Gemini

By: Ray Jay Perreault

Narrated by: Ed Waldorph

Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's summary

If you want to try a different sci-fi or you're tired of the same superheroes with the amazing weapons, then try a story about real aliens. How they live, love, and survive. They start as a naïve society that has everything, and when they ask a simple question, they are attacked and learn to defend themselves.

©2016 Raymond Perreault (P)2017 Raymond Perreault

Interesting Story

This audio has a very interesting storyline. However, sometimes I felt that it wasn’t believable. I think a different narrator would have made for a better audio.

Gemini

Any additional comments?

The discovery of a new planet or life isn't always worth taking a chance to make contact. This was an awesome listen. A very entertaining scfi audiobook.

May your soul always bear jargon.

Ray Jay Perreault is a classic style writer of science fiction, his work building on character and ideas, challenging thought. This seemingly simple story is, in fact, a challenging tale of change, coexistence and love for others. In order to establish the original way of life on Varo, a planet seemingly circling a sun alone in the distant galaxy, considerable time is spent word holding, establishing the society and politics, agriculture and daily life. The inhabitants are a peaceful people, living in harmony with each other and their sacred soil, to which they will one day return, and which provides everything they need for life. Without personal ambition to rule over others, leaders emerge naturally chosen as needed, but, although respected, they are not higher in the social system, there is no divide between rich and poor and all are fed and housed and comfortable. Life is good.
Then into this world comes a different, invading culture, threatening everything held dear. To survive they must face this new intrusion. To survive, they have to change. After the book's leisurely beginning, the pace increases as the people try to save their place on the planet.that has been their home and comfort back into the depths of time.

Ed Waldorf's narration, whilst being steady and clearly given, is not inspirational, being rather unemotional and far too slow. Increasing the speed helps a little but, combined with some repetition in the text in early stages of the book, his performance could deter some listeners from going beyond this stage into the more action filled sections which follow. Which would be a great pity. This is a book well worth reading.
My thanks to the author for freely gifting me a complementary copy of Gemini. I have read and enjoyed many of his earlier works, such as SIMPOC, and the other associated Virus stories. This one is different but still explores the nature of humanity - even amongst aliens.

Overall Solid Sci-Fi Book

As other reviewers have stated, the book does start off a little slow and the narrator takes some getting used to. However, at some point, I actually enjoyed listening to his reading. The story is actually very riveting and I felt drawn into the battles and story. This is one of those stories that one must really be patient with as the plot and narration do get better and better. Honestly, this is a pretty good book if you have the patience and it is reasonably priced.

I was given a free review copy in exchange for a review, but I hope my true thoughts come out in this review. It's not perfect but it is pretty good.

May your soil always bear Jabon

This book has an interesting premise and reminded me of some of the early 1950's sci-fi books/movies. However, this interesting idea seemed to have gotten bogged down in a lot of minutiae.

The Raog are a peaceful species and become curious about a possible twin planet. When they send up a satellite to find out if the planet exists, all of that changes.

If I had been reading a physical book instead of listening to it on Audible, I would probably have skipped a lot of it. The first part was rather boring and read more like a technical paper on how to grow the Raog's one crop, Jabon. Also, it was hard to follow the story at times because of the foreign names and the author's style of jumping from place to place a lot without any explanation.

The writing style was also more like a technical paper, without any flow or attempt to draw the reader into the story. And, why oh why, did Mr. Perreault feel that each and every time that a character left, they had to say, "May your soil always bear Jabon"!!!

The narration was OK, but very uninspiring. I don't know if this is due to the style of writing or not. Mr. Waldorph was basically just reading the book aloud without any emotion attached at all.

If you are a diehard sci-fi fan, especially of old style sci-fi, give this a try. I think that the whole story could have been a great novella, but seemed a little long in this format.

I was gifted a copy of this Audible book by the author and chose to review it.

