Space Junk

A Military Sci-Fi Series (Waymaker Wars, Book 1)

By: Rachel Aukes

Narrated by: Scott Aiello

Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's summary

Captain Jack Hale and his crew of ragtag scavengers live by a code. They do the job, get paid, and keep their heads down.

Salvaging a distant section of the asteroid belt seemed like the perfect job. But when he and his crew stumble across a mining camp filled with dead bodies, their plans for a quick payday quickly go out the airlock. Especially when they find a scared little girl who knows the truth about the massacre.

When Captain Hale refuses to turn over the survivor to those behind the slaughter, he and his crew become outlaws. Fugitives in a system controlled by an alien AI.

The odds are against him, but Captain Hale has an ace up his sleeve, or rather, in his blood. The secret might just give him an edge to beat Sol Corps at their own game, though exposing it will draw out an old and even more dangerous enemy.

The sins of his past may just be what saves the future for all mankind.

It's Harlock: Space Pirate meets The Expanse in this pulse-pounding military sci-fi series from Rachel Aukes, the best-selling author of Black Sheep, Rebel's Run, and 100 Days in Deadland.

©2022 Rachel Aukes (P)2022 Recorded Books

Well, I finished it.

This was a decent sci-fi story. It had everything you would expect in a popcorn novel. Powerful bad guy, smirking main character, lots of supporting misfits in the crew, and a wayward kid. Without giving away spoilers, one of the main characteristics of the crew was some tech they received to give them a little something extra. But that part of the story wasn’t used much. I mean, without it, the story would have gone very differently, but I would have liked to see their “gift” more utilized. The rest of the story was mainly intrigue, chases, and a few scrapes with the bad guys. All in all, I finished it, but I’m not sure I will continue the series. I just didn’t care enough about anyone in the story. It was also rather predictable. It seem to borrow from a lot of well-known and better written novels. I think the author did nice job, but it’s style not for me. As for the narrator, I’ve listened to stories read by him before, and he usually does a great job. Ninety percent of the time he did well with the story, but the accent he used on the little girl was absolutely atrocious. This is supposed to be hundreds of years in the future and she sounded like someone from Boston in the 1930s. That distracted me every time.

Good storyline

Really helpful to escape reality for a short while. I really hate this new requirement from audible to write reviews.

Wonderful. Joy and delight.

I have over 275 audiobooks in 3 1/2 years. It is getting really hard to find the cream of the crop books as I have listened to most of them. It is beginning to be difficult to find top quality books. I am delighted to find Rachels books as she is a wonderful writer that knows how to write in a method of the masters which keeps the reader involved and captures our hearts and minds. As far as I’m concerned don’t listen to any of the negative comments and just take a chance and find one of the hidden treasured authors of our time.
In closing, I am stunned that her books have sold so little and that her audiobooks do not have thousands of listeners. Perhaps, like Star Trek the original series, Rachel will be a sleeping giant.

Loved it!

I love Rachel Aukes’ storytelling. I only wish more of the series we available now….i hate waiting to find out what happens next.

Rip Roaring Fun

I really liked the characters in this book and I can't wait to see what trouble they can get up too next!

Space Junk

Good story with some interesting twists. It took a while to grab me. Part of the distraction for me was the female character voices were to accept.

Brilliant and an Absolute MUST READ!!

