This is a fun, if flawed, listen. If I were reading this on paper, I would have likely considered it an okay book. Baldree’s excellent narration, though, will likely ensure that this falls into my replay list multiple times. If you like realistic sci-fi, I’d recommend giving it a shot.

Consistent with his Dungeon Crawler Carl series, Dinniman seems to be strongest in character writing and world building. It’s curious how he manages to make Sonora feel like a quaint, falling-down nowheresville in rural America while also being a futuristic society only a couple of generations old.

This extends to the characters. Our crew is a bunch of down-to-earth everyday folks who just muddle through the story. I actually found myself choking up a bit when one of the side characters died–not because of how important or fleshed out he was, but because he might’ve been someone who went to my church or sat next to me at a high school ballgame.

Fortunately, these elements do most of the thematic legwork in this story because the narrative itself is kind of janky. The pacing is kind of in fits and starts, relying heavily on exposition dumps. The action sequences are slightly underwhelming, as the physical conflict is mostly on a scale such that the viewpoint character can hardly contribute. The ending itself feels rather rushed, with conversations that feel like setup for the final conflict tangled into the resolution. Some of these factors (especially the last) are possibly intentional, but they kind of disrupted the overall story structure, though not to the point of derailing it completely.

I already mentioned the fact that the narrator does an excellent job, but I’ll repeat it here for completion sake: the narrator does an excellent job. He does a fantastic job with accents to bring the characters to life, and I found his speaking voice for Oliver to be a delight with his noticeable but inoffensive hayseed accent. When characters are already the strong point of the story, giving them a good voice greatly enhances the experience.

Altogether, I thoroughly enjoyed this experience. If you have a credit to spend, this is a worthy choice.