The Adventures of Kirk Rogers and The Queen of Hades

The Kirk Rogers Series: Scifi • Action • Comedy, Book 4

By: C. J. Boyle

Narrated by: Jared Kedzia

Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's summary

Kirk risks life and limb in order to rescue his sister from Hades.

This is the fourth installment of The Kirk Rogers Series. Books one through three followed Kirk and his unlikely band of heroes on their adventures… and along the way, it helped some of them figure out who they are and where they belong in the universe. Kirk never dreamed that defeating the Illuminati would cause such calamity.

The plan seemed simple enough. Shoot all of the members with a specially designed gun that not only subdued them but also tagged them with a locator chip. Once they were tagged, the bad guys were automatically teleported away and delivered to the interior of Mars. 

Unfortunately, some of his friends got caught in the crosshairs. Including his sister, Laura. 

Hades isn’t the mythical place that everyone believed it to be. No, it was a mining colony that the Newtonians established long ago. The main export? Tetronium. The Newtonians used it in all their electronic components because it was lightweight and highly conductible. Unfortunately, no one wanted the lowly job, nor did any of them want to spend most of their time in such an awful environment. Especially since things got weird when oxygen was introduced. The interior of the red planet began to grow some wild, wonderful, and dangerous things. But someone had to do it. It was therefore decided that people who broke the law would be sentenced to serve their time in Hades. It wasn’t long before people were sent there for minor infractions and no one was ever released.

After thousands of years, the mining colony should have been empty. It seemed to be the perfect place to send the Illuminati until they could figure out who was good and who… well, wasn’t. But as misfortune would have it, when the Newtonians abandoned Atlantis in favor of the Earth below, they forgot about the prisoners and just left them to fend for themselves. There were cut off completely and would no longer received food or supplies in exchange for Tetronium. This caused the people to revolt. They destroyed the mining equipment and tried to overthrow the king and seize control of his supplies. But the King of the Underworld was by far the strongest telepath who ever lived. He had the ability to force a man to do his bidding. Seth Tartarus was the warden of Hades. That was such a small, unimpressive title. It didn’t take him long to appoint himself king.

He ruled over the people for thousands of years. No one knew exactly how the king managed to live so long, all they knew was he was an evil tyrant. Of course, as luck would have it, Laura ended up on his doorstep. Will her brother Kirk rescue her before she becomes the queen of Hades? Let’s find out! Thanks for listening!

©2020 C. J. Boyle (P)2023 C. J. Boyle

Excellent conclusion to this fine series

C.J. Boyle writes another intriguing tale of Kirk and Laura and others who face Hades itself/himself to rescue those they love. The story moves from scene to scene with fun and finesse as the several character relationships grow and fight and resolve and face more challenges. Time travel and space travel are interspersed with perhaps the hardest travel of all, the time and space between two people who desire to be together but life is and had taken them apart. Boyle bridges this gap well with excellence and humor.

Jared Kedzia does a great job of narrating as he moves the story along through emotions and pacing and believability, if one can say that about a space opera without music. Kudos narrator.

C.J. Boyle brings this space series to a close wrapping up details but doing it in such a way that if you only read this book the extra details won't get in the way. But listen or read all of them. They are all good. Read anything she writes. She does not disappoint.

Another great chapter

This one was a bit more serious than the last few but was all the better for it. Very engaging beginning to end.

I received this free review audiobook and I have voluntarily left this unbiased review.

A wonderful end to a great series… or is it the end?

The Adventure of Kirk Rogers and the Queen of Hades is the 4th (and last) of the sci fi series. I love the humor and homage to all the familiar sci fi and legends throughout the series. Kirk and his team have to rescue Laura who got blasted to Hades. She and everyone else there are at the malevolent whims of Seth Tartarus, the warden of Hades (the prison) and now self-appointed king. With so many different kinds of aliens, tech devises snd weapons, nothing is impossible. The story is so engaging with twists and turns. The characters are like old friends now and I was invested in their relationships and happiness. I teared up a few times, laughed a bit and sighed with relief after other chapters.

The narration by Jared Kedzia is absolutely perfect. He has unique voices for different characters, and there are quite a few. He performance brings life to the characters and the story. I highly recommend this book and the entire series!

Old Time Serial

This story reminds me of old radio series like Flash Gordon. The story is written well but jumps around a lot more than I cared for. Unfortunately I had a difficult time following it.