Star Shroud

By: Ken Lozito

Narrated by: Jeff Hays

Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's Summary

Humanity is about to learn it isn't alone.

Zack Quick has been on the move for 10 years, hacking big corporations and exposing their secrets. Then he stumbles upon one of the biggest discoveries that will forever change the world - and possibly get him killed.

Kaylan Farrow is the pilot for Earth's most advanced spaceship, whose maiden voyage is supposed to take her crew to Titan, but newly released images from a deep space probe threaten to cancel the mission.

Kept secret for 60 years, the discovery of an alien signal forces a NASA pilot and a computer hacker to team up to investigate an alien structure discovered in the farthest reaches of the solar system.

The Star Shroud is the first installment in an action-packed science fiction thriller series. If you like space opera adventure stories with clever heroes, impossible situations, and chilling discoveries, then strap yourself in; you're in for a fun, nonstop thrill ride.

©2016 Ken Lozito (P)2016 Podium Publishing

Had potential but love quadrangle ruined it for me

I had high hopes for this book. I was looking for a new sci-fi series and the description of potential first contact and finding alien artifacts in deep space is always a subject I enjoy - when written well.

Like some of the other reviews, I too thought the tech was much too glossed over. It was explained away too quickly. One minute they are on earth, the next they have an amazing interplanetary ship made with knowledge gained from a mysterious message. Instead the author chose to focus more on the characters and their interactions. I'm fine with that, and any good series should develop the characters. But I found myself not caring at all about any of them. In fact, as of this writing I can't remember a single name of any of the characters. That's not good.

Perhaps what ruined it for me the most was (minor spoiler), where four of the main characters are caught up in a teenage-like love quadrangle. One has a crush on another and the other isn't sure of his or her feelings about a third, yada, yada...And these "conversations" came at ridiculous times. Let's just say for the sake of being spoiler-free, there's a point in the book where two of the couples are exploring something and they are musing about feelings for this person or that. What? There is potential danger at any moment and they aren't focused on the mission.

Action was almost non-existent as well - except towards the end. I know this first book is a setup for more in the series, but there was nothing at all to hook me. In fact I kept looking to see what chapter I was on so I could get it over with.

I hate writing less than stellar reviews, but this one just didn't do it for me - not when there are so many outstanding sci-fi series, and at just 7 hours there's not much value for the price either. Sorry, I won't be continuing.

14 of 17 people found this review helpful

A Story Mired by...

...an author's dislike of their own characters (and reality in general). Throughout the story, the only truly pragmatic character is continuously vilified, even though he's almost always right. Also... Kalen (Kaylynne?) is just terrible. She's naive, overtly girlish for a girl who once served in the military, and honestly a blight upon the entire story. Zach was cool, but kind of overeager, kiddish, and overly cooperative for someone who's supposed to be so jaded toward humanity in general. Hick's character is poorly defined, and pretty archetypal and boring. Same with Kate. There's no complexity there, as there's so little content on her that she's more obscure than anything else. Like some B-Roll extra. Of course, this is all before taking account of how utterly annoying all the relationship drama is. (Also, every single NASA person is rather obviously dumbed down to make Zach and Kalen seem "smarter" somehow. It's pretty idiotic and annoying.)

On the bright side, Jeff Hays is on point as always. Ken Pozo to just murders a totally awesome concept.

tl;dr

I would not recommend this book to anyone with a brain that expects some reality in their science fiction. This is the softest Scifi crap I've ever listened to. Stick to Heinlein. Kind of difficult to go wrong there.

5 of 6 people found this review helpful

Good until it wasn't

two dimensional characters, pointless romantic plots that don't add anything to the story, neither action packed nor a thriller... bottom line if you want to be disappointed this is the book for you.

11 of 14 people found this review helpful

I do like scifi, but this story did nothing for me

All the time the emotions between the char. came up. old love, new love.... even when doing serious missiona.
Characthers seem very 2d. all in all. poor story. the narrater, tries but when the story is poor.....
one of the first scifi audiobooks i couldnt complete.

6 of 8 people found this review helpful

Alien contact without the contact

Ken Lozito's Star Shroud is the opening installment in what is at least a trilogy concerning alien contact. A thankless and fearless hacker (in 2049), sticking it to greedy corporations, stumbles upon evidence of alien contact, known to a select few for the past 60 years. As a result of public disclosure, a NASA mission is re-tasked to head to Pluto to explore the alien artifact.