Space Junk is set in a future in which humanity has reached out into the stars, but different factions have begun to war with each other, decimating those colonies in what has become a flashpoint, leading to self-annihilation of the human race. Just as ships of one faction are about to decimate a colony, an alien sphere drops in, and issues a single order, ‘CEASE’, along with removing control of all ship systems of every ship.
The story them moves forward to explain how the ‘Waymakers’ pulled humanity from the brink of destruction, and have set them on a new course, and we are introduced to a new Humanity, with a ‘Sol Corps’ instead of United Nations (This being under the purview of the Waymaker), and that is overseeing the supervision and protection of all the colonies and humanity now.
Part of this is a new project, the ‘Aria’ project, to send a colony ship out into the void to explore space, with a small crew of genetically modified crew (special medical nanites) so that they can survive for a longer period of time, without the need for some form of cryosleep, as a one way mission to go and find what they can, and send back information about what they find. Each crew member is specially chosen with multiple different skill sets, and no ties to Earth.
The first part of this story focuses on the selection of the crew, and the setup of the Aria, and its launch, and you get the impression that this story is going to be about an exploration mission, but then things go horribly wrong, and all but 6 of the crew are lost due to an incident on board the Aria.
A lot of this story initially is told from the point of view of Jack Halverton, literally the ‘Jack of all trades’ in space, a space miner, who is pretty good at all things, but also made a name for himself with combat after a particular incident. Jack was specifically chosen for the mission, and is one of the survivors of the Aria ‘accident’, and is nominated as Captain, and becoming Captain Jack Hale in the process. He and the remaining 6 crew then start off on what becomes a series of the most incredible adventures on the newly christened Cabrón (it translates to several colourful things in Spanish).
This is basically only the introduction which leaves you wondering what is to come as it is already an intriguing and fascinating story, but it shifts forward in time to the Pallus Six mining camp on an asteroid, where something terrible happens, and Jack and his crew are the first on site and find the only survivor a young girl, barely clinging to life, and now the most wanted person in the system.
Suddenly Jack and his crew go from being salvagers to being on Sol Corps most wanted list, and having trying to avoid attention for a ‘long’ period of time, they find themselves caught up in a revolution against Sol Corps and the Waymakers.
I don’t want to give away any spoilers for this book, it is just such a brilliant story, with this multi-layered, multi-dimensional story that is full of intrigue, and action. It has similarities to The Expanse, in that there are those out in the ‘belt’ that are being taken advantage of by those in the core (Sol Corps), but Sol Corps are a lot more brutal in their tactics, just shutting off all power to a mining station, (such as Pallus Six – when they were talking about a protest, they hadn’t even done it yet). But there is so much more to this story, with the Waymakers and their influence, as they have removed all ship to ship weapons, and inserted a level of control (or are trying to!) over humans. Amongst this, are the ‘Aria’ crew, and their story, which is another whole set of storylines that is just as intriguing as the main story!
Aukes continues to show that she is one of the best character driven Authors on the market today, as the character work in this book is exceptional. The crew of the Aria are captivating, each of them is this fascinating individual that (and without giving too much away), is a psychological study after what has happened to them, and Aukes has done a masterful job in creating this different personalities. Hale is brilliant as the Captain of this crew, but there are other aspects to the story of the crew that are just so in-depth, intelligent and powerful, (and for some might be a bit confronting). There are several other characters (again, I don’t want to give away spoilers), that are creative and just extraordinary, bringing this story to life in such a captivating and powerful way.
One of the great things I really loved about this story to was the Sci-Fi aspects, Aukes has done a really stunning job of creating these different places in our future on space stations and in starships that are so real that you can see them so clearly in your head. From the insides of the Aria, to Pallus Six and the various halls of Sol Corps bases, the ‘world-building’ is just beautifully done so that you can get totally absorbed into this incredible universe that Aukes has created.
Space Junk is a thrilling adventure that has such a multi-faceted story, every time you think you have something worked out, it leads to a whole new layer of storylines. This is an exceptional character driven story, that is so incredibly in-depth, exciting and action-packed, it doesn’t really matter what genre you like, Mil Sci-Fi, Space Opera, Alien, Space Exploration, Galactic Empire, First Contact – the list goes on – this story has it – and more. This is one of the best Sci-Fi books I have read all year and is an absolute MUST READ!!
Scott Aiello is one of the True Masters of storytelling, and it is an absolute joy listening to him tell this story. He is a beautiful Narrator, with a voice that is able to deliver a clear and concise version of the story. He is also able to create a multitude of different voices, both male and female, for all the different characters, with different accents and different ages. These are done so well, and so easily, that you can tell the different characters by the tone of their voices, you don’t need to be told who is talking, you can just tell.
Even more importantly, The Narrator is able to convey the emotions of the characters, you know when they are happy, or sad, tired or grumpy, allowing you to understand the emotional state of the characters as the story is being told
This just adds so much extra realism to the Narration, and the storytelling, and the experience of the Audiobook,
This is one of those times in which listening to the Audiobook is a far better experience that reading the actual book, as the Narration is so good, you will get so much more out of it – Exceptional Job!!

Boyo, this is good!

I picked this book up on a lark. I was familiar with Rachel Aukes as I have read and liked Black Sheep a trilogy, a damn fine yarn. So I knew she was up to the challenge of writing another Space Opera, and well Scott Aiello sounded good in the snippet. And boyo, I did good, this book paid off with dividends! Where I find just saying "I loved it" seems like an understatement... 😆
The book really gets going as it follows Jack Halverton when he joins the crew of the Aria project and ship, to explore beyond our solar system... but instead of leaving our solar system things go drastically wrong! Leaving only Jack and six other crew members alive... where upon they decide that it would be in their best interest to scrap the project, and lay low. When they surfaced again, the ship has a new name and it's unrecognizable. The survivor's also have new id's! I won't say that they never looked back because that would be an outright lie. But, I will say that they continued to lay low... well that is until they couldn't...
This action-packed space adventure has everything I love, believable characters (none of 'em cardboard) an AI, Vonn Neumann prob, pirates all wrapped up in a tightly written completely satisfying story.
And well, Scott Aiello narration was perfectly nuanced!

Ok story

I read some of the book and mistakenly thought the rest of the story would be just as good. Sadly I was wrong. All the cursing and disjointed scenes took away from the story line.

Only so much Scott Aiello can do with Space Junk

This book is for you if you like reading about shallow, impetuous characters you would love to see ejected from their vessel to become part of the space junk they purportedly collect. Go for it if you enjoy witless conversation amongst preteens. The author tells rather than shows. There are uninteresting heroes echoing the verbiage of others. I listened till the end discovering in the process the advantages of 1.5 speed. “Funny lines” fell flat if such a thing is possible for one-dimensional humor. Caveat when a Facebook post suggests a book(such as this) is comparable to Dennis Taylor’s Bobiverse. I will punish myself for the purchase by not returning the book for credit.