Star Nomad

Fallen Empire, Book 1

By: Lindsay Buroker

Narrated by: Kate Reading

Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's summary

The Alliance has toppled the tyrannical empire. It should be a time for celebration, but not for fighter pilot Captain Alisa Marchenko. After barely surviving a crash in the final battle for freedom, she's stranded on a dustball of a planet, billions of miles from her young daughter. She has no money or resources, and there are no transports heading to Perun, her former home and the last imperial stronghold.

But she has a plan.

Steal a dilapidated and malfunctioning freighter from a junkyard full of lawless savages. Slightly suicidal, but she believes she can do it. Her plan, however, does not account for the elite cyborg soldier squatting in the freighter, intending to use it for his own purposes. As an imperial soldier, he has no love for Alliance pilots. In fact he's quite fond of killing them.

Alisa has more problems than she can count, but she can't let cyborgs, savages, or ancient malfunctioning ships stand in her way. If she does she'll never see her daughter again.

Fans of Firefly and Star Wars should enjoy this fun, fast-paced new series from USA Today best-selling author Lindsay Buroker.

©2016 Lindsay Buroker (P)2016 Podium Publishing

OH YES, WERE A CHATTY BUNCH

DID I OFFEND HIM. HE WAS BEING CRANKY. DUST BUNNIES
I applaud the author and they way she treats her main character. The woman is a woman, but she is military trained and she can take care of her self. We are not beat over the head with how mistreated she was because of her gender, their is none of that kind of thing. It is obvious that she is setting up a series and getting her crew together. A cyborg for muscle, a pessimistic engineer, a kind of flighty science officer, etc.

WORM SUCK
My low rating is for a few other things. I got sick and tired of the junior high school bickering between the main character and cyborg, even though we know by the end of the book, they are going to be buddies. I am guessing, cause I quit at 5 hours. I thought the cargo hauler out running and out maneuvering war ships and everybody was a little hard to believe. Mostly I got tired of all the talking. Every single moved had to be discussed.

Kate Reading
It is always a pleasure to hear Reading's voice.

Is it cake or biscuits?

I was once told that I could take a list of ingredients: flour, eggs, baking powder, water, etc., and make either a cake or biscuits because they each had the same ingredients. I think the same applies here for Lindsay Buroker. She had all the ingredients and produced cake. And of course, Kate Reading is my all time favorite female reader! She is the epitome of female readers starting with the Wheel of Time and in Star Nomad she has instilled the characters with personality and individuality. In some chapters, the script is almost cookie cutter but I think the narrator kept the plot flowing and I didn't lose enough interest to punch the return key to Audible. Cake but not German Chocolate......

Short Firefly/Serenity Clone w/ few improvements

Is there anything you would change about this book?

Characters should have more depth and more of the story should be told in each book.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

Felt like a short story, improve length and include an entire story arc.

What about Kate Reading’s performance did you like?

Kate Reading always does well and was the reason I bought the book to begin with.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

No, it would take six such books to make a single movie

Any additional comments?

Story was short and failed to resolve any issues hinted at. Completed first two books and still little satisfaction. I recommend waiting until the first three books are packaged together to buy them.

A Fun Sci-fi Romp with Quirky Characters

The wars over but it's left much of the system in disarray. A mouthy star fighter pilot who just wants to get home to her daughter along with a pessimistic engineer salvage a derelict freighter to get home. They take on an ex soldier that's more interested in his bar-b-que grill than his guns. Then there's the cyborg that fought on the other side. A mysterious monk/doctor with lots of secrets. And lets not forget the science teacher that spends most of her time growing recreational herbs and chanting in her cabin. All with their own agendas and a multitude of problems. Suddenly they're being chased by the Mafia, running blockades and just trying to survive another day. Oh, and did I mention the chickens in the cargo hold?
I've already read all the books published in this series. But when I saw that Kate Reading was narrating I just had to stow aboard again. She does a wonderful job portraying all the characters, especially the humor and heart of Captain Alisa Marchenko.

Fun Romp

Audible had a sale on this book and I certainly love a good space opera. The book had some really good parts: nice snark, amusing interactions, and some good battles. But the writing style is oddly like a romance writer's (though i don't believe the author has written romance?) and so that threw me off a bit. As well, I didn't necessarily believe a lot of what was going on. (EVERY single character has a secret that will aid the protagonist?) I did stay entertained, though, and base the rating on that success.

Story: Alisa is stranded at an off world, injured in battles that led a successful rebellion against the empire. She has one goal; get back to her daughter on a distant world and start her life again now that the war is done. To do so, she'll have to recruit an engineer, get her ship working again out of the scrap heap, and then find passengers to pay for the trip off world. All seems fine until she finds a dreaded cyborg warrior (enemies of her rebellion) squatting on her ship and with a requirement she will have to fulfill first. And let's not forget the quirky passengers who end up hiring her services.

Star Nomad feels very much like a first novel - a way for the author to introduce the key characters in preparation for the main plot in further books. That doesn't mean it is bad, necessarily, but in putting all her eggs in one basket, we have to get all the key characters together at the same time. And of course, they will all be diverse but have key skills that will affect later plot points. Doctor, warrior, engineer, pilot, scientist - everything you need for a crew just drops into Alisa's lucky lap.

