Troubleshooters: The Longest Joke Ever Told

By: Ian Thomas Healy

Narrated by: Nicholas Patrella

Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's summary

Live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse.

Such is the credo of the modern mercenary in the economic downturn of the late 2040s. Three such antiheroes are brought together by a billionaire for a unique search-and-retrieval mission. If they succeed, they'll walk away free and clear with a big fat payday. But if they fail... Well, things will go badly for them. Their quest will take them to the far corners of the Earth, from central Australia to Brazil to the Eastern European micronation of Borlovia, all in search of one of the world's rarest treasures: the elusive and collectible TIS bottle. Three bottles, three chances to succeed...or fail. What could possibly go wrong?

©2011 Ian Thomas Healy (P)2018 Ian Thomas Healy

Fasted Paced Story... Unique and Enjoyable

"I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review."

What a rollercoaster of a story; such an exciting listen. Writing was strong and the story was unpredictable and unique. It certainly kept my attention throughout. There is a degree of depth here that is rare to come across, I really felt immersed. Definitely recommend!

Narration was strong and enhanced the experience greatly.

Sweet land of liberty!

Troubleshooters is an action-adventure with a unique twist. Haiwee a world-renowned cutter (read hacker), Angel an assassin, and Camaro a courier are Troubleshooters LLC. The crew is hired by a multi-billionaire to retrieve three rare (TIS) bottles. Once the target is revealed, Haiwee hires a young cutter Carmelita, and Tatiana the AI to round out the crew. The twist and the fun part for me is Haiwee‘s hacking visualization. Haiwee and her accomplices begin to execute the process of hacking the Inquisitor computer system. Haiwee, Carmelita, and Tatiana slip into a trance-like state. They find themselves in a virtual fantasy world; Haiwee the Valkerie, Tatiana the winged owl, and Carmelita the dragon. They attack the Inquisitor castle with their army of nanobots, protecting themselves with 64-bit and 128-bit encryption shields, bombarding the fortress with logic bombs and plague virus. The entire visualization is played out as in an online fantasy game. Ultimately, killing the Inquisitor Black Dragon i.e. disabling and shutting down the target system. All-in-all, it was quite exciting and very amusing. The quest for the three bottles covered the world, from Brazil to London, to the King’s palace of Borlovia. The epic conclusion was classic tomfoolery. I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

Healy puts crack in the popcorn with this novel.

What did you love best about Troubleshooters: The Longest Joke Ever Told?

Many stories that have an adversarial artificial intelligence would use it as the main story line. The same with corrupt religious leaders, rampaging cyborgs, out of control hackers and drug deals gone bad.
In Troubleshooters, these themes are mere story arcs.
Healy keeps taking you higher.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Angel, the assassin dominates the story and holds your attention at gun point. She focuses the action and characters at just about every part of the novel. Even when others antics are center stage such as Camaro's chase near the beginning, the action lands at Angels feet. Angels energy pushes the story right to the punchline.

Have you listened to any of Nicholas Patrella’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I can't recall any other works I have heard narrated by Nicholas Patrella, but he did a good job differentiating the characters tonally. His performance helped carry the story along. His energy in the action sequences, especially, riveted your attention.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

I could see Troubleshooters as a movie or better yet a miniseries. The international venues and exotic tech would give each episode a different focus. The series has action, gadgets and a bag of chips.

Any additional comments?

"I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review."

Capers!

Ian Thomas Healy has a special knack for blending story, characters, and action without letting one element overwhelm the others.

In Troubleshooters, Healy introduces us to a rich cast of characters who are engaging as well as a delightful 180 in their interpersonal dynamic to what we typically see in fiction/movies/TV (Healy is probably one of the more consistently equalist writers I've read). Because we know the characters, because they're very real in their quirks and complexities, when the time comes for them to take on a mission, we're interested in how they'll react, how they'll plan, how they'll deal with obstacles, and what every tense moment means to them. I will typically fall asleep during any story (movie or otherwise) when the action gets too heavy, but even though Healy's action snowballs into action on top of action in the latter portion of Troubleshooters, I was rarely not engaged. Not only because of the writing, but because of the

Narration

Nicholas Patrella is fantastic. His accents and voices differentiate one character from the next, the noises he makes for his characters (laughter, sighs, scoffs, or the snarfling gurgle of being choked or stabbed) seem spontaneous and natural and just right for the moment/character, and when the action gets going, when the tension is high, you can hear it in his delivery.

A lively, entertaining, and often funny book.

Review

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

I thought the narration was amazing but the story was lacking depth. Overall it was a good listen.

not for me

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

I struggled with this book a bit. I liked the overall story line and the cyberpunk feel to it. The big thing I had a hard time with was the sexual scenes. Basically, it was a 16 year old boy having graphic sex with two adult women. I just felt like the author glosses over the fact that this is wrong (i.e. statutory rape, consensual or not) and it just didn't add to the story to me. I mean, if the author was making a point with it, that would be one thing, but it was just seemed like sex to add sex to the story...

Interesting look at the future

I really liked this book. was set in a near future where cybernetic implants were very common, but not too far out that current day sayings and such. made it a bit more relatable than the stories set hundreds of years in the future. I also really liked the action scenes.

The performance was also really great. all characters were unique and inflections were spot on.

As a note, there was more recurring sexual content than expected. nothing too crazy, just kept on coming up.

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

Subtitle put me off, but great book

The subtitle put me off, but I dove in anyway. Glad I did. Fun characters, great sci-fi concepts all told in a fun, fast paced adventure that did not disappoint. The subtitle – and the pay off for that at the end of the book was the weakest feature, but somehow still came together and was satisfying.
Talented Voice actor.

Interim review

Circumstances prevent me from writing an extensive review. I shall update this as soon as I am able.

Hold onto your hat...

Grab on to something sturdy, and hold on to your hat... You're about to be blown away by this blockbuster of a tale!
This is an action packed heist story, which is a trope that I've come to realize is one of my favorites... I love that edge-of-the-seat, spine tingling sensation I get when the characters go for the prize (Please Don't Get Caught, DON'T GET CAUGHT). And it gets me every time!
This is the story of Angel, sometimes know as Angel of Death, she is a kick-butt, no nonsense hit-man, er, hit-woman, who happens to be down on her luck for the moment. She takes a job sight unseen, and she is told that she'll  need a team. Her 1st  recruit is Haiwee, a kick-butt hacker. For her Wheelman,  she enlists Camaro, a monowheel racer who just possibly has more balls than brains... With her team chosen she's ready to discover what she has gotten them into... and it's gonna take all 3 of 'em if they want to complete the job and collect a 9 million dollar payoff!
I loved the audio edition of Troubleshooters. The narrator, Nicholas Petrella, handled all the characters and accents with aplomb... and I actually laughed out loud, because at times Nicholas sounded more like a spectator (not a reader) who's actually watching the events as they unfold, exactly like that excitement a sportscaster conveys as they describe the high speed, bumper to bumper, adrenaline driven antics of the drivers in a Formula 1 race!
And the ending... Wow! Lets just say it slayed me... I really hope the future brings us more stories in this series. Go team Troubleshooters!