The sci-fi elements are a bit crude, with a made for a broadcast TV series quality, than a sophisticated and realistic science fiction audience. All the cliche elements are present: a shadowy corporation getting rich off alien technology, a super hacker who everyone immediately acknowledges is most competent computer genius on the planet, a young female astronaut who just happens to be the granddaughter of the guy who made initial discovery 60 years earlier, and an assorted cast of double agents with unknown agendas. At the same time, there is considerable license with plausible science fiction in that NASA can re-task a mission and move up the launch as well as just happening to have probes in the vicinity already. Regardless of nearly everything going south from the start, everyone just keeps motoring forward. The one saving element is the mysterious nature of the alien presence and their ultimate motives as well as references to another, more powerful foe.

The narration is respectable, although the female roles are a bit overdone in an attempt to convey distinction.

9 of 13 people found this review helpful

strange charictar voices/sappy romances

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

no. didn't like the production. Russians sound like Scottish thugs. liked the action sequence at the asteroid station. the story doesn't flow well. didn't like the writing style.

2 of 3 people found this review helpful

Ended too soon!

I had this on pre-order, and finally got to listen to it this week.

I think the overall story premise is interesting, of course it's been done before, so I was waiting on the 'twists' that we'd come across.

I kind of liked the 'romantic' elements in here. Hicks and Caitlin, although I gotta say that the two names Katy and Caitlin together are pretty hard to wrap your head around. I personally as a beta reader would have asked the author to change one of these for distinction.

Jeff's performance, flawless. He's so good at bringing people to life, and Zack was just hilarious at times, I could totally believe his thoughts, and the way he reacts and then goes on to do things. Great voices for all the girls as usual, with accents that distinguished each one from the other. Brilliant job from Jeff.

The writing side of things, I do think the character interactions were good. Humour, play by play, they bounced off each other in such dangerous and close quarters. That was great writing. They're real and intentional. Zack and Caitlins' history is deep. This shows in all their actions and choices, even if they're not ready to actually move on and away from 'a possible future' I'm glad that they did. Because that would have been more cliche in my mind.

The remote viewers and the Shroud is entertaining, and the aliens seem to have done all this with the best of intentions.

I just think that although the mystery was there, by the time we actually got to be inside the alien structure, the book was almost over, and one reason why I think it was cut too short.

This threat, this Zygen... more of. I don't listen to previews of the next book, because I find that just annoys me as I can't carry on. I am interested in the next one though and was glad I got to it, it still was entertaining with a good few twists on the original story tropes.

2 of 3 people found this review helpful

Pluto Beckons

It's always a treat to happen on a new author that displays the writing skills worthy of future novel purchases. With Star Shroud, Ken Lozito has shown to be one of those that I will add to my selective list. What makes this even more interesting is that the setting is in the not too distant future, however, the actual start of events leading to this mission starts back in the 1980s by CIA tests from volunteers using remote viewing. Yes, the same telepathic force that Dean Koontz wrote about in, Soul Survivors, and Art Bell kept folks up listening to during the wee hours of the morning.

Fast forward and now there is a small crew ready to launch off to Pluto to discover the secrets of these signals. The crew is mostly scientists covering multiple disciplines along with some NASA pilots and a pair of special forces type security personnel. For relationships, the author set up, as best as I can explain it, some budding double-helix romance triangles that seems to promise some messy situations in the subsequent novels. He also created characters who seem all too convincingly human, what with political rivalries and competing agendas. All this makes for a rather different SciFi novel and one I find pulled into liking.

Jeff Hays is one of the best narrators I've heard in terms of mimicking many accents and both genders and brings his talent to full force here.

3 of 5 people found this review helpful

Frickin Awesome!!!

Okay let me spell it out for you... I started book 1 yesterday morning I finished book 3 today and I haven't slept yet. And I'm on pins and needles waiting for book 4. It's not very often you get a series this good it's the can't put it down variety on steroids.

3 of 5 people found this review helpful

Great story so far!

I really like the characters and their continued growth into them and how that plays a role in the dynamic of the relationships with each other. Beware...

4 of 7 people found this review helpful

Good Listen

Once I got into the storyline, there was no looking back. This is promising to be a very good series.

Narration was pretty good too.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful