Sector Eight

Perimeter Defense, Book 1

By: Michael Atamanov

Narrated by: Neil Hellegers

Length: 12 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's summary

A strange body that refuses to obey you; a weird game you can't quit until your contract expires; a world teeming with powerful and very real enemies. The game in which your reputation and faction relationship are the only things that matter. These are the conditions of the agreement Ruslan signs without reading.

The only thing he remembers is that he's been contracted to command a space fleet in a brand-new game he knows nothing about. Objective: to survive for six months. After having made some inevitable newbie mistakes, Ruslan has to rethink his strategy, dropping traditional gaming conventions. But what will it cost him? What new trials and tribulations await him that even the game designers have failed to anticipate?

©2015 Michael Atamanov (P)2016 Tantor

Good story. Super bad audio.

If you could sum up Sector Eight in three words, what would they be?

1second pause after each sentence. Every sentenses with the same intonation. Is that even a human reading? This is horrible. No quality control on this one.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Sector Eight?

I read the book. I know this story is really good.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Neil Hellegers?

Someone did a bad job with the audio. If i were M. Hellengers, I would be quite upset.

Any additional comments?

I think the audio format is damaged or raw. Wait for a corrected version or read the book.

Not good

So the idea of military sci-fi and litRPG mixed together sounded like a great idea to me, as those are my two favorite genres. Unfortunately Atamanov doesn't seem to be able to write in either of those genres.

AS A MILITARY SCI-FI:
So there are no real tactics, the most complicated fleet maneuvers he orders entail "everyone shoot at the same time" and "everyone shoot the rear of their ships where the shields are weaker. That's it. Space battles go so ridiculously easy, time after time the MC faces "impossible odds" only to win without any losses with little more instruction to the fleet than saying "fire!". There is not really much strategy either. He never loses more than a a destroyer or two, and new ships for his fleet keep falling out of the sky. Oh, and the BIGGEST space battle in the entire book gets skipped, The MC says "I don't have to tell you ho we massacred the enemy". Yeah, that's the description of the biggest battle with tons of lead-up.

AS A LITRPG:
There are no levels, stats, skills, experience or attributes. the ONLY game mechanic is a reputation system which serves to do NOTHING except make the MC feel good about himself. The only reason it's a litRPG is because he is supposed to be playing/in a game, but even that doesn't really amount to anything as there is really nothing game like about it.

THE MAIN CHARACTER AND PLOT:
This guy is just silly. The whole world bends around him, everyone loves him, impossible tasks solve themselves when he is near. Basically all conflict or challenge just disappears because of his pure awesomeness i guess..

Some examples:
- Faces alien ship that destroyed 40 ships by itself, wins battle with no losses using a fleet 1/4 the size of the previous commanders.
- It repentantly described as fat and ugly ans has a bad reputation, yet women THROW themselves at him... officers, androids, princesses.... you name it.
- Finds and destroys pirate base that nobody could find or deal with for 40+ years.. without really trying.
- An entire PLANET filled with PIRATES just surrenders when they see him.
- Multiple aristocrats simply RESIGN after a discussion with him.

Those are just a few, i could go on but you get the idea. To top it off he makes nonsensical choices like releasing captured pirates back into the wild so.... other people can hunt them? For a prize? He also creates the impression he is a drunkard.... so he can laugh at a visiting aristocrat thinking he is a drunkard.... I really don't know why he did this, it was just a joke. He created a reputation he was a drunkard as a joke. Yeah.

And if that's not enough, every time he sneezes everyone tells him how great he is! Women spontaneously kiss him and people throw a PARADE in his honor. No, this is not hyperbole, these things literally happen.

CONCLUSION:
This whole book reads like an unpopular kids daydream where everyone loves him and he saves the world with his awesomeness. All the interesting stuff like interpersonal conflict, challenges, difficult choices etc. are ripped out and replaced with a series of scenes with everyone patting the MC on the back and telling him how great he is for all the amazing stuff he did.

Loved it...

As some other reviewers have stated the narration is just a bit bumpy, but you can tell that this is due to they way this book was written/translated. After I got use to the authors writing style this was a delight and I will be listening to the next book in the series.

badly translated?

I am not sure if this was just badly translated or poorly writen. the reader did a good job but the author tends to reuse phrases and the story progression moves so fast in terms of time that it keeps throwing me out of the story.

Niel Helligers is a pathetic narrator.

I bought this not realizing the Niel Helligers was the narrator. He overdramatises everything and sounds like he's either always slightly panicked and out of breath, or about to have an orgasm. He completely destroys your ability to get lost in the story.

Impossible to listen

The narrator of this novel sounds like a drunk child trying to speak French badly.

It was a rough start

But I've listened and gave it a try, this was my first real galactic audio book I was skeptical but ended up loving it. This was a great novel and regret not listening to it sooner!

absolutely amazing

if you liked Armada then you'll love this book. characters well written the world is well explored and the author knows how to cut to the chase but still give you valuable detail. definitely enjoyable and I can't wait for the next one

Different

Different story. Not like the usual scifi book. Very imaginative author. Would definetely by next in series.

This author is a big lover

Starship Troopers this is not.
Loyalty to America humans and dogs in that order ,my friends

Unexpected and enjoyable

What made the experience of listening to Sector Eight the most enjoyable?

The narrator did a tremendous job of making the book seem engaging, where I have heard others sounding borderline melancholy, Neil kept you on tenterhooks, that worked brilliantly with the writing style.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Ruslan

What about Neil Hellegers’s performance did you like?

His narration keeps you engaged.

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

Some of the one-liners before launching into battle were brilliantly placed.

Any additional comments?

Buying Book 2 and 3 and hopefully up to 18.... I mean, its possible for the author to pump out 15 books in the next twenty hours and get them narrated right? I don't mind having Neil on the phone reading them to me to be honest.

Interesting......

Very good book, once you get past the grammatical errors and lack of conversational bias, essentially, every time in a conversation you would use ‘I’m’ this book uses ‘I am’, ‘I cannot’ instead of I can’t’ etc, it’s a very little thing, or so it sounds, but the style of writing and descriptions very nearly made me return the book, but after several hours you stop noticing it as much, and the story is very very good. Persevere and it’s worth it!