• Stealing Light: Shoal, Book 1

  • By: Gary Gibson
  • Narrated by: Charlie Norfolk
  • Length: 14 hrs and 52 mins
  • 3.7 out of 5 stars (205 ratings)

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Stealing Light: Shoal, Book 1  By  cover art

Stealing Light: Shoal, Book 1

By: Gary Gibson
Narrated by: Charlie Norfolk
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Publisher's summary

In the 25th century, only the Shoal possess the secret of faster-than-light travel (FTL), giving them absolute control over all trade and exploration throughout the galaxy. Mankind has operated within their influence for two centuries, establishing a dozen human colony worlds scattered along Shoal trade routes.

Dakota Merrick, while serving as a military pilot, has witnessed atrocities for which this alien race is responsible. Now piloting a civilian cargo ship, she is currently ferrying an exploration team to a star system containing a derelict star ship. From its wreckage, her passengers hope to salvage a functioning FTL drive of mysteriously non-Shoal origin. But the Shoal are not yet ready to relinquish their monopoly over a technology they acquired through ancient genocide.

©2012 Gary Gibson (P)2012 Audible Ltd

What listeners say about Stealing Light: Shoal, Book 1

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    51
  • 4 Stars
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  • 3 Stars
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Performance
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Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
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    51
  • 4 Stars
    71
  • 3 Stars
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  • 2 Stars
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Cool character & plot ! Do you like Chase Colpath?

Smart tough female lead character. Fairly hard sci-fi. I always wonder, with the great success of Jack McDevitt's character Chase Kolpath and Weber's Honor Harrington, why there aren't more tough female leads in sci-fi. Look at what Neal Stephenson has been able to do at times. I'm also a sucker for great narration. I haven't heard Charlie Norfolk narrate before -- but what a great talent. This starts in three plots that come together....and when they do it is a real fast ride.

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8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Very Entertaining-Will buy the rest of the series

This one starts a little slow, but hang in there. Ms. Norfolk's accent takes about 15 minutes to get used to, then she is an easy listen. The story is first rate hard science fiction with very good characterization and an amazingly interesting and complex plot line. All kinds of fun Perils of Pauline moments, which you know will generally turn out well, but not quite the way you expected. I am going to take a break and listen to Weber's latest turgidity in the Safehold series. I am sure he will drive me back to the Gibson/Norfolk team for clean, clear, directed characters, plots, and interesting speculative science and history.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Fun, entertaining, something borrowed.

This is a good story that has definitely borrowed from classics like Ringworld. Definitely worth a listen and very enjoyable. It has some good originality, so don't worry, it's not a re-hash of old material.

There is a down side. The narrator, while quite good! Gets a bit confused with names every once in a while and mixes one character with another. This is a problem...but does not cause too many problems in the end if you're paying attention.

Now the fun part, accents, characters, language and personalities. This novel builds on more to come (a lot more), so stay tuned!

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Decent story - awful narration

Gibson’s latest work is so-so with some good ideas, if they don’t really get looked into very deeply. The Shoal could have been more interesting, and it was a decent concept, but ultimately a fish super alien is just hard to believe. If you don’t have fire or electronics it is hard to evolve so picking a race of sentient fish was just a bad idea. Apply the same logic to almost any other type of land animal and it would have been much more believable.

As for the characters, they were also just so-so with not a ton of depth, but you don’t outright hate the two or three primary protagonists. However, the ancillary characters are not great and become cartoonish at times. By the end of the book I just barely cared about any of them.

The real problem with the Audible version of this book is the God-awful narrator Charlie Norfolk. Sitting through her (and yes, Charlie is a woman) try to act our voices, in particular the ship, is just terrible. There is no other way to say it. If I ever see “Charlie Norfolk” in the credits of any other book, no matter how much I like the author, it will be a hard pass for me. I would simply read this book - and I love Audible narrations for my daily drives - or just pass on this title. I can’t stress enough how awful this narrator was. Every single time I fired up a chapter I would grit my teeth immediately upon hearing her voice. Do yourself a favor and find something else to listen to!

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Not sure at first, but well worth it.

Wasn't sure what I was getting into when I first got this book, but I soon found out it was well worth the purchase. First and foremost this book has a very good plot. But along with that the story is very well written and grabs your attention.

The reader does a good but not great job telling the story.

The story really heats up at about the mid point until the end. By the end of this I knew I would be getting the next book in the series.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Just not good or distinct enough to compete

It's a moderately hard sci-fi... not much time is spent developing relationships or on character development. In fact, so little time is spent on characterization that it is very difficult to tell most of the main male characters apart. (There is only one female character so nobody to get her mixed up with, but she isn't even very different from the males...)

There are some alien life-forms, but they aren't really explored very much, other than brief interjections when they are the stimulant to cause the humans to do something... when their interventions are needed to motivate a character, they appear, then they conveniently drop out of the story until next time they are needed.

I didn't like the story very much, nor the characters, and even the sci-fi part of it wasn't very engaging or original. And some parts seemed choppy, almost like the book was abridged - occasionally the transitions were sudden and unexpected. I won't be reading any more in this series, and it is unlikely I'd read more by this author... his writing just isn't distinct enough to choose over all the other books out there.

The narration is okay. It is non-graphic and I don't think there is any swearing.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

A Long Time Getting to the Point

This is the story of a tough, independent woman making her living in the 25th Century as a space ship pilot. She may have broken a few laws and now must accept questionable jobs from shady people. The 25th Century technology is excellent and the last third of the book is riveting. My complaint was the other 70% of the book. My mind kept wandering and I could not decide if it was me or the book.

Overall, the book's beginning and middle are slow and somewhat confusing while the ending is a fun listen.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

A slow, but promising start

Beholden to a star-faring alien race called The Shoal for all of it's interstellar transport, humanity finds itself divided and perpetually powerless in the galactic community of Gibson's story. When a derelict ship of unknown but ancient origin is discovered, opportunists race to exploit it's secrets for humanity's "Escape", but wrapped up in the same technology that makes transluminal travel possible is a dark secret that The Shoal is determined to preserve. The protagonist, Dakota Merrick, is a fiercely independent pilot, and works to uncover the truth while being coerced into helping an ambitious politician claim the prize. I enjoyed the final chapters of climax and plot revelation, although it seemed a long slow narrative road to get there, with frequent moments of déjà vu dialog. However, knowing this is the first part of a trilogy of stories, I am optimistic that the subsequent stories will open up onto a vaster canvas of settings and characters, and with any luck, explore the Shoal and other alien races more closely.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

slow...............................

the books sounds ok . it looks ok but iv tried 3 time i have never gotten past part one.
it never got my attention and i just gave up on it . not worth my credit

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Great Fun!

Stealing Light by Gary Gibson is the first book in The Shoal series. This book is my kind of book. I consumed it eagerly via Audible. Yes, it has it's faults as many other reviewers have noted, but due to the excellent reader (Charlie Norfolk), the book came alive and the faults fall quickly to the background.

It was fun and full of action. It is like an Alastair Reynolds Revelation Space, Jack McDevitt's Alex Benedict and Kristine Kathryn Rusch's Diving Universe book combined!

Highly recommended as an Audiobook listen!

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2 people found this helpful