The Interstellar Age: The Complete Trilogy

The Interstellar Age, Book 4

By: Valmore Daniels

Narrated by: Dave Wright

Length: 31 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's Summary

Forbidden the Stars At the end of the 21st century, a catastrophic accident in the asteroid belt has left two surveyors dead. There is no trace of their young son, Alex Manez, or of the asteroid itself. On the outer edge of the solar system, the first manned mission to Pluto, led by the youngest female astronaut in NASA history, has led to an historic discovery: there is a marker left there by an alien race for humankind to find. We are not alone! While studying the alien marker, it begins to react. Four hours later, the missing asteroid appears in a Plutonian orbit, along with young Alex Manez, who has developed some alarming side-effects from his exposure to the kinetic element they call Kinemet. From the depths of a criminal empire based on Luna, an expatriate seizes the opportunity to wrest control of outer space, and takes swift action.The secret to faster-than-light speed is up for grabs, and the race for interstellar space begins!

Music of the Spheres

The technology for interstellar flight exists through the power of Kinemet, but the key to unlocking its code lies in a thousand-year-old scroll left on Earth by an alien species.When the ancient manual is stolen before a full translation is completed, Alex, Michael and Justine scramble to recover it.Along the way, they stumble on an interplanetary conspiracy and uncover a secret that shatters their view of life and shakes the very foundations of our existence.

Worlds Away

For a thousand years the Kulsat Armada has ravaged the galaxy searching for the lost legacy of an extinct race of technologically advanced beings. They destroy anyone who gets in their way.Now they have turned their attention to Earth and are gathering their forces for an invasion.Justine, Michael and Alex each hold a key to stopping the enemy, but they are worlds away from each other, and they are running out of time...

©2014 Valmore Daniels (P)2014 Valmore Daniels

Enjoyable story. Good narration. Horrid production

The Interstellar Age is an enjoyable read, with a few missteps along the way. Set in the late 21st century Earth has set up a lunar station and are out mining and exploring the galaxy. Space travel is still fairly slow, although much quicker than current travel, taking 6 months to head out to Pluto. The various countries of Earth still exist in a shape similar to what we know now, but have all incorporated to become a series of large companies - America Corp, Canada Corp etc. (and yet it doesn't appear to have ever been mergers of these companies. wouldnt poor 'companies' be swallowed by rich ones?)

And then (which is the story this book follows) someone discovers the trick to light speed travel and the universe is opened up.

In many ways (the child character, the space mining, and other things) this book reminds me of Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston's Formic War series (prequels to Ender's Game). The central idea of the book - there are aliens out there and they are leaving markers behind to help us move forward - reminds me of 2001 A Space Odyssey. Overall it presents and enjoyable and interesting story of space travel, political (corporate?) intrigue and survival.

The 2nd and 3rd book in the series (also part of this set) continue the Orson Scott Card feel in some ways, but no necessarily the best ways. The 'science of space travel' in the book end up in a not dissimilar place to the space travel in Card's Xenocide or Dan Simmon's 'Rise of Endymion' both of which I enjoyed but found extremely silly.

Stylistically there is no one style to the book – it switches between general 3rd person narration, to reports, to news broadcasts, to 1st person diary entries, back to 3rd person etc. The continually switching does not harm the book, but it does make it a little strange. Some of the styles work better than others, such as some of the 1st person diary entries don’t feel like they ring true.

Other minor issues exist throughout that drew me out of the story – some of the technology is much more advanced but much feels less than we have now. At one point it is mentioned that a character can give verbal commands to a computer but the computer cannot respond verbally. My phone can currently respond verbally to commands, so in 80 years from now I would expect that computers could do. Another thing like this was the cars on Earth – no automation or self-driving. Someone was getting picked up by their wife. Another had to work out the best way to get around traffic.

Each book skips forward a decade or so, but we don’t see much change in technology really.

