The Titan Prophesies

By: Roma Gray, Kevin Candela, Essel Pratt, John T.M. Herres, Kent Hill, Mark Henson, Raymond Johnson

Narrated by: John-Michael Jalonen

Length: 5 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

When monsters rule the earth...Herein you’ll find a series of sojourns to places where humans are often quite literally overshadowed by the action at hand. This collection of exciting tales from writers who love the giant monster genre runs the gamut from mutation to invasion - from insurrection to vengeance - from the distant past to a far-off future, all with a single common factor: Great big game-changing things.

Featuring stories by Essel Pratt, Roma Gray, John T.M. Herres, Raymond Johnson, Mark Henson, and Kevin Candela, a poem by Kent Hill, and graced with a fascinating and insightful commentary by none other than TJ Storm, the man inside Legendary Studios’ Godzilla suit, this anthology is, in daikaiju terms, “a major stomp”.

©2019 Roma Gray (P)2020 Roma Gray

Entertaining and varied

The Titan is an entertaining collection of sci-fi/monster stories. They vary in quality, from the somewhat corny to the very clever.

Some good stories here.

Whenever I see that Roma Gray is offering a new story, I’m always eager to listen. Unfortunately, I wasn’t a fan of her story in this collection. But strangely, Essel Pratt’s story caught my attention when they normally don’t. His story was the best out of the bunch!

I couldn’t help but wonder why there was commentary from T.J. Storm? Yes, he’s an actor and played in one of the Godzilla movies and also a narrator but still. Had he been the one to narrator this collection would have been one thing, but he wasn’t. It just came across as a random comment to me.

The narrator did all right. I’d definitely recommend more practice. He can speak clearly, but I had several issues. One: there wasn’t much variety between the characters. Two: there were certain stories (The Find, Zillafied) where the intake of breath was very obvious… and very annoying! It was like he was overly excited about what he was reading or gasping for breath.

"The Find" by Kevin Candela 2/5

I liked the idea of the story but felt it didn’t come together in the best way to keep my attention. Although it was short, I was bored. The “creature” just went from nuclear power plant to nuclear power plant… It wasn’t until the end when the reader learns aliens sent it to Earth to help better them that my interest was piqued, but by then, the story was done.

"Battle of the Cyclopes" by John T.M. Herres 4/5

I wish this one would have been longer.

"Zillafied" by Raymond Johnson 3/5

This was the first story where someone’s voice was referred to as sounding anorexic; I hadn’t realized anorexic could be used in that way. Learn something new. When the girl (who didn’t want to hang out with the boys anymore) reached level 3, a thing popped up on her screen letting her know she got a new ability having to do with her webbing. It said a lot which seemed questionable given she was in the middle of a battle. It then told her how crush points worked, even though she already had them. Wouldn’t that have been told after gaining her first ability? Wouldn’t she have already known how to earn them, if she were interested in knowing, by that point?

"Cyborg Titan Paladins" by Mark Henson 1/5

Sorry but this story didn’t call to me at all. I listened but it just went in one ear and out the other. The fact there was no difference between the character voices (Zenith and Galaxia), so it was hard to know who was talking, didn’t help matters. Had one had an accent or something, I think would have helped given they were of two different species. I didn’t feel there was enough detail regarding their surroundings so I couldn’t imagine what the scene looked like either. Where the characters even described?

"Locusts of the Sea" by Roma Gray 1/5

Again, the idea was interesting, but it just didn’t call to me.

"Walking Among the Trees" by Essel Pratt 5/5

This was the story where mistakes stood out to me. I hadn’t really noticed any in the prior stories until I started listening to this one. For example, “His father, on the other hand, stomped LOUDLY on the floorboards as they protested LOUDLY under each step.” Or “… covering it with garbage on top.” If something is being covered, obviously it will go on top – Redundancy. It was only this story, as well, that the narrator repeated himself – “ For a moment, it seemed that Douglas would emerge from his cocoon and prepare for the day…”

"Big Man Shark" by Kent Hill 1/5

This story didn’t call me either.


I received a free audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

Monsters!

This is a collection of tales that deal with giant monsters, ranging from alien beings to leviathans of the deep. As with most anthologies, this collection of tales has some very well-written and entertaining stories. It is a mix of sea monsters, alien beings, cyborgs, LitRPG and more.

Some of the tales are very imaginative, especially the one by Roma Gray dealing with giant locust-like creatures living in the oceans ("Locusts of the Sea") and another entitled "Walking among the Trees" by Essel Pratt. Pratt's tale could be a good one to teach us about the problems involved with not taking care of the Earth in the proper way.

I also enjoyed "Battle of the Cyclops" by John T.M. Herres. This one took an unexpected twist that made it a story to remember for a long time. A couple of the stories were more Sci-fi, involving space travel to other worlds and the discovery of a cube of material that might have come from an alien planet.

All in all, if you love Godzilla and other giant monsters, you will enjoy this collection. The narrator did a good job with pacing and added a lot to my enjoyment of this audiobook. I was given the chance to listen to this book by the author/publisher and chose to review it.