The dialogue is snappy but I admit to 'romance novel' fatigue of snarky female and brooding alpha male. She admires his muscles, he admires her rudeness. All the bad guys just want to jump her, sexism is rampant, the leads have several intimate moments, etc. etc. This is written better than most sci fi romances but at the same time, the influences are definitely there and somewhat distracting. I wanted more grit, determination, and drive than admiring glances, sexy pecs, and male quirking mouths. It's yet another case where the seemingly powerful male finds the rude female's constant nastiness entrancing rather than loathsome. At least the author tries to explain it away as a personality quirk (she gets mouthy when she's scared/nervous) rather than the usual romance cliche of trying to show that the female has 'personality' and is 'strong.'

The adventure parts are will written and fun. Admittedly, most will have figured out the 'secrets' of the passengers well in advance and know how they will affect the outcomes in the dramatic scenes. But that's ok - the side characters are well written and with wonderfully distinct personalities.

I would characterize Star Nomad as sci fi lite. An enjoyable adventure that worked very well in the narrated version. Of note, the Audible narrator did a good job.

Leonidas similar to Sicarius but a good Story

Lindsay seems to like strong silent male types, its still a great start to a new series and Iam looking forward to the next book Honor's Flight

Great Read!

Terrific story and performance, just wish the rest of series was available via audio book!

Fall into Fallen Empire for action and adventure!

This is going to be a fun crew to follow through the galaxy! Kate Reading does a great job of embodying all the characters from the feisty pilot to the taciturn cyborg. I'm looking forward to the next book already.

Solid SF with Great Narration

In this book Buroker puts together a team of misfits, yeah a bit cliche-ish, that have disparate needs and missions. The main character, the captain of the Nomad, is a cheeky former space fighter jock post-war, yeah, I know still cliche-ish, who has to find her way home and meets a former enemy, or two, and some other people who need her help and can help her in a world just getting over the war.

This sounds formulaic, but it's not. Buroker develops the characters quickly and adds to their profile more and more information while keeping the story moving. You can see Buroker's strong heroic fantasy roots, but it is not all that obtrusive and the story and characters are enjoyable. Is it the best SF ever written, no, but it is entertaining and well written with no "why would any moron ever do that" moments.

In my mind the writing is a clean 4.5 so I rounded up.

The Narration by Kate Reading is outstanding. She does a great job of reading the book without "acting". She differentiates the characters with no jarring voices or hoky accents. She is consistent. You always know who is talking. You don't notice her reading after the books starts. Her narration is smooth and is consistent with what is going on in the book.

She gives a 5-star performance.

Overall I found this book enjoyable and easy to listen to. Time passed so quickly the deep voiced "Audible hopes you've enjoyed this program," came almost as a surprise.

Overall is a 5-star for me, too.

Great Book

So hard to find good Science Fiction anymore. So this was fun. Well worth the read!

Possibly a good book spoiled by the reader

I bought this book from Amazon along with the audio, but tried the audio book first. The reader sounds coarse and robotic, and when she tries to do the gruff voice of Leonidas it simply grates on the ear. I'm not quite sure what her accent is, but it doesn't sound natural. I'm happy to have books read in any accent, but not when it sounds forced. Such a pity when I recently finished Longbourne and the reader was perfect. The story may be reasonable, but I confess that I couldn't finish the audiobook. I stopped with just over two hours to go. I think I'll have to wait a while and then try reading the book from the beginning instead. The accent inside my head may be better.

poor narrator

I could only listen for 10 minutes due to monotonous voice, which spoke in short clipped tones with an annoying upwards inflection at the end of phrases.

Good but short

Fast paced sci-fi action, doesnt slow down until the end. Really liked it, but a bit too short to be worth the one Audible credit.

firefly alternative

this is an alternative to the firefly story with many similar ideas all morphed to suit the writer. let's see how the saga moves forward as the first book was enjoyable.

firefly meets star wars

What made the experience of listening to Star Nomad the most enjoyable?

after reading the books it was great to be able to re-imagine the story through Kates narration, looking forward to the rest of the series

Who was your favorite character and why?

alisa for sure! she is tough sassy never say die attitude with a heart of gold

What about Kate Reading’s performance did you like?

I love Kate reading she was magnificent if the wheel of time(14 books) and here she is very good as well but I'm not sure she carries alisa's flippant humour across (maybe I just heard it differently in my mind when I originally read the book) otherwise very well read

If you made a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

firefly meets star wars

Any additional comments?

set in a universe where a 40 year galactic war has just been fought and the rebel alliance has beaten the imperial forces
Alisa Marchenko an alliance pilot stranded on a back water planet tries to reclaim her mum's old haulage space ship which lays abandoned in a scrap yard with the help of her engineer mica, only to find that an imperial cyborg soldier has already laid claim to the vehicle and plans to take it on a secret mission to the asteroid belt.
an action packed sci-fi adventure! fast paced and humorous with well defined characters