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  • Steel World

  • Undying Mercenaries, Book 1
  • Written by: B. V. Larson
  • Narrated by: Mark Boyett
  • Length: 12 hrs and 7 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (141 ratings)

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Steel World cover art

Steel World

Written by: B. V. Larson
Narrated by: Mark Boyett
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Publisher's Summary

In the 20th century Earth sent probes, transmissions, and welcoming messages to the stars. Unfortunately, someone noticed. The Galactics arrived with their battle fleet in 2052. Rather than being exterminated under a barrage of hell-burners, Earth joined their vast Empire. Swearing allegiance to our distant alien overlords wasn't the only requirement for survival. We also had to have something of value to trade, something that neighboring planets would pay their hard-earned credits to buy. As most of the local worlds were too civilized to have a proper army, the only valuable service Earth could provide came in the form of soldiers…someone had to do their dirty work for them, their fighting and dying.

I, James McGill, was born in 2099 on the fringe of the galaxy. When Hegemony Financial denied my loan applications, I was kicked out of the university and I turned to the stars. My first campaign involved the invasion of a mineral-rich planet called Cancri-9, better known as Steel World. The attack didn't go well, and now Earth has entered a grim struggle for survival. Humanity's mercenary legions go to war in Steel World, best-selling author B. V. Larson's latest science fiction novel.

©2013 B. V. Larson (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

What listeners say about Steel World

Average Customer Ratings
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  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A fun read

A good story and build up to a great series, I cant wait to get all the other chapters.

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8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Dumbed down to my frustrations

I couldn't believe how much over explaining
this author provided which spoiled the flow of action. The lead character was not believable since he was brilliant in one moment and completely obtuse in the next.
Also, this book must have been written pre-me too movement considering all the mysigony.
The story, potentially, was a good idea but assumed the listeners were idiots. The writing was somewhat cliche and could have taken place on Earth, rather than a futuristic story.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

New series (to me!)

I really like long series, and got the first in this series at a discount. The writer is very imaginative and the narrator was very consistent. I liked so many of his voices, I couldn't pick a favorite! I am pretty sure this series will be my next binge :)

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Thoroughly enjoyed, pumped that there's more!

Didn't know this was the 1st book of what looks to be a long series. Right from the get go I was drawn in. Perfect mix of action, humour and story. Characters started to grow on me as the story progressed!

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

An interesting universe with flat characters

I liked the setting of the story (humanity hiring itself out as mercenaries to aliens isn't too common), but the characters were pretty one-dimensional. The protagonist is a male Mary Sue that always gets his way in everything that matters, and none of the characters show any real character development throughout the story. Bizarrely, all the antagonists in this story are women that don't even act plausibly. If you don't mind all of this, then this might still be worth a credit.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Great narration. Juvenile story.

This story had some interesting ideas and overall wasn't too bad. But the protagonist is a 12 year old boy's version of what a man should be, The absurd womanizing reminded me of Patrick Stewart on "Extras" where his screenplay regularly includes the line "and her clothes fall off. And I've seen everything". Hilarious as a spoof. Face-palm cringy in this novel. I got as far as book three in the series to see if the character would grow at all. Spoiler (or saves you some timer) he does not. It's the same story over and over, set on different planets.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Great ideas crumble under lots of flaws

The first half of the book has enough interesting ideas with the setting, technology and premise to make you ignore the more goofy aspects and straight up bad parts.

About 2/3 of the way through the hook gets brushed under the rug and the rate of inconsistencies, plot holes and just plain bad passages goes up high enough to make the cons unbearable.

- Uncomfortably sexist depiction of all the female characters. Which could be ''explained'' by the fact that the book is written in the first person by a horny male protagonist, but considering the only female characters in the book are either love interests or hysteric antagonists, it just comes off as misogynistic.
- The main protagonist has no skillset besides being tall, lucky and somehow always intuiting the right course of action through sheer plot armor, since a lot of his ideas make absolutely no sense to begin with. Also has no personality, which somehow makes him the most interesting person in the room. ''Useless rogues'' type characters only work if they're supported by a very good entourage, while not consistently being shitty (See, The Expanse).
- The whole ''reviving tech'' concept starts off extremely interesting as a main plot device, but repeated plot holes and inconsistencies eventually ruin it. Same goes for most ideas in the book.

Stellar performance though!

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great start to a great series!!

First, the Narrator is excellent. The story is well paced, lots of action but measured. The character development of the main protagonist is slow but appropriate for the breadth of the series as a whole. Highly recommend this series.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

it was great it was full of adventure and teach

it took awhile to finish but it was great you will love it to the finish

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