Not your typical sci-fi - Gemini

A great storyline. I loved learning about the simple lifestyle of the Roag and seeing how they needed to grow and adapt rather quickly to protect and preserve their way of life. I appreciated the fact that not everything was sugarcoated and happy as they learned to defend themselves. Pain and loss are a part of life.

My one complaint was that the narration dragged a bit. I bumped the speed up to 1.25x and that helped.

Alien Bugs Invade!!!!

I really enjoyed this book. I have read/listened to a small selection of mr. Perreault's Earth series. so this was a refreshing look at what else he has created. alot more simple and easier to follow than the Earth series. well done would recommend giving it a listen .

A different sci-fi

Would you listen to Gemini again? Why?

Yes, I would. It was sometimes hard at the beginning to keep track of the alien creatures because of the foreign-sounding names. I would like to re-listen now that I know the characters better.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Sonyata. She is a young, intelligent Raog who shows bravery and adaptability in difficult circumstances.

What three words best describe Ed Waldorph’s voice?

Pleasant, steady-volume, grandfatherly.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

When a Raog sacrificed his life for his people.

Any additional comments?

To help you understand where I'm coming from, I'll say here that I'm a huge Star Wars fan and own dozens of old Star Wars books. I also love watching old Star Trek episodes. I prefer fantasy (Brandon Sanderson, Pierce Brown) to hard-core science fiction, but I recently enjoyed reading The Martian. I have never read Dune; although, I've been told Gemini is similar.

I was given a free copy of this audio version by the author Ray Jay Perreault in exchange for an honest review. I have read one of his other books before (SIMPOC - The Thinking Computer) and really enjoyed it. When Mr. Perreault offered an audio version of Gemini, I jumped at the chance to listen. For the first few chapters, maybe the first hour of listening, I wasn't too excited about the book. While very interesting, it was mainly cultural information about the people of Varo, the alien planet. It was incredibly realistic, but I felt like I was reading a social studies or archaeology text. The world-building was great, but it would have been improved if there was more action going on during the descriptions of the aliens' religion, appearance, and occupations. However, all the background information was helpful once the story got going. It helped me to understand the Raog's way of thinking, their motivations, and their reactions to being invaded by a species very different from them. I particularly enjoyed reading about the roles of the men and women in the society. The story became faster paced a few chapters in, and it was a great listen.

The Raog are not like humans. Their appearance is different, for one, but their society is very different from ours as well. Up until the events in the book, the Raog have never experienced violence of any kind. They tend to their crops, which is a religious act, and they take care of their families. They live a peaceful existence. Their economy would be socialist, I guess, because the government collects the food produced and distributes it to everyone. People are given homes when they marry. There are no poor, no rich. For the most part, they do not crave power. When they make contact with another planet, however, the Raog have to learn to adapt while maintaining their core values. It was a fascinating story,and I turned it on every time I got in the car.

As for the narrator, I had a mixed reaction. I am not a big fan of male narrators' female voices in general. Ed Waldorph's female voices are adequate. Most of the male voices were fine as well. His voice was smooth and easy to listen to, just not amazing. He was animated and showed emotion. I wouldn't seek out a book narrated by Ed Waldorph, but I wouldn't hesitate to listen to another book narrated by him if I wanted to hear the story. I was glad to listen to the book, as I do not have a lot of time to spend reading.

My recommendation? If you enjoyed The Martian and weren't bored by Mark Watney's fight for survival, you will not be bored by this book. The Raog are in a fight for survival of their own and have to be innovative in order for their race to survive.

Exiting adventure

Where does Gemini rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

The story was in the top 10

Did the narration match the pace of the story?

Narrator was less than exceptional in my optinion

Any additional comments?

Story flowed well and kept my interest.

Everything changes

What happens when everything you believe in, everything you've based your life on, changes in a moment? Interesting alien-based story of a clash of cultures and the possibility of a bigger world than you believed existed. Very good performance by Ed Waldorf.