The Chosen Twelve

By: James Breakwell

Narrated by: Nezar Alderazi

Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

There are 22 candidates. There are 12 seats.

The last interstellar colony ship is down to its final batch of humans after the robots in charge unhelpfully deleted the rest. But rebooting a species and training them for the arduous task of colonisation isn't easy - especially when the planet below is filled with monsters, the humans are more interested in asking questions than learning and the robots are all programmed to kill each other.

But the fate of humanity rests on creating a new civilization on the planet below, and there are 12 seats on the lander. Will manipulation or loyalty save the day?

©2022 James Breakwell (P)2022 Penguin Audio and Rebellion Publishing

Fun Little Read

lot of familiar tropes here. I know the author is a comedy writer, but this book isn't particularly funny. Irreverant and silly at times? Sure. Overall, pretty solid little sci-fi novel. I enjoyed it and was sad it was over.

Hard to believe this is Breakwell's sci-fi debut

Funny, creative story. Fun to listen to and has more depth than you'd think. Breakwell is known for his comedic writing and does not disappoint.

Really enjoyed this book

Funny, creative, totally different from any other book. Really enjoyed it. Highly recommend it to anyone looking for an entertaining listen.

More Soylant Green than Douglas Adams

I picked this book up because I like James Breakwell's sense of humor, and because someone had compared it as being similar to Douglas Adams work. The first couple of chapters were very promising, and if it had continued in that Spirit it could have ended up is one of my new favorites, but unfortunately it didn't. It ended up devolving into a very scattered story as it tries to cover things from more than 20 different perspectives. I applaud James for trying to give each of his characters enough variation that you could try to hold on to them in your memory but a lot of times it wasn't enough. Additionally, one of the major themes ended up being is an unrequited homosexual love interest that felt so forced and false one wonders why on earth it needed to be in there at all. Parents should also be aware that there is a lot of blood and death... which you might have already imagined in this distopian world where doors try to kill people. Worst of all, the end of the book is just depressing. My overall feeling coming away from it is that I know it won't be one I'll be reading again. Even Soylant Green has a mystery to it that draws you through and makes you want to experience it again despite the depressing ending. This book did draw me to continue reading till the end... But there wasn't enough reward inside to read it again. Heroism. Self sacrifice. Doing something because it's the right thing to do... We're all muted and dampened and blurred and lost. Bits of Douglas Adam's-is humor popped up here and there, and if James had leaned more in that direction this would be a different story. However, large segments come off as someone describing long SimCity gaming sessions.

Great Story, Boring Narration

I've loved James Breakwell for years and was excited for his fiction debut. If I'd not already been familiar with him, though, I'd have given up three chapters in, not because of the writing, but because of the reader. He seemed bored by the story, and his cadence was weird. It go better when I put it on 1.2 speed, but it still wasn't the best.

What?

This books seems to have started five chapters in. There is little to no explanation of the situation, characters, place or time. Hard to follow a story with little idea where the story line was. I’ve always loved James Breakwell’s writing. I’ve always looked forward to his sense of humor.