Station Breaker

Station Breaker Series, Book 1

By: Andrew Mayne

Narrated by: Kyle McCarley

Length: 10 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's summary

If space doesn't kill David Dixon, Earth will.

Astronaut David Dixon's first mission to space goes horribly awry when a gunfight breaks out on a Russian space station. He finds himself making an emergency landing from orbit and becomes the most wanted man on Earth. Desperate to unravel the plot he's found himself in, he takes his pursuers on a wild chase from space to the backstreets of Rio and beyond. Dixon's survival relies on his skills as a pilot and willingness to do whatever it takes, from crashing a passenger jet into the Mexican desert to pulling off an incredible heist in Low Earth Orbit.

©2016 Andrew Mayne (P)2017 Tantor

Good story, but frustrating

I really enjoyed the book and the narration, but I feel a bit ripped off. Even in a series, books should stand on their own. This one "ended - I use that term only because this book ran out of words - with the uber frustrating technique of old Saturday morning cliffhangers. The protagonist was literally going off the cliff." Hope you enjoyed book one.".

WHAT?!?

Book two should be titled "Chapter Two."

A great novel ... but incomplete.

Any additional comments?

This book is great. Another reviewer characterized it as 'The Martian' but in space and with espionage elements, and I agree with that. The book has a never-let-up breakneck pace with action scene after action scene, but the tone overall is humorous and much more human than the usual operator-as-hardened-cyborg tone of most special operations thrillers.

My only quibble is the way the story is split into two books. The first book ends on a cliffhanger which means you have to buy the second book to complete the first story arc. The 2nd book in the series does have a separate story arc, but that story doesn't start until a few chapters in. It would have been very easy to take the first few chapters of 'Orbital' and put them at the end of 'Station Breaker' and both books would have each been complete.

But both books are pretty great, so it's not a dealbreaker.

A SciFi Thriller that won't let go

My mistake was starting this at night. It took a real effort of will to pause when I did because I had to sleep. Once you start this roller coaster, you won't want to get off. Great setup for a series. I hope Andrew writes the sequel!

This is the best original scifi I've read in years. The science is very believable and doesn't bog down the story. Dan Dixon is an everyman you route for from the beginning. This is a self contained story that really enjoyed. The ending was thin but everything was wrapped up, and I actually didn't guess the ending before it happened. Thanks for surprising me Andrew!

If you want a great hard SF thriller that you can't put down and demands a sequel, I recommend this book.

Love the story, but the snark is too much

Main character is too much of a whiny, smart-aleck. At times, the dialogue is a constant stream of one-liners; hard to listen to. Fortunately, the Audible app lets you speed up the pace, so I turned it up to 1.25x. I could still follow explicitly, but I didn't have to listen to the snarky pauses. Having said that, I loved the story. I hope they make a movie out of it.

Sarcasm gone virile

The author seems to be incapable of simply describing a scene without resorting to a comparison of something outlandish in a condescending tone. Seriously, it's hard to find a sentence that isn't like this. I am baffled at the 4.4 rating this book received. I tried hard to listen to this book and could not. In an effort to see if this was my reaction alone, I played no more than two minutes of it for my before her eyebrows went up and she said, "Turn it off, please!"

OMG this book is awesome

Take the Martian, add in a fast-paced thriller and blend. I couldn't put this book down. The writing and the narration was top-notch. This is the best sci-fi book I've listened to do far this year. I'm off to buy Andrew Mayne's entire backlist. I'm so glad I bought this book.

Amazing

it took 30 minutes to get used to the dramatic reader and then I was hooked

Gripping story, but narrator was a distraction

The only thing stopping me from giving this a full five stars was the narrator. He reminded me of an adolescent, rather than a trained astronaut in his mid-20s. I envision him as the perfect choice for the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. To me, he kept calling up the image of the guy who played Robin in the Adam West Batman TV series. POW! BANG! HOLY COW!

Despite this, the story itself was very entertaining. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. However, I had to laugh out loud when the book ended mid-story. Yes, I will listen to the second volume, but it could have been handled more smoothly. I think it could have been much, much better with a different narrator. Or, maybe this is designed for a YA audience, and not me!

YOGA BOY

If this author would have stuck to Just The Facts Mam, I probably would have enjoyed it. Although most of the facts, given to you like your some idiot, you already known. What killed this for me was the way too many jokes. The jokes were not that funny and as another reviewer says, this reads more like a James Bond Novel. Have you ever read a James Bond Novel? They are nothing like the movies. One of those cases where the movie is better than the book. Perhaps this will be made into a movie.
I also had trouble with the character. One minute he is a geeky unphysical YOGA BOY, the next minute he is james Bond. Make up your mind, which is he.

I could not get into this one.

Sarcasm....ok ok

95% of the sarcasm in this was not that funny. Mayne isn’t a comedian... at least not in this book. Could have been a great story.