a great sci fi listen

I am not a huge science fiction fan, but the cover and the price (its FREE) drew me in to read the book.
I really liked the print version, but liked the audio so much better.
I received the audio version from the author for an honest review
2500 years in the future from now, life has been settled on Mars because the Earth exists but not for human life. From the civilization on Mars, it is ruled by the Syndicate, where they expect the people of Mars to follow and believe all that they say or do. Freedom of speech and religion have no place with the Syndicate.
Serus works for the Agency. It is kind of a police force, but it is definitely not what we now know as a police force. The Agency is forced to follow the Syndicate and they are forced to kill who ever takes a contract out on anyone.
Serus is following an order when he finds out that his sister has a contract on her. When he was taken by the Syndicate for the Agency, he had to give up his family and his life as he knew it. But since his sister is his only remaining family, he wants to keep her safe.
Serus and Kara have no idea who they can trust and things are changing for the people of Mars. No is sure who they can trust.
If you are in to sci fi books, the Dead Planet series is a great start for anyone. Can't wait to read more because I want to find out what happens with Kara and Serus!

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predictable

This took too long to get to the point. Tell your reader to read it first next time.

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Exodus

What was one of the most memorable moments of Exodus?

"Dead Planet Book 1 Exodus" is an action packed and gripping thriller with plenty of turns in the plot to make it less predictable than the title suggests.
The setting on planet Mars in the distant future is a well chosen premise. Serus, the protagonist, is a police officer, brain washed and treated to conform with the orders by the Syndicate, the rulers of Mars.
His sister is a scientist and she has