Amazing Start for a New Series. Great Sci-fi.

I thought that this was an excellent audiobook. It was original, unpredictable, well performed, left me excited for the next book in the series.

The Starship Eternal storyline held elements similar to 2 other book series (Though, in my opinion, it had a much better execution).
The first is The Lost Starship series by Vaughn Heppner. The similarity here is the overall story concept that involves the main character looking for a "lost ship" that may hold the key to defeating a new and deadly threat.
The Synchronicity War series by Dietmar Wehr was the other series that came to mind, with story that involves time traveling messages.
Now, normally I'm not a fan of stories that involve time travel, but this one included it as only a part of the overall plot without making it seem too unrealistic (in my opinion) and is still able to keep all of the space space battles and other great sci-fi content.

The story starts with a marine who was recently involved in a massive space battle. It should have been a total defeat, but thanks to a design flaw in a new enemy ship and a lucky shot by the main character it became a last minute win. Now a hero, the military has assigned him to public relations duty. He’s sent around to talk shows, recruiting drives, and dinners with famous people. He begins to fall into a deep depression due to the loss of the rest of his unit, including his lover.
After a misunderstanding involves him being framed for the rape of the prime minister’s wife, a stranger helps him escape the planet. The stranger turns out to be a future version of himself, and tells him that he came from a different timeline to save him and alter future events. If the main character can’t find a ship that dates back to the early days of earth (called the Goliath), then the human race will be destroyed by a new mysterious enemy.
He escapes the planet in a small modified fighter, and is picked up by an old mining ship. The ship turns out to actually be a covert ops naval ship that is manned by highly skilled ex-military personnel who have committed serious crimes. The secret program allowed highly promising service members to continue to serve in the military rather then face death sentences or life in prison. Most of the missions they are assigned to are dangerous with very low survival rates, and the crew is essentially considered expendable.
As human planets begin to fall to these new aliens, the main character must rely on the crew of criminals, an old mining ship, and obscure clues to find a way to find the long lost ship and stop the new seemingly invincible foe.

I thought that this was an outstanding book. All of the characters seemed real, the story is full of twists and surprises, and there is a lot of action including several space battles.
The narrator did a great job as well.

This one was definitely worth the credit. I can’t wait for the next in the series!

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30 people found this helpful

full of action and plot twists

Captain Mitchell Williams is the celebrated hero of the recent battle which saved Planet Liberty. Unfortunately, it’s all a lie, his wing mate and lover actually did it, sacrificing herself in a suicide attack against overwhelming odds. But the Alliance is keeping quiet, using Mitchell as a PR pawn to attract military recruits. The Alliance and Federation are 400 year old Earth factions who have been at war since an alien ship crashed into the Earth in the mid-21st Century.

Mitchell hates taking the credit, but goes along with the ruse until he is lured into a sexual liaison with the Prime Minister’s wife. Accused of rape and exposed as a fraud, he has only one option—run—but where? He is helped by criminals, an antique ship with future technology and even his past self. Barely making it to the edge of known space, he finds more questions than answers.

Starship Eternal has some time travel elements, but they are more conceptual than actual. Most of the action is real time and no one is jumping forward or backward at will. The novel is more of a high-tech military story with plenty of fighting action and military situations, brain implants, medical nano-bots, lasers and force fields. Much of the story takes place on a mining ship full of court-martialed misfits who run espionage runs when they aren’t trying to kill each other.

There is plenty of action throughout the story to keep any space war junky happy. Mitchell has every woman after him, getting enough sex for half the galaxy, though none of it described explicitly.

The story is read by Jeffery Kafer who does a very good job. He has a pleasant baritone voice and is good with character changes. You will enjoy listening to his voice through the length of the novel and presumably, through the sequels.

Starship Eternal is a great ride, full of action and plot twists that keep the listener thoroughly entertained. Though, technically SciFi military, it has a lot of space opera elements that give it a much wider feeling. Time travel is a central element of the story, but the scientific explanations don’t hold much water, better not to over think it. Just go with it and enjoy the ride. The novel wraps up the initial action well while still leading the listener to the sequel.

Audiobook provided for for review by the publisher via audiobookblast

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22 people found this helpful

Slower moving than molasses out doors in January.

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

There's nothing I enjoy more than laying back with my eyes closed, listening to a long audio-book, perhaps even a series,.but there simply must be a reason it's long. Give me content, not hours of back story about characters in chapter 10, that you intend to kill off in Chapter 12,

What could M.R. Forbes have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Don't spend 18 chapters building characters and in 5 minutes throw all of physics in the trashcan, introduce a new idea of preconceiving by something called "circular time". Up until the 18th of chapter this audio book was moving so slow that I couldn't imagine listening to it for the full 9+ hours required to finish it.

What aspect of Jeffrey Kafer’s performance would you have changed?

Not much at all. The poor man was handicapped by the author.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

The level of disappointment felt was Eminence. I enjoy long books and I enjoy long series of good books even more, but the author must be up to the challenge. This was the first book I've bought by M.R. Forbes and I might try another in the future, but it will not be a book from this series.

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13 people found this helpful

reader whispers for narration

Hard to keep adjusting volume. Should be run through normalize program. Also has vocal fry.

Book itself it excellent.

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12 people found this helpful

Another dud

This must be the 8th book in a row that I have tried that has been poorly written and poorly read.

Don’t bother with a listen a few minutes into the book the reader becomes like white noise.

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8 people found this helpful

Good read.

Great story and the narration was great. I would recommend this fast paced story to anyone looking for action science fiction.

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5 people found this helpful

Great start to a new series!

Fantastic story and great performance. I can't wait to see where this story goes. If I had one complaint it would be the end of the book is a little heavy handed with screaming it's the first in a new series of books.

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4 people found this helpful

A grind

This story appears to have been reviewed by bots or people who did not listen to it. Feel free to peruse them and you can see the “person” has nothing to say.

The plot is hackneyed, slow-moving, and the characters cardboard cutouts. The “lost ship” hasn’t made an appearance and I am almost done with the book, but am giving up. This is one of those go here, go there stories in spaceships and good old FTL drives. Almost no science, no wonder, no descriptions, no fun.

Audible needs to do something about fake reviewers. It is dragging down the brand.

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3 people found this helpful

Really good book

Really spectacular book with great character development and an exciting plot. I thought the narration was spectacular - a real tour de force.

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3 people found this helpful

Not enough emotional content

Didn't get time to care about the characters before they died. Narrator was very monotone and did not enhance the the experience.

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3 people found this helpful