A news report mentions that religion doesn’t exist anymore, something I cannot imagine being slightly a realistic prediction for 80 years’ time. It not really explained how or why all governments are incorporated, it’s just said and we are supposed to take it as a given. This is again something I cannot see happening in 80 years. These two things, to me, don’t make sense in light of where we as a society currently are and where we have come from, and the way humans act and think.

Still, the issues aside, I enjoyed the book.

And then we come to the narration. Dave Wright does okay. He generally gets inflection right (although one point there was a line a character said followed by the narrator saying something like "his voice dripping with sarcasm", yet Wright hadn’t actually delivered the line sarcastically.), he provides different voices for characters and provides a range of accents.

However the audio production is horrid. Between each chapter and each change of scene within a chapter there is an R2D2-ish beeping noise. Highly annoying and made me struggle to actually continue. When reading what the computers says (which, remember, isn’t said aloud but just displayed on the screen) he uses a distortion to make it sound robotic. 100 years from now and they can't make a non-robotic voice? My phone or GPS doesn’t sound robotic now. There were many other things like this throughout the book - effects and modifications that were annoying, drew you out of the story or just plain didn’t make sense.

Good series, and priced right

Nicely put together story with characters you like. The writing is simple but the characters are real. What I like best about the books is that Audible offers all three books in the series for the price of one credit. Please Audible start doing that more frequently for the older Sci Fi series!

Okay Story, but performance choice error.

Any additional comments?

The roots of the Mayan civilization lore tell of the rising and falling of worlds. Human kind gaining the secret technology to travel the stars ends one and begins another. Upon the discovery of the element known as Kinemet and the Plutonian artifact that cycles through the spectrum as a vessel made of this material approaches, human kind is forced to admit that other sentients exist.
The story is woven around the orphaned son of asteroid prospectors, Alex Minez; Major Turner of NASA; Michael Sanderson of Canada Corporation and Chou Yen, a notorious criminal. The intrigue bounces around the solar system for decades before faster than light travel is survived and the big bad beyond is realized.
This is a good and well paced story. The hand waving is not too bad and most of the plot developments proceed well except for a certain CEO who keeps doing really gullible things. The narrator had a pretty good range of voice changes. As a product I will state that the scene or chapter change sound effect needed to be volume equalized to the rest of the work, it really is obnoxious. Overall I give this a three out of five satisfaction units.

whats with the beeps

Would you try another book from Valmore Daniels and/or Dave Wright?

no

What didn’t you like about Dave Wright’s performance?

bad character voicing, should stick to just reading the story

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

anger, whats with the beeps at every chapter

Any additional comments?

can't use earphones to listen to this book, would go deaf with the beeps between chapters

A scifi adventure I wish I had read, not heard

I'll be honest, I loved the setting, the characters, the writing. It's a steal getting the three books in one. I wish I had read the book instead of listening to it, however. The production of this audiobook almost ruined a great story and that would have been an incredible shame.

I'm going to chime in with many of the reviewers and complain about the incredibly terrible production choices of this book. Other reviews go into detail, and yes, it really is that bad. The sound effects actually hurt my ears a couple times when I had headphones on.

As for the book, Daniels' pacing is excellent. There's a big story to be told, but it's not rushed or bogged. To keep things interesting, the book(s) will often jump between journal-styled logs to give a first person perspective, and then return to third person.

Daniels also does well giving life to many different characters. A young boy trying to get away with playing video games instead of doing homework was written just as believably as an adult woman thinking about how she traded career for family.

--I received a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.--

Why did it have to end?

