Decent'ish plot undermined by awful narration

The narrator is just damned awful. I did a review early on into listening to this just because I couldn't help how annoyed I was by the absolutely terrible narration.
It only got worse after a third of the way in. So much so, that it was actually putting me in a bad mood listening to it. It was like she was challenging my attempt to like the story.
The characters all sound more or less the same... One of the female characters was later revealed to be Australian (I think... Based on the narrators' strange pronunciation).
But not once did that character speak in a voice or with mannerisms from Australia. So the fault of the author and the narrator?
That put me in the mind, I think, to be extra critical as the story unfolded.

So where I enjoyed the early initial pop-culture and Halo references, more and more and more and more and MOOOORE I felt like this was a fantasy reenactment of core elements from Halo.
Paul is John (Master Chief).
He and his team are the 2's, as in Spartan II's.
He's not the best at anything (besides naval strategy- I'll get back to that), but his overall approach makes him generally the best - another Master Chief knock-off.
They are a tiny limited sampling of all of Humanity, apparently special above and beyond the rest of the species, as made apparent by the discussion about the second class(Another knock-off with them having their own sign language and being practically psychic with one another), another seeming knock-off of Halo and the Spartan-IIs.
Several integral characters (in the sense of their role, not their characterisation) have the names of popular/notable characters out of Halo.
Even the damn training missions are on terrain they literally name after multiplayer maps from Halo because they're described as practically identical.
I mean.... Maaaaan, why?

I understand the notion that training people from younger ages means that they have fewer bad habits and have more room to grow. In fact, I embrace that notion.
But why would Space Force hedge all of their bets on totally green recruits?
When they could draw their first crews from currently active duty/recently active-duty soldiers, aviators, officers and so forth who are the best at what they do and simply throw them further education and training?
And would more than likely already have harder mindsets about battle.

There are other elements that are just plain ridiculous - like the discussion between the director and the head trainer about nature versus nurture with the female participants.
They deduce what all of modern physical science has deduced contrarily; that women are actually physically able to match men in all circumstances if they aren't nurtured to be submissive by society.
I'm paraphrasing there, but that was the gist of it.
As someone with a career in the physical world of fitness and physiology, this is goddam flatly wrong.
There are many female athletes who are damn exceptional, and I absolutely admire anyone, regardless of gender, for pushing themselves above and beyond their current limits to set a new high for themselves, but the average non-fitness invested man can outperform many women whose vested interest/career is fitness related.
I know that there are loads of exceptions, but the topic was talking on averages, so that's the actual average.
It was just so scientifically ridiculous that I had to fight to not be annoyed by it.

I felt that was again another attempt to be like Halo. Where the female Spartans are almost as super-human as the male. However, where Halo got the nuance of that right, with the women still being physically less muscularly capable than the men, they were all augmented to enhance them further above the normal human standard.

Did I mention there's a female Spartan they nickname the Rabbit because she's the fastest? Or am I talking about this fanfiction? I mean this novel...
If the gendered point there had never been raised in that manner, and it had only been that the women in this program were just exceptional performers without any relation to broader human physiology, then that wouldn't have bothered me.
There was even the mention that the original Human strain brought to Earth by the Dino's had even less physical differences between male and female.
This raises the question of such an advanced race; if Humans are the slave/fighting force, why even carry around different genders? Terribly inefficient.

So the crazy long and decreasingly interesting training montage continues (I mean the whole novel by that) all the way to the naval strategy point, and surprise surprise, Gary Stu (Paul), shows that he's clearly the most advanced space navy strategic mind on the planet.
Never mind the physicists who designed/engineered the weaponry, the aviators who have spent their lives working out a dynamic battle strategy, or any straight-up military strategists.
I wouldn't have found that bothersome had the strategy not been so obvious and had the trainers been able to see it.

There's a whole element early on in the story that sets the stage for the fact that everything about the operation was the best of the best.
So how come the trainers are rampantly unprofessional? And seemingly have limited tactical skillsets? And can physically be outperformed by youths, who even with a natural genetic predisposed edge, are still years their juniors in all things fitness, education, and reflexive training.

I strongly got the impression that the author wanted the youths to be shining examples of success and specialness, but rather than work out how to overcome advanced trainers in a timely description, he limited the behaviours and skills of the trainers so that it was easier in the narrative for the trainees to win, while superimposing the notion that they were impressive for it.
The training missions themselves were uninteresting and I found it hard to imagine based on the descriptions.

The whole training montage could have been skipped with several simple paragraphs of recapping describing arduous special forces style training that through great dedication and struggle they managed to eventually overcome and excel beyond.

The opening plotline about the Dinosaur'y aliens drew me in, and I still enjoy the concept, but this training montage Halo knock-off story has seriously tested my desire to continue to enjoy the base narrative that I'm waiting to return in hopefully the next instalment.
I think my desire to like this story is all that's keeping me from giving it a 1/5, given what I describe and see to be major flaws.

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I understand the story buut

Narration had no tempo. stopped started miss pronounced slurred I am sorry to say it was painful. please re do, the story us a good one

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Brilliant start to an origin story. Recommend

Brilliant start to an origin story.
A little slow here and there, and I'm pretty sure the narrator changes next book.
Decent character building.
Really good listen.
Recommend

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slow

slow windup, hopefully the story can continue to Finnish, and doesn't rush the actual meat of the story. good idea and world building so far. At the moment it's a good idea if grows into a great story rating will rise.

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OMG, So bad

This was just so bad in story and narration that I cant describe it, I need to process it before I post a proper review.

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1 person found this helpful