Wholesale Slaughter

By: Rick Partlow

Narrated by: Marc Vietor

Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's summary

A king can't defeat an army of lawless pirates. But a mercenary can. 

Logan Conner is the son of a king, the heir to the largest of the five star-dominions, and the best mech pilot in the galaxy. His people are plagued by pirates and raiders, surrounded by enemies, and not even his father can fight them all. Logan gives up his position, his rank, even his name, and becomes Jonathan Slaughter, leader of a rough-and-ready band of mercenary mech-jocks bent on taking the battle to the enemy on their own terms. 

They’re Wholesale Slaughter. Kicking ass is what they do. Get book one in this thrilling and unpredictable military sci-fi adventure today!

©2019 Aethon Publishing (P)2019 Audible, Inc.

Don't Judge It By The Title

I passed over this book a few times because of the title but it continued to appear in my recommendation list. I took a closer look and decided to give it a try. I'm glad I did. This is an excellent book, balanced with action, story line, world building and character development. I highly recommend it.

Fantastic book!

Good work, Rick and Marc. Wonderfully entertaining. Can’t wait for book two. Only a few weeks it looks like.

Space Mech Military Action

Partlow delivers a detailed action novel that explains the weapons, armor, mechanics, and people in great detail while delivering over the top choreographed fight scenes.

Vietor gives the narration gravitas and packs each character with nuance giving the read an edge of your seat feel.

If you like sci-fi, military espionage, action books this one is definitely worth a try.


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

Sci-Fi Military story with Mechs & tons of action

This was a really fun story. It has great military action and some really good Mech battles. The character development and character interaction is also really quite good. I thought the story and backstory is really pretty good. It takes place in a universe that has broken off into different factions after the 'empire' collapses and different sectors are carved out. It is kind of the dark ages in that respect as much technology and prosperity has been lost and there is constant battles between the factions. Piracy and mercenaries run rampant and there is not much the different governments can do about it as they are too busy contending with each other to deal with it.

Enter Logan Connor a Mech pilot who also happens to be the Heir apparent to the leader of the Spartans. He is in the military and keeps the fact that he is the son of the leader hidden from most so he does not receive any special treatment. Logan has become disenchanted with the way the world works and how the pirates raid and kill normal everyday citizens with impunity and he is helpless to stop it. Logans, brother Terran(a scientist) then intercepts an old transmission from deep space from the Old Empire and trace it back to its location but to get there they will have to travel through enemy territory. The payoff would be access to lost technologies and would give them the edge and could lead to them forging a new empire if all goes well. To accomplish this Logan goes undercover with a crack team and he becomes Captain Jonathan Slaughter the leader of a Mercenary group named Wholesale Slaughter. This will be their cover to travel through enemy space, and the cover will also allow them to crack down on Pirates and build a reputation in order to keep their cover which works just fine with Logan

The narration by Marc Vietor is great and really fits the story, character and style of the book. This is a great first installment and very interested to see how things progress and where they end up.

"Please note I was given this free review copy audio book at my request and have voluntarily left this review."

Great listen

I am just a regular guy not a professional reviewer but I love the world and setting. The narrator was a perfect fit for me and I would love to here him in other stories as well. I am looking forward to listening to the rest in the series and hope it goes a long ways.

Great Book!

Excellent book! Great details in the story and a very good story. The narration was also very good.

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

A bland, unsubtle beta male hero

Rick Partlow's writing was fine but this story follows a familiar disappointing plot that seem to fill the SciFi genre of late. That of a young male hero who saves a beautiful woman captive from borderworld pirates, and all captivity that entails. So taken aback by this, he convinces his dynasty dad to allow him to lead a select secret team to drive out the scoundrel pirates from the outer worlds.

So far so good. WARNING: Spoilers follow.

However, it quickly goes downhill from there. He decides to take the still traumatized woman he saved out on an expensive dinner date and she, inexplicably, decides to bed him soon thereafter. He then falls deeply in love and she soon exerts her dominant personality making several operational demands on him in which he begrudgingly capitulates. Furthermore, while he is the titular commander of this newly created mercenary group, his second in command is a seasoned female Zena-level warrior who pretty much runs the operation while he chagrins about it. I'm conflicted as to whether this is a cheesy romance novel or the makings of a harem one.

Marc Vietor narration was good except that his timbre is better suited for medieval fantasies rather than the SciFi space opera.

Trite and Predictable

This book didn't do it for me. I found it trite and pretty predictable.

I found myself skipping large sections of the book because it lacked the action I was seeking. Additionally, there wasn't much to the Mech in my opinion.

I enjoyed the Narrator, Mark Vietor. He always delivers.

Again, the book wasn't my "cup of tea" and didn't provide the action and "wow" of an old story with a new twist.

This is "no" from the Georgia judge.

Mechs and mayhem galore

If you are fan of sci fi, the Jake Bible Mech series or any like it then this is for you. It’s a great story in the style a future space opera. There are of course mechs, aliens, pirates, rival factions, intrigue, romance, battles, tech, plot twists and more. A kitchen sink of a story that will satisfy almost any type of science fiction, battle thirsty bibliophile. I enjoyed it and hope you do too. I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

Action Sci-fi!!!

This is a great example of an Military Sci-fi Action book. The action parts of this book are intense and brutal. Plus you have giant mechs fighting each other. I am looking forward to the next book in the series.

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

Nice book

As long as you don’t want something to in-depth this book is fine.
The narration is good the story is ok.
It just felt like something was missing.
It kept me entertained enough to finish the book, so that’s a good thing.

Excellent

Delighted I stumbled across this. Great story and fantastic narration. Well worth a listen 👍

OK.

It started off well and I was keenly following it. But, after the halfway point, I felt my interest going and just managed to finish the story. This one really wasn’t for me.

boring. just plain boring.

it felt like a copy and paste from other space stories, from the expanse to expeditionary force. the story never made sense, technology lost yet they have space travel. just couldn't understand the world of the story.

They're not smart but they're clever.

A distant future where humanity has spread into space and devolved into waring factions, with five major dominions and numerous small, independent communities, pirates and mercinaries. Over time, the origins have been lost as has much of the technology, what remains being mostly replicated without full understanding of how it works. Then Sparta, one of the more powerful kingdoms, retrieves a corrupted radio transmission which appears to come from the old World preceding the current political situation and with it the promise of forgotten technologies which might give their society an edge in their battling. But to get there means crossing hostile territory and time was in short supply - someone else might find and decipher the message. So a single ship, disguised as a mercenary, is launched into the journey under the command of the Sparta King's son, Logan, given the new identity of Jonathan Slaughter.

This, the first book in the new series by author, Rick Partlow, establishes the mercenary ship's crew and the reason they have all come together, plus the first of their enterprises to establish their mercenary identity. Presumably, there will be more such adventures to come as well as further character development of the main protagonists, although this has already started well. Marc Victor narrates, and does an excellent job not only of increasing tension as he reads the text clearly and with good inflection and pace, but also gives appropriate and separate voice to each of the characters. A good performance which is a pleasure to hear.

This is an enjoyable read, full of daring do, fine (and otherwise) sentiments, romance, battles and even mechs, set in a.future of lost greatness and with a slight impression of ancient quests. All in all, a good read. Not profound but good fun.