The Power of Words

By: M.L.S. Weech, Heidi Angell, Richard Drake, TW Iain

Narrated by: Lisa Negron, J.M. Needham

Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's summary

In the beginning, there was the word.

Some religions state that the very universe was created by words. The nation of America was founded using words. Words established the rights and freedoms this nation enjoys. The first of those rights is freedom of speech, which implies so much more than the right to use words.

This anthology contains four stories from four authors. Each story pays tribute to either the ideals held by America’s First Amendment or to the concept that the words people use hold power. These authors took the concept of words and placed it in futuristic, apocalyptic, and fantasy settings.

TW Iain creates a world where citizens only seek to hear the words of others rather than consider their own.

Richard T. Drake crafts a world where a leader must speak for the underprivileged masses who simply can not speak for themselves.

Heidi Angell tells of a world where humanity itself is dying, and a man strives to preserve what he can in hope that any who survive will have something with which to remember the world that was.

M.L.S. Weech brings to life a world where words were taken from society, and a mother plots to give those words back if only for her daughter to be able to speak.

The word was the beginning, but it will never end.

©2018 Matthew Leistikow (P)2018 Matthew Leistikow

Great Collection!

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

These short stories were a great collection. I love having short stories by different authors in one book. It always seems to shake things up a little bit.

These stories really spoke to me and I loved every second of them. Usually, I can't really connect too well with shorter stories but these ones all had me hooked from the moment I hit play. Very well done!

Decent

I've always been one to say that words have power more than just their meaning and lived by that idea, so I was excited to see this book.

For some reason the first 2 stories didn't speak to me much, but the last two, the ideas behind them. The acts of defiance they displayed via the use of words was incredibly powerful, and I intend to check out both of those authors' other works.

That doesn't mean the first two stories weren't good, they were good stories, just didn't illicit a strong reaction either way in me.

I received a copy of this book at my request in exchange for a FAIR review.

Each story has something to say.would listen again

This is a wonderful compilation. Some stories I’ve listened to before, but most were new to me.
I would listen to this book again. These stories definitely have something to say.
The breakdown of books and chapters is not consistent however. Sometimes a book will consist of an entire entry and others multiple entries. Not really an issue unless you’re trying to find a particular one to relisten.——

This is the second book I have listened to by these narrators ( Lisa Negron, J.M. Needham ) and I would listen to another. They both are wonderful narrator’s and both provide us with believable character voices. ——-
There are no explicit sex scenes, excessively gory violence, there is some mild swearing.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and voluntarily left this unbiased review.
Please feel free to comment on whether you found my review helpful.

Great Collection of short stories

This collection of short sci-fi stories by different authors lives up to the title. Words can, indeed, be a powerful tool or weapon depending on how they're used. There are 4 separate stories, each with their own entertaining styles. Both of the narrators handled the content and characters of their stories with ease and skill. I enjoyed them both and their voices were complementary in the one story that they co-narrated. This one will get multiple listens from me.

Four Science Fiction Stories

This collection contains 4 S.F. short stories or installments of stories. They're all interesting in their way and all look at futuristic worlds where something radically changed in the world we know today. I found the last two by far the strongest although it was disappointing that the third story - the zombie one is really only an installment and leaves you in the middle of things, requiring you to go another book written by the author to find out what happens to the characters.
The stories are all interesting and very thought provoking and the collection is well worthwhile as an introduction to four authors you probably aren't familiar with - I certainly wasn't.

This was an amazing collection of stories.

This was an amazing collection of stories. I prefer to listen to short stories when I am running and this collection had me actually wanting them to last a bit longer and have me running longer. The stories were captivating and the narrators were superb! I would highly recommend to anyone who enjoys short stories!

Great collection

These stories are about our freedom and what words mean to that.
The stories, the authors & the narrators are all incredible.
I definitely want to continue the zombie story by Angell. I will be looking in to that!

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review

A fun collection of stories excellently narrated

The four individual stories don't all necessarily fall in line with the theme of the anthology, at least not as it's initially explained at the start of the book, but the introductions by the individual authors do a good job of distinguishing why their stories actually fit and relate to each other in this anthology.

The four authors deliver entertaining stories and present us with a mixture of genres in doing so. Jumping from sci-fi, fantasy and even some apocalyptic horror I think helped to strengthen the overall composition of this short anthology. As opposed to four fantasy stories just bleeding into each other.

The two narrators were fantastic and I wouldn't be surprised if they were both eventually narrating for some of the heavy hitters of the industry.

While I did state that each story was entertaining they were also unfulfilling. A problem with anthologies in general I suppose. With stories so short they're usually over before you can really get into them. Neat concepts, a little intrigue, grounded characters but nothing that really blew my mind.

A fun listen, well worth a credit, but not a must have unless you're trying to complete your collection of works from any one of these fine authors.