The Phoenix Descent

By: Chuck Grossart

Narrated by: Lauren Ezzo

Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's Summary

The year is 2025. Astronaut Caitlyn "Sif" Wagner and her team emerge from stasis to discover that their Mars mission has gone terribly awry - the crew has run off course in space and, they suspect, in time as well. Their damaged ship returns to an Earth reduced to overgrown cities and blasted terrain. Yet humans have somehow survived, living in caves, foraging at night, returned to a tribal existence. Sif meets Litsa, the fiercest warrior in her tribe, and learns a horrific truth: the planet is overrun with the Riy, a swarm of spore-releasing revenants intent only on spreading their infection.

But even as Sif and Litsa unite in combat, they soon realize that the battle against the Riy is only one stage on which they must fight the war for humanity's survival.

©2016 Chuck Grossart (P)2015 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

Clever take on EOW premise.

I enjoy cleverness, and the author's idea on this genre was clever. I don't want to give the storyline away completely, but the end the ultimate evil doer felt awfully familiar to the villain in a popular movie series.
As a father to daughters I have encouraged and enjoyed strong female characters, and I can imagine the main character in this book being written as such. It was very disappointing to have her read as a bitchy, and sometimes mean character. The reader always makes her interactions with others confrontational, but then her internal dialog calmer. She is top of the class, best in the world pilot without equal but is read as someone very insecure and without inner strength, whereas the male counterpart is the opposite. This is the kind of thing I did not want my daughters to observe. As I would read the dialog, I would put a lot less stridency to her comments which would give her a lot more strength to match the merits she brings to the story. Unfortunately there were many times I just did not even like her the way she was read.

I was really pleased it's this book

I hate when. I get in those rolls where I seem to pick one boring book after another. This one was not boring and had my attention from the beginning to the end. Was so impressed I immediately purchased the only other book I saw available here in Audible in hopes of duplicating several more hours of pleasure.

The book was well worth the credit - my opinion is to buy it that you won't regret it!

Shmeh

The story was interesting. However the characters were terrible. The main character, who is supposedly a navy pilot, acts like a 10 year old the entire story. It didn't help that the reader was terrible at character voices. I normally give males a pass on female voices and females a pass on male voices, but there wasn't a single voice that was well done in this reading. The story had potential, but fell way short. The reader is a good narrator, but a terrible voice actor.

a heavy disappointment

this book seems ok.. but the writer has no idea of ANYTHING. a fungus can take over the body seconds after being breathed in?

the infected cant be stopped with guns? no way for bullets to simply chew the bodies apart?

did humanity somehow forget how to use incedenary weapons? flame throwers, tracer rounds, dragons breath shotgun rounds, fuck tons of weapons with the sole purpose of setting shit on fire??

it never even occures to the astronauts to compare star positions to see how much time has passed?? old cities are completely unspotable from space unless there are lights? the remains of cities not showing up on IR scans, despite the fact concrete absorbs and holds heat amazingly well?!?!

god damn it you wanna write scifi learn some fucking science!!!!

Fun and interesting look at a future

I enjoyed the story overall although I really hate characters that don't fit the roll they play, i.e. a military raised NASA space pilot who acts like a spoiled child in demanding things. anyone who made it into those programs would know how to be political not brash and offensive to everyone. If they acted like that they would never have been promoted, no matter how good they were. other than that I truly enjoyed the story.

Could not get through it

The narrator sounded like a tween. Very grating, could not get into at all. Sample before purchasing to see if you can live with the narration.

Can't get past the narrator

I can't review the story cause I couldn't stick to the narrator. Something about how she talks annoys me, like it's forced. Just speak normal and let it be otherwise it sounds like fake and forced acting.

Needs an editor

What begins as a great premise quickly sours as plot holes, character inconsistencies, and MacGuffins take a good storyline and render it nearly unlistenable. I have listened to more than a hundred audiobooks and this is the first time I almost quit a book halfway through. Really needed an editor's touch.

Experiment gone awry or lost in space

Interesting tale of a navy pilot becoming an astronaut to the first mission flight to mars. The characters entertaining and the description of the planet fascinating. Narration was good.

Great simple read

Nothing crazy here just a good post apocalyptic Syfy read / Listen !!!!
Great Narrator as well.