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Kill Orbit

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Kill Orbit

Written by: Joel Dane
Narrated by: David Shih
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A hostile fleet. A planet killer. And one shot to make it right.

In this gripping new military science-fiction novel, a battle-tested infantry squad pursues an inhuman enemy into the vacuum of space.

Maseo Kaytu's squad is yanked from a much-deserved furlough by an emergency deployment off-planet. But why is Command sending grunts into the "Big Empty"? Without CAVs, without backup--hell, without gravity--the squad is more vulnerable than ever. Tasked with a mission that only they can complete, they track the enemy across the killing vastness of space, from a bizarre interplanetary warehouse to the hidden heart of a research habitation...and beyond.

But the enemy is tracking them, too. Scanning, calculating, preparing. Kaytu joined the military to redeem the bad choices of his past, yet now--trapped in hostile territory--he learns that soldiers face the hardest choices of all. Adventure Fantasy Genre Fiction Military Science Fiction Fiction Solar System
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What the critics say

Praise for Joel Dane

"I picked it up, I started reading. I kept reading. This is that kind of book, intense, involving, with intriguing world development. Recommended. Joel Dane is a writer to watch."--C.J. Cherryh, author of the Foreigner series

"Joel Dane's Cry Pilot is a hyperkinetic and unflinching battle narrative that never loses sight of the truth of being a soldier: the squad comes before all else. Told with momentum and immediacy, Cry Pilot is authentic, exciting, and excellent." --Marko Kloos, author of Terms of Enlistment

"In Cry Pilot, Joel Dane has imagined a fascinating high-tech future Earth where ecological collapse and runaway evolution have conspired to create enemies no army has ever encountered before. Told through the eyes of a young soldier seeking to escape a grim past, the action-packed plot holds tight to a human dimension."--Linda Nagata, author of The Red Trilogy

“Awesome read! The language takes you into the world of the story. The first-person voice invites you to internalise the world of the character, a time and place strangely prescient. Joel Dane has created a uniquely familiar world reminiscent of the Mesozoic Era of large predators, only in the future. I look forward to seeing what he writes next.” – Nico Lathouris, screenwriter, Mad Max: Fury Road
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Kill Orbit is a story that manages to convey the horrors of the threat that the protagonists face without falling into the trap of killing characters for the sake of having "impactful" scenes. The end result is that every death is written to be actually meaningful and leaves the listener with the same regret and sadness that the protagonist feels.

The two main problems in this story is first that the audio is mixed so that some characters are inaudible outside of perfect listening conditions (a quiet room with headphones on) and secondly that one character is written to be implausibly stupid as a cheap attempt at comic relief. The second problem in particular detracts from the believability of the world of Kill Orbit, which is a shame considering that it would have been a great opportunity to show some real character development over the course of the trilogy.

Overall though, the trilogy is worth a listen if you are interested in gritty, realistic sci-fi and have some credits lying around.

A moving end to a decent book and a good series

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