OMG this story is fabulous! Its a page turner, never a dull moment. I just wish it never had to end. Its going to be hard now to find another audible to listen to after this fun and exciting ride.
The plots, both main and background are intriguing and unique. Character development was great. You come to know and care about the characters. The settings were different and full of imagination. This is total high fantasy scifi. This story was unexpectedly better than I had hoped. It moves and keeps you on the edge of your seat!
Now the narrator. The narrative parts were done perfectly. The voices of the characters wasn't bad or good. Just mediocre. I've listened to worse and better. I dont see any reason to pass on such a fanatically written piece of work. I honestly feel passing on this story because of one bad review would be a loss. Its just to good!!! An average narrator in respect to the just the characters voices isn't enough to hurt the listen.
The ride is great!!! This is my honest review via a promotion.
Now I have to go to my library and hope I find a listen that wont bore me after this exciting one!
*I cheered at the end. Did not expect that! :)

Would love to recommend, but production concerns.

(Copy received for review)

I'm so torn on this book. First, it is a solid piece of SciFi. I find it reminiscent of Clarke and Pohl Anderson, that late 20th century academic sci fi where the reveal is all in the dance, and counter. It's a chess game of a book, not a game of paintball.

I wish I could wholeheartedly recommend the audio version, but I have to say the production left me quite cold. I like the timbre of David's voice, and he's very solid on some parts, but I think his range might have been a bit too narrow for the number of characters.

Also, the production comes across as not having decided whether it was to be a radio play, or a book. The effects used for certain voices I found removed me from the story, and with sound-effecting some audio, it made the dialog tags superfluous, but they were still in the production. Most difficult, the section break audio was too much for me. (Both jarring, too frequent, and too loud)

I hope this author makes more works, and honestly I hope he works with this narrator. I think they can pair very well, but the bells and whistles (rather literally) on this piece leave me wishing I had it on my kindle instead.

Good plot, god awful narration

Any additional comments?

Have just finished listening to the entire series, it was tough going though and considered many times letting it go, the one thing that kept me going through this was the story itself. Good concept, good characters if a bit rushed at time. The thing that let it down completely though was narration, it was by far the worst I have ever came across in all my many years on audible. The voices of each and every character where delivered in a style that can only be described as an astonished 5 year old, inflection was awful. Seriously, they had 80 year old, very wise and learned men with the voices of little kids. In order to get through I had to try and take each delivered sentence and imagine it as I would have read it rather than the awful way it was delivered by the narrator.

Would I recommend this, yes, but not in audible format. Go buy the book.

Maybe for pre-teens?

I finally gave up and deleted about 4 hours in. I just couldn't handle Dave Wright's narration, which sounds to my ear like a 1950's Disney documentary for children. In fairness, my spouse was not as bothered.
The narration actually isn't completely wrong for the book, which seems to be aimed at 10-year-olds like the protagonist, Alex. I may well have liked it myself at that age.
The plot is Erich von Däniken's "Chariots of the Gods," but appropriately marked as fiction.
So far, this is to Science Fiction what Muzak is to Rock and Roll.
I think the simplest fix is to more clearly mark this as a children's book.

More science in the fiction

I like more science in my fiction. There was too much metaphysical mumbo jumbo being bandied about. It may have been the reader but i got a real 'floaty' feeling for large parts of the book.

Excellent story - irritating sound effects

Dear audible, you need to stop making sound effects in audiobooks a thing. They are irritating and distracting! Great story though the authors fantastic well worth a read/listen

Story spoilt by sound effects

Any additional comments?

At the end of chapters the is a high pitch multi tone. The sound level of this noise is much higher than that of the narration and if you are listening through headphones can be quit painful. There is no warning as to when this will occour so you tend to be listening for, and trying to guess when, the end of the chapter is about to happen so I can turn the volume down. I was listening to the story on the train, and when the end of chapter noise happened, every body in the compartment turned to look, it was annoying them as well as me.

30 mins in and I had to stop!

Well, I am really disappointed. The description on Audible sounded brilliant, but the narration style is so incompatible with the story, that I have had to give up. The narrator isn’t bad, it’s just that his style doesn’t suit the material.

I think he would be really good reading something humorous, a comedy novel for example, but for serious science-fiction, he was simply a very bad choice. I may give it another go, but right now I’m thinking about getting a refund.