To Serve and Protect

By: Glynn Stewart

Narrated by: Ray Porter

Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins

Publisher's Summary

A small town cop with an unexpected gift. A shadowy government agency on the side of justice. A call no good man could turn away.

When vampires attack David White's small town, only luck, firepower, and the intervention of an elite government task force saves his life. The aftermath of the attack leaves him in the middle of the world's biggest secret: the existence of government agencies that regulate the supernatural.

They insist that David's "luck" is actually a supernatural gift, and he's immediately recruited into ONSET, the most shadowy part of America's thin blue line of police protectors.

Questioning both his gifts and the agency he now serves, David is drawn into an escalating battle that threatens all of humanity. If he isn't what ONSET thinks he is, the entire world may pay the price.

©2016 Glynn Stewart (P)2017 Podium Publishing

Excellent multi genre story with plenty of action!

I ran out of "Joe Ledger" , "Mitch Rapp", "Court Gentry" and "John Clark" novels. I prefer the present day /near future to past or far future (alien beings and space ships). I'm not necessarily Tom Clancy fan but rather a "John Clark" fan. I went on to "Bob Lee Swagger" novels next, then on to the author who should be the inspiration for all other authors in the spy/thriller/action/black-ops genre, the late Vince Flynn (he is greatly missed)! Vince Flynn writes about "Mitch Rapp" as most of you know. Once I finished the entire series, I read about Jonathan Maberry in a forum, he's generally a horror writer (vampires, werewolves, zombies). He had branched out into the Spec-Ops/Shadowy world of spies fighting terrorists or "James Bond" type villains with world altering objectives. The main character, "Joe Ledger" is a cop recruited by the "DMS" (Department of Military Science). He meets all sorts of people throughout the series including a vampire ex-terrorist/all female team who he works with from time to time. Joe ends up battling people who can't die, zombie-virus, mutants, killer drones and even bad guys with alien type technology. The "Joe Ledger" novels are uniquely written with excellent moments of comic relief. They are action/thrillers and move very fast but as audiobooks you receive the added bonus of having Ray Porter as the narrator.
This is how I learned of "ONSET", Ray Porter. I haven't been able to find any books that come close to my favorites. So I decided to base my search on narrators (Ray Porter).
Touchdown!!! I land on Glynn Stewart's "To Protect and Serve: Onset Series Book 1"!
Fantastic! it's very similar to "Joe Ledger" stories but there is more of a fantasy angle and quite a lot of nods to "Lord of The Rings". Glynn Stewart does an excellent job of blending magic, Elves, Mages, Werewolves, Vampires, Demons, etc with present day military equipment.

34 of 36 people found this review helpful

Decent enough setup but the MC needs work

Any additional comments?

I really wanted to like this book, but ultimately i cant give it a higher rating than a three star. The world he built was interesting, particularly the idea of WHY supernatural stuff isn't that prevalent, if maybe it has a few holes. (Admittedly holes that might be filled in books 2 and 3) but really the problem i feel the book overall has is the main character. First off he is far, far too obsessed with the whole serve and protect thing. I'm not going to say its an unrealistic personality trait, but its the way the author hammers it home like every other chapter. And he doesn't just mention it in passing he will have like, entire pages full of him basically just repeating "I SERVE AND PROTECT. I MUST PROTECT THOSE I SERVE. IT IS A SERVICE TO PROTECT THOSE WHO'S PROTECTION I SERVE" and it goes rapidly from "ok thats his drive" to "ive heard this before" to painfully intense eye rolling by the 7th or 8th time he starts going on about it.

The other issue is the main character is kind of a huge Mary Sue. I've had this argument with a lot of other writers that you can't have an all powerful main character and then call minor emotional issues as a balance to being basically god. "I can single handedly kill the entire bad guy's forces with one hand but I'm a balanced character because i have minor confidence issues" does not a good character make. Not to mention they keep adding more and more powers without every explaining what he is. every other "empowered" They introduce only has 1 specific power, like a mutant from X-men. But with him every 5 minutes hes got a new ability like hes a swiss army knife of superpowers that just coincidentally happens to have the exact power he needs exactly when he needs it. The character probably would have clicked better if he had softened that blow a bit but he just kinda barrels past "my character is unstoppable, moving on"

Overall its a decent story that could very easily get better in the second or third book. but this one stand alone the main character just is too unbelievable, annoying at times, and too Mary Sue to like.

