Audio Book Review: Icarus

Icarus

By:  Matt Verish

Publish Date:  April 1, 2016, Audiobook May 24, 2016

Format:  Audiobook - 7 hrs 58 mins
Narrated By:  Kevin Pierce

Genre:  Science Fiction

Series:  1st in Interstellar Cargo series

Impression:  Becoming criminals (willing or not) makes for strange new friends and allies.

Synopsis:
Cole Musgrave’s dream of interstellar travel is about to become a nightmare. When a high-profile delivery is compromised aboard a state-of-the-art cargo vessel, the newly appointed captain finds himself embroiled in an assignment far above his pay grade.

Blackmail, terrorists, a malfunctioning prototype A.I. pilot, and a sinister terraforming corporation with deep criminal ties await him. Who knew delivering cargo to the deep recesses of space could be so dangerous?

Armed only with his cunning and past military experience, Cole is one against many. But this unorthodox interstellar cargo pilot won’t go down without a fight—even after he is faced with a choice that will alter the course of his life forever.

First Sentence:
Thirteen years of kissing corporate ass, and it's finally paying off.

Purchase At:
Amazon   

Audible


My Thoughts and Summary:
*This audiobook was provided by the author, narrator, or publisher at no cost in exchange for an unbiased review courtesy of AudiobookBoom dot com, at my request.

Kevin Pierce is a new narrator for me. He feels as he's a wonderful pick for Cole's voice. He gives a relaxed voice to Cole's personality we feel in Matt's words. We don't get different tones for each character but Kevin narrates the story with a clear audio and background, seamless in the finished product.

From the beginning Cole seems like a relaxed, laid back kind of pilot. It seems all the others around him are a bit more reserved and professional. Cole's put a lot of work in with the SolEx corporation, of which he doesn't fit into, to bring his family name in good standings and become the captain on their cargo vessel. He's a veteran star-force pilot that's needed to fly this experimental vessel, and he's thrilled for the honor.

It seems like a dream come true, until the ship is hijacked. Cole goes along with what the hijackers as he is outnumbered and not much of a choice. But the people around him all seem to have a nature true to their driven feelings. There comes to be two different end result agendas of the rebels working to hijack the vessel. They have reasons for what they are doing - family or beliefs. But then as we go through the story all the interaction seems to take on a dry humor for me. Cole becomes a part of the uncanny crew as they take on new members.

I think one of my favorite characters was Rig when he joined the crew. He sees a humor in things as he should have died once, and didn't. But his end result could be the same at any moment. Rig tells the crew they are all crazy, on a few occasions. CAIN is a rather interesting character too. CAIN is the AI of the ICV-71 that is evolving in his own knowledge. In the end, CAIN seems to go to an extreme, as computer programs can do.

For almost half of the book we get the story from Cole's POV. Then we switch to the engineer's POV, Lin. Lin is a growing important person in what is done in the first half, leading to the moment when we switch to her POV. Then we shared POV's between Cole and Lin, which gives us two views of the world and events, even when they are separated.

There are scenes that felt to be to long as the characters try to figure out how to get away undetected, but they are sitting still and wasting time trying to figure it out. These moments gave a feel to parts of the book as it's drawn out. I found I wanted more from the characters and plot. Something to drive the characters a little more as we have a background and reasoning drive for them all, for their wants, but it didn't seem to be flushed out to grow the world and more. And I don't understand how the company who created the valuable ICV-71 is not trying to retrieve the vessel, but Terracom (who SolEx is to be "partnered" with on a few deals) is working faster to track their prisoner/debtor that escaped. I know the business relationship between Terracom and SolEx is rather rocky now (with an event caused by this crew), and CAIN disabled the programs and connections so SolEx can't find them, but SolEx doesn't have mercenaries or trackers out looking for ICV-71? Just my crazy thinking. Maybe the next books will have this in it...

Becoming criminals (willingly or not) makes for strange new friends and allies. The crew of ICV-71 becomes an awkward relationship as they all have different motives once they are known around the universe as criminals - some want to clear their name, others want to accomplish personal goals.

I enjoyed listening to this book as it kept the story moving for me.