From BSFA Award-winning author Gareth L. Powell comes the first in a new epic sci-fi trilogy exploring the legacies of war
The sentient warship Trouble Dog was built for violence, yet following a brutal war, she is disgusted by her role in a genocide. Stripped of her weaponry and seeking to atone, she joins the House of Reclamation, an organization dedicated to rescuing ships in distress. When a civilian ship goes missing in a disputed system, Trouble Dog and her new crew of loners, captained by Sal Konstanz, are sent on a rescue mission.
Meanwhile, light years away, intelligence officer Ashton Childe is tasked with locating the poet, Ona Sudak, who was aboard the missing spaceship. What Childe doesn't know is that Sudak is not the person she appears to be. A straightforward rescue turns into something far more dangerous, as Trouble Dog, Konstanz, and Childe find themselves at the center of a conflict that could engulf the entire galaxy. If she is to save her crew, Trouble Dog is going to have to remember how to fight ...
About the Author :
Gareth L. Powell is the author of five science-fiction novels and two short story collections. His third novel, Ack-Ack Macaque, book one in the Macaque Trilogy, was the winner of the 2013 BSFA novel award. He lives in Bristol, England.
Read by Nicol Zanarella, Amy Landon, Greg Tremblay, Soneela Nankani, and Natasha Soudek
Amy Landon, Earphones Award-winning narrator, is a voice artist and classically trained actress with numerous film, television, and off-Broadway stage credits. Her voice can also be heard on many television and radio commercials. She has an easy facility with dialects, which she also coaches and teaches, and she is happy to find her lifelong obsession with books pairing up with her acting and vocal work. Her narration of Texts from Jane Eyre placed as a finalist for the Audie Award for Best Humor Narration in 2016.
Greg Tremblay is a voice talent and Earphones Award-winning audiobook narrator.
Soneela Nankani is an award-winning narrator with over three hundred titles in many different genres including Young Adult, Fantasy, Romance, Sci-Fi, and Nonfiction. She has garnered sixteen Earphones Awards, nominations for Audie and SOVAS awards, and was recently awarded AudioFile magazine's Golden Voice Lifetime Achievement Honor. Her audiobooks have been featured in Best Audiobooks lists by AudioFile magazine and the Washington Post, among others. In her spare time, she loves to read (yes, really), learn languages, try new recipes, and travel. She lives in the DC area with her husband and two mischievous daughters.
If you've watched TV at all in the past ten years, you've definitely seen her face and heard her voice countless times in any number of wildly successful national, global, and Super Bowl commercials, as well as playing the first blond Vulcan in Star Trek history. The daughter of two English professors, Natasha Soudek was raised in the South, speaks native German, lived in Berlin and Vienna, and finally settled in the Lower East Side of New York City as a teenager. After honing her stage presence by studying acting and playing hundreds of sold-out live music shows (singing and playing bass), she moved to LA to record with Channel/DreamWorks and act on TV. Favored on KCRW, Chris Douridas compared her voice and songwriting to the Beatles' Let it Be in meaning and soulfulness . . . qualities that translate especially well into her career as an audiobook narrator. Her voice is as distinct and memorable as the range of characters she's played on-screen, which gives listeners an immediate familiarity to connect to, along with a warmth and intimacy that spans and uplifts any genre. Coming soon...
Review :
"A big book that hits all of the buttons that make space opera one of my favorite genres--a cold war ready to turn hot again, Big Dumb Objects, interesting and thorny interstellar plots and problems, and a set of compelling characters (including, memorably, an excellently depicted ship AI) caught in it."
-- "Tor.com"
"A book dominated by strong women, hairs-breadth escapes, interpersonal conflicts, and ultimately, the dogged determination of human beings, and others, to become better versions of themselves."
-- "Sci-Fi magazine"
"A nice blend of hardware and humanity...with elements of today and a logically projected far future...Leaves a group of enthralled readers hungry for more."
-- "New York Journal of Books"
"A quintet of narrators brings Powell's magnificent space opera to vivid life...It's a bold, ambitious story, with shifting points of view and multiple far-flung locales, and the audio adaptation would probably have been a mess if it had been the job of a single narrator. The team of five distinctive voices keeps listeners oriented--each of the narrators creates an easily recognizable character--and helps us know when the setting or POV has changed...An elegantly constructed sf story, beautifully written and expertly narrated."
-- "Booklist (audio review)"
"A smart, funny, tragic, galloping space opera that showcases Powell's wit, affection for his characters, world-building skills and unpredictable narrative inventions."
-- "Locus magazine"
"An emotionally wrenching take on life in a war-torn far future...The pace picks up as the threads begin to come together, leading to an explosive finale with strong series potential."
-- "Publishers Weekly"
"Fast, exhilarating space opera, imaginative and full of life."
-- "Adrian Tchaikovsky, author of Children of Time"
"It takes a village in this space-opera audiobook, the first volume in a new trilogy that examines the impact of war...The five narrators alternate chapters, voicing the rescue mission's captain, an intelligent warship turned rescue vessel, a war criminal turned poet, a disillusioned spy, and an alien mechanic who can't figure out these humans. The commonalities that come through their stirring performances are world-weariness and regret--and, in the end, hope. This series shows great promise, with its detailed surface barely scratched in this intriguing first novel."
-- "AudioFile"
"This is a true space opera, full of suspense, and mystery, and stuff blowing up real good--but it's the humanity of Powell's vision that truly makes it something special."
-- " Barnes&NobleSFF.com"