11 of 12 people found this review helpful

Okay-ish

As long as you know nothing about guns, helicopters, police procedures, etc and don't pay too much attention to the rules of the magic system it's a decent read. If you can jam with a made for SyFy movie, you'll rock this. The premise was fun and it rolled along decently (though there were certainly plenty of dead ends in the plot). You just have to invest as little thought as the author did to enjoy it fully. The narration was at times confusing with character voices being swapped at random.

I'm probably judging it too harshly because there were just enough good bits to get glimpses of what it could have been with a bit more effort.

9 of 10 people found this review helpful

Started out promising...and devolved....quickly...

The author started with an interesting premise....but then...

The main character was annoying -
The magic system - well, there wasn't one -
The storyline was - disjointed and wrung out -
The women - were all somehow magically attracted to the main character -
Any information given - repeated....excessively - it didn't matter if it wasn't key to the story....
Action - lacking....based on the suggested premise of this book - there was an expectation of fully fleshed out action scenes.

If this book was edited - properly and ruthlessly - it could have been finished in about 50 pages.

I can't recommend this book - and I seriously want my credit back.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Drilled the title way too much...

The book is ok. That's about as nice as I can put it. The main character stresses to serve and protect at least 3 times each chapter. With over 40 chapters it got annoying real quick. Main character is very unrealistic. I can deal with the powers that just seem to keep coming at random. But, his daddy issues accompanied by his not wanting to be a freak made it hard to like the main character. The supporting characters just had no development at all. They're stories would probably be more interesting over the goody two shoes. Again the book is ok. Debating on giving the second book a try.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Waiting for Book 2

A seamless blend of military action, magic and human nature. Too often the magic component of a story gets too fluffy and ruins the entire book. Not so here. The occasional emotional moment but in a believable way. Likeable characters with strengths and flaws and enough baddies to keep them on the hop. A great narrator and r-e-a-l-i-s-t-i-c dialogue! Just when I thought the plot was starting to veer toward ordinary there was another surprise and I wanted to hear more. One of the rare occasions where I listened to every word - (yep, right up until the end). I find that most stories run out of puff before the end of the book or worse, involve an unsatisfying ending. I'm looking forward to book 2.

9 of 11 people found this review helpful

Awesome book

Just get the book it's a great book. If you enjoy Johnathan Maberrys work you will probably like onset. There are a few slow spots but, all around a great book.

5 of 6 people found this review helpful

pretty good story yet predictable

for me, this book was too reminiscent of Monster Hunters Incorporated and much of the storyline could almost be pulled from mhi. also, although there is very good character development I feel that the writer at time spent too long reiterating points that he's already made over and over and trying to create drama when it's was pretty obvious what was going to happen in fact it was not until the very end where he threw in a significate twist that actually made the book pretty good and which also made me consider listening to the remainder of the series.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

so far so good. off to book 2

interesting character with a narrator that I really like. the plot was good with some interesting twists.

Heart pounding action

Overall, I enjoyed this book. There were a few parts that caused me to put down my headphones for a couple days before I put them back on to finish what I had started. Now that it is over, I can't wait to start the next book in the series.

Ray Porter is a great narrator. I thoroughly enjoyed each of his characters.

I love Glynn Stewart books

I saw a notice that book 3 was available in audio and decided to risk starting this series and I loved it!! Only tragedy is all series come to an end and I felt that regret from the first book... I could tell I would want to go over more of the series. exceptional narrator Ray is awesome as always.

more more more

great book made better by Mr Ray Porter. going straight to buy the second one.

Great book

I really enjoyed reading this book and I am looking forward to many more in the series. I would've liked some banter between the characters but I liked it nonetheless. David acts mature and professional.

An highly enjoyable more mature urban fantasy.

This book is pure enjoyment. I hope to listen to more from Glynn Stewart like Onset 2.

Would make a good TV show

The performance was fine but although I nearly made it to the very end I couldn't manage to force myself through the bad writing. The dialogue is poor and the prose not much better. Usually I can ignore it because of the story (Dresden books are great imo) but this was just too much at times. Yes Sir! seemed to be the most important dialogue in the book and some of the repetitive use of words was just jarring. The worst thing though was the story. There's no antagonist of interest, just a series of let's go here and now let's go there, flying around the world fighting monsters. Honestly, it reads like an author who has spent more time watching Netflix than reading novels and tbh it would make a good sci fi series.