Invasion

Book One of the Secret World Chronicle

By: Mercedes Lackey, Steve Libbey, Cody Martin, Dennis Lee

Narrated by: Nick Sullivan

Length: 16 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's summary

The world had become used to the metahumans - people sometimes perfectly ordinary, but sometimes quite extraordinary in appearance - who mostly worked with their governments as high-powered peace officers, fighting crime, and sometimes fighting rogue metahumans who had become super-criminals. Then that comfortable world ended in just one terrifying day.

Suddenly, all world governments were simultaneously attacked by soldiers in giant mecha robotic suits with the swastika symbol of the Third Reich on their metal arms. If these were Nazis, where had they been hiding since the end of World War II? And where had they gotten armor and weapons far in advance of anything on the planet? Weapons against which even the metahuman heroes seemed to be helpless…

©2011 Mercedes Lackey, Steve Libbey, Cody Martin, and Dennis Lee (P)2011 Audible, Inc.

Ok, if you can over-look the clichéd sterotypes

Any additional comments?

If your a vet, educated, hard working, a long term retirement planner, libertarian or conservative the insults came about 2 per chapter. If you can get by the tripe the story is pretty good and the performance is great!

Read a little clunkily, but the story is great

Would you consider the audio edition of Invasion to be better than the print version?

In some ways, this is better because the narrator is excellent at the various accents necessary in order to tell this story well. In some ways not, because the narrator is so careful to read precisely and intelligibly that he sometimes sounds clunky--there isn't a good 'flow' to his reading. He's great with dialogue, but the rest of his style took some getting used to. I'm certainly enjoying the audiobook, though.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Ohhh, tough. I think I have two favourites: Red Saviour and Red Djinni. Not because I like the colour red, but because they both make me laugh. A lot.

Which scene was your favorite?

I think my favourite has to be when Red Saviour, Belladonna Blue, and Victoria Victrix confronted the drug dealers. Red Saviour throws the guy into the street: "Medic, please to be fixing him." I was laughing so hard.

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

Yes, definitely.

Any additional comments?

The second book is great in print, too; I need to get that audiobook next!

Good fun

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I would recommend his audiobook. It is a nice story to feed your brain a little scifi superhero story.

What did you like best about this story?

The characterization were very good.

Which scene was your favorite?

Hard to choose.

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

Yes but it oak several.

I'm sorry I wasted my credit

What did you like best about Invasion? What did you like least?

Action and suspense

Would you ever listen to anything by the authors again?

NO

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Terrible narration, feminine voice for a male made me want to toss my food up in many parts. Just ruined this book for me. My opinion Audible should have hired a more masculine narrator for a book like this. Just awful and I will never get any books with this narrator, never!

Did Invasion inspire you to do anything?

NO

Any additional comments?

Horrid narration ruined the book for me

This Book was great even the second time around

Would you consider the audio edition of Invasion to be better than the print version?

No I think the audio version bring the characters to life more then a printed version could.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Invasion?

Te Red Squared Battle where the people help the metas with the battle even if they new they were out match.

Which scene was your favorite?

To many to count, The scenes I like the most is where the characters start to change there life and where they start to trust other as a team instead of being a loners.

Any additional comments?

I first listen to this series on podiobook and thought I would try it here. I am glad I did.I hope they continue to write together.

I wouldn't keep

this series as a part of my "reading" material if I didn't think this wasn't well written.

Surprise

It’s always nice to find a new series to get excited about. I started this one with low expectations and was very pleasantly impressed. I thought 'super hero crap! Naww not for me'. But having given it a go a found that the superhero crap was actually quite believably done, add in magic, Nazis, crime lords, religion, communism, and you have such a mess that it just has to be either a complete disaster or some of the best fun I have had in ages. Now I am short on sleep and annoyed that the next book is not out.

An audible comic book

Literary masterpiece? Nah---just the audible equivalent of a popcorn action flick. Sit back and enjoy. Enjoy!

pretty cool!

I listened to this before and wasn't as impressed as I was with a second listen. I am not sure why I was only meh about it the first time??? but round 2 was great!!!

Incoherent

The plot here, such as it is, is about what you would expect from a mediocre superhero RPG. There is a cliched overarching threat (Nazis, of course, probably from a secret base underground in Antarctica or on the back side of the moon). This is largely ignored after the first "Invasion". The rest of the book is largely taken up with more local threats -- the usual mix of gangs (which consist of irredeemably evil people deserving death, unless they're just misguided youths, who can be redeemed if they're just shown how to be good), evil Corporations!, and rogue government organizations.

The characters would also fit into a typical RPG. They are a mix of edge lords and people deeply broken by their lives. Fortunately (?), they seldom interact, so there's no need to figure out how their individual quirks could possibly work together. And they seem to do nothing about that previously mentioned existential threat -- it's side quests all the way. As could be expected, the big bad does get mentioned again at the very end of the book (why else would the reader be inspired to continue to the next book), but not in time to progress significantly on the main quest.

The sentence/paragraph-level writing is actually pretty good (though the horrific Russian accent attempted is quite obtrusive), but the thing that lost this book its last star for me was the glorification of the Soviet Union. In this book, Nazis are bad, which is only fair. But the Soviets, who used exactly the same genocidal strategies and murdered even more people, are somehow held up as shining examples in contrast to the evils of Western civilization.

If you're nostalgic for the old Soviet Union, this might be exactly the book you are looking for. If you find the canonization of that evil deeply offensive, stay away.