Vision: A Story of Deep Time

By: Jesse Laeuchli

Narrated by: Alastair James Murden

Length: 2 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's summary

Sub-Major Clement, a reserve officer of the third expeditionary fleet is becoming increasingly disenchanted with the Imperial mission and the constant state of war required to keep the peace.

When a strange set of circumstances allow him to take control of a Warmind, one of the highly sophisticated AIs running the conflict, he discovers the true nature of the war and the terrible weapon the AIs are designing.

Clement must find a way out before the weapon, or whatever is driving the AIs to develop it, destroys them all.

©2017 Jesse Laeuchli (P)2017 Jesse Laeuchli

Extinction on the horizon

Without spoilers, I understood this audiobook to be about Sub-Major Clement who is contacted by an AI called Warmind. Warmind experiences the world in Deep Time and is concerned with the way things in the universe are going. I looked up Deep Time and the definition suggests to me that Warmind may have existed for billions of years. Warmind has come to the conclusion that the way things in the universe are progressing then extinction for everyone is on the horizon. He communicates this to Clements who wants to help.

As a fan of science fiction, I really wanted to love this book. When I have to give a less than stellar review, I try to give feedback about what could have made the story better. In this short of a book, there is always a concern whether enough time has been used to develop the storyline. It felt too short for several reasons. In my opinion, the characters needed to be fleshed out and more time should have been taken with the plot. I would have liked more information about Warmind. If it has existed for so many years, for the most part, does it consider itself only an observer? I wasn’t sure if it was an AI or not until I read a blurb elsewhere. Another character, Anismus, also received little character development. I wasn’t sure where he fit in. Too much was rushed and I had to go back many times to re-listen just to try to understand what was going on. I liked where Laeuchli was going in the first half but truthfully, I was lost and confused by the end. I really wanted to get a copy of the book and see if that made things clearer.

I looked up the website of the narrator Alastair James Murden. His resume states he is versatile in the dialects of British, Cockney, Scottish, American, Southern, Irish, Russian and Australian. I would have loved to have seen a demonstration of that in this book. Murden often lowered his voice to what felt like an uncomfortable level to voice particular characters. It almost sounded like his voice was giving out. It would have been nice if Warmind’s voice was altered slightly in the studio to create more of an AI feel to it. As it was, his stilted voice for Warmind and his raspy voice for Radiance were great fits for those characters. One thing I try to observe is, am I focused on the narrator’s voice or does the voice actor narrate in such a way that I am immersed in the story instead? I like to “forget” I’m being narrated to and only hear the story. This didn’t happen.

Audiobook was provided for review by the author/narrator/publisher.
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Wasn't for me

Vision was an interesting Sci-fi short that I feel had potential to be a great story but was missing so much. There wasn't much world building or even character building. The story line wasn't bad. In the future, humanity is always at war. Supposedly it's how they keep the peace. Clement, the main character, takes control of the warmind AI and learns the truth about the war.

The narrator did a good job with most of the narration, but I didn't enjoy the very monotone AI voice. This takes place in the future. Google and Amazon's Alexa AI have voices that aren't monotone. The future should be better!

Overall, the story and narration we're just average for me.

Great novella from new author!

I'm personally not a sci-fi fan usually but I wanted to try to dip into a new genre and this was a great book to do that with! The story is deep and the author really accomplishes a lot in such a short time. The writing is creative and the story has some great characters! At times I was a little lost in the story and found myself having to restart a chapter to catch back up. Narration was good, I just wish the narrator had a bit more emotion with his reading. At times he seemed a bit monotone but I was still enthralled in the story the whole way through. Overall it was a great listen and I look forward to seeing what else Jesse Laeuchli creates in the future!

Timestream tech support

This was a weird yet enjoyable view of time in a scuffle-fi setting. Not sure I would listen to other bad oks but I liked this.

Intriguing Story But Needed Some Work

I really wanted to like this story, have always loved stories about time travel in its various forms, but just could not ‘get into’ this story. The core concepts have been better handled by other works, e.g. Isaac Asimov’s ‘The End of Eternity’ or James P. Hogan’s ‘Thrice Upon a Time’.
There is some good stuff here, action, end-of-the-universe perils, interesting takes on AI’s, but I was not drawn to the characters and felt that there were a lot of extraneous details that detracted from the story. Alastair Murden does a great job of narrating it, definitely kept me listening until the end.

Average Sci-Fi Short Story Missing A Little

2.5 out of 5 stars

I always feel bad when I write a not-so-great review.  This one will be right in the middle.  About a 2.5 or a 3 out of 5 stars.  It was short (I knew that going into it and I don't mind a short story) but it just felt a little rushed.  Ironically, it also felt like it dragged on a bit.  That's why I'm so torn by this book. It felt short and not short at the same time.  

Vision tells the story of a futuristic time where everyone is at war all the time.  War seems the only way to... keep the peace if that makes any sense. 

Early on in the story our main character meets someone or something named Warmind and is given the opportunity to work with it to figure out how to do something.  I genuinely feel bad that I can't remember, but Vision was just one of those books that I read and instantly put back on a shelf in my mind.  There wasn't one thing that jumped out at me.

Overall, Vision is an average Sci-Fi book without much character or world building.  I understand it's a short story but it did feel like some reasons why were left on the cutting room floor.

I was given a free copy of this audiobook - it has not affected my review in any way. If you found this review helpful or enjoyed it please vote for it!

Decent SciFi short story

Humanity has spread across the stars and we need constant wars to keep society chugging along, this is always a decent premise to a story. Throw in some time manipulation and that’s a brief summary of what we have here. The story has good pacing at the beginning and moves along nicely, but the ending feels kind of rushed. I also had to actively listen because it’s easy to get lost if you’re not actively paying attention to the story. Overall, it’s a decent short story that’s worth a listen.

The author gifted me a copy of this book with no expectation of me posting a review. This review is my unbiased opinion.