Precursor

Spiral Wars, Book 10

De: Joel Shepherd

Narrado por: John Lee

The UFS Phoenix returns to Homeworld, after more than three years of searching the galaxy for a way to save humanity from the looming AI threat. Many Fleet captains are unhappy with their own command, following the massive casualties of Nia's first strike. Some say that Captain Erik Debogande is the war leader humanity truly needs. Others warn of civil war. But on Homeworld lurks an even older threat, a secret kept by Fleet Command since Homeworld's first conquest by humans. A secret that could tear Fleet, and Erik's powerful family, apart.

©2025 Joel Shepherd (P)2025 Audible, Inc.

Fleet is still hiding something

Joel Shepherd’s Precursor is the tenth installment in his hugely successful Spiral Wars series. Phoenix is back in human space and there’s dissension in the ranks with some captains siding with Eric and others suspicious of his intentions. With Styx temporarily out of commission, Eric is partially blinded. Fleet high command seems to be hiding something as well as attempting to set Eric up for something nasty. At the same time, the threat from Nia is becoming all too apparent. Whether humanity can put aside their differences and unite for a battle with a machine foe remains up in the air.

Shepherd continues an excellent series that remains fresh and novel with each new installment. Everything seems to being set up for a major blow-out battle as well as additional unexpected surprises especially on the part of fleet command. Several of the alien partners have issues of their own going on.

The narration is superb with excellent character distinction. Pacing is smooth.

Entertaining conflict within the home team

Another quality entry in this series. Not as exciting as some of the earlier entries. Still a very enjoyable story.

Troubles at Home

This book picks up on Homeworld, about 3 months after the end of book 9. The plot mainly revolves around dirty politics, black hatters, old secrets and treachery. A good read / listen. Lisbeth and queen Liala play no role in this book.

Fantastic.., again

The combination of Joel Shepherd and John Lee is always brilliant and always goes right to the top of my queue.

This better not be the end!

I love this series and characters. Audible listed it as book 10 of 10. There is still more story to go and I hope Joel will keep the adventures of Phoenix going for years to come. If I had the books in my store I would be hand selling this like no one's business.

Few dull moments

Wished it was a bit longer but not complaining , Good read, great continuation, narration was also excellent

Bad flow in the narration- choppy and hard to listen to

The narration of this book is difficult to listen to as the narrator is choppy and starts and stops in abrupt parts of sentences that don’t seem to flow very well. The storyline is good. The adventure is good. The world building is good, but the narration really takes away from the whole book. The other books in the series had some of this, but this one is by far the most difficult to listen to.

just wanted to go home...

This is one of my favorite series, this book is
One of the best, or at least the best out of the last few i kept laughing, thinking of the gif of Ron Burgundy where he says "well, that escalated quickly ". as always, John Lee doing the narration is fantastic, if you only like the series and don't love it like me. You will be happy with this book for sure.

amazing homeworld arc

fantastic addition to the series. cannot wait to see how all of these plots turn out!

Compelling Characters

The skill at which Joel moves his characters in and out of difficult and dangerous situations while maintaining the tension is quite commendable.

It's a pleasure to know that an extended space opera series doesn't have to fall into the cliche of characters repeating the same mistakes over and over again for the sake of drama.

Well done sir.