me and it had to be the narrator because this is one of those books that reaches out and grabs you and won’t let go. I just wanted to keep going. I did have a somewhat hard time, occasionally, of actually hearing the narrator clearly. Maybe I am just getting old but her voice sounded fuzzy to me.

Do you know Friday? If you read Heinlein then you know who I am speaking of. C. F. Waller has created a similar heroin in Hannah “Jazz” Rainiar. She is “enhanced” although not really as much as Friday was. But that is ok because Hannah is just right for this adventure.

The story takes place as an interview “interrogation?” of Hannah after she has returned from a space mission. The flashbacks are done very well as Hannah tells the story of the mission piece by piece while she is healing from her ordeal. There are a couple of points where time has jumped and it takes a moment or two for Hannah to mention time has gone by while she has had surgeries and healing time between interviews.

The story is wrapped up nicely in the end as Hannah is off to her next adventure.

Will be looking for more from C. F. Waller.

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

Funny survival story, characters you care about

I was given this book for free in exchange for an honest review.

Wow, nice! Way better than I thought it would be. You care about the characters and their development as they move forward and stay alive. The narration aided in the story's telling and laughed along the way. Recommended for sure.

Interesting story with some issues

I received this story for free in exchange for an impartial review.

First, the good:
The story is interesting, as is the world it is set in.
There really aren't any good sides, but it still felt a little weird rooting for the uncaring, probably brainwashed killer from a totalitarian, communist empire against the democratically ruled capitalist empire, even if the capitalist empire has some corruption too.

The narrator does a decent job on the voices, and I didn't find myself getting confused by who was talking.

The so-so:
The story did ramble a bit in the middle, and the jumping back and forth in time got a little distracting at times. I'm not saying it was wrong, as it did set the ending up pretty well, and I'm really not sure how it would have worked as more of a straight narrative, but I can see it being more difficult.
As a non-smoker, all the heavy emphasis on cigarettes and smoking was kind of weird, and made me really happy that I'm not a smoker.

The bad:
Getting her enemies, who apparently fear her abilities and don't want to give her anything more dangerous than a piece of paper in case she uses it to murder them to build her an incredibly dangerous weapon system without any safeguards kind of strains belief... I could see her own government bringing it in when they come for her...

To the narrator; please invest in a better recording system. The audio quality was inconsistent, with clear breaks where the whole tone of the recording shifted to more or less echoey, loud then quiet, all within what should be a single paragraph.
You do have some talent for narration, so I'm hopeful that a better setup will resolve these issues.