The Translocator

By: M.G. Herron

Narrated by: Tess Irondale

A revolutionary quantum teleportation device promises to bring humanity one step closer to the stars.

Until it fails. Spectacularly.

Archaeologist Eliana Fisk is ripped from Earth while the whole world watches. She lands on a strange new world inhabited by a lost tribe of ancient Mayans. Meeting them, getting firsthand exposure to age-old customs and rituals...it seems like an archaeologist’s dream.

But what if their rituals have a darker meaning? What if the god these people pray to is no god at all? And how in the world will she ever get back home?

Thus begins a pulse-pounding race against time that hurls Eliana into the great unknown, revealing ancient technologies and marvelous mysteries more outlandish than she ever imagined.

The Translocator is an action-packed sci-fi thriller perfect for fans of Stargate, The Atlantis Gene, and other archaeology-inspired science-fiction adventures.

©2018 M.G. Herron (P)2019 Podium Publishing

A Thrilling Sci-fi Ride

I read the first book in the Translocator series, and dove into the second one but never finished. I'm a slow reader, but I can plow through podcasts and audiobooks. I was very excited to revist this world with the new release of all three books combined into an audiobook.

Like the few other of Herron's work's I've read, the Translocator series has a steady diet of influence from various movies and media that's fun to pick up on, but clearly makes this story stand on it's own. The journey starts in the modern real world, but then takes off, and makes no qualms to remind you that this is fiction, and you're going on a fun ride. Rakulo, Eliana, and Amon feel like real people, and it' easy to track along. There's a good balance between action pacing and technical explanation, as often once I find myself asking, "Hey what about," it usually almost immediately answered in the story soon after.

The audiobook is absolutely fantastic. The narrator brings a new level of depth to this story, and seems to have decent range of voices that is very believable. In the first book, she really paints out the use of foreign language so well I was sad there wasn't more of it. To me, listening to the new version really makes me visualize "the Hopper" as it's called and the mystery of Eliana discovering the nature of Kakul.

Long

This book is long!! The story is pretty good, some weak spots that have me confused a bit. I suspect I got lost in the story as it ran and missed the explanation. I missed how the scorpion things are related to the lizard creature. Still, the story is decent.

Couldn’t stop

Its like the parts of my favorite books and movies combined into one. This series was addicting.

Ugh! This story hurt my brain

Between the laughable, comical, ineptitude of the FBI, the clichéd Super Villain that might as well be twisting an handlebar mustache as he maniacally laughs at the stupidity of everyone who is tasked with stopping his plans for world domination and the Rich Syndrome of the lead scientist and his equally self-absorbed wife I could not make it to the end of act II. The story is riddled with plot holes, clichéd magic events that save the wife and husband from there own lust for fame and recognition and downright scientific inaccuracies it boggles the mind. Radio signals that can cross thousands of light-years in the time it takes to make a phone call, teleporting thousands of light-years and generally saying 'space magic' as the reason without any explanation just breaks the immersion. If you want a writer who knows how to write very intelligent space scifi with aliens ans space battles, believable characters and a ton of things that will make you laugh then look no further than Craig Alanson's Expeditionary Force series (10 books and counting) and the spin-off series Expeditionary Force Mavericks (2 books and counting)-

Mostly social dialog and narrative

The script uses imaginary crystals found near an old meteor impact location to make a space drive, no technical details were defined other than that. The space drive is then destroyed by the military due to fear of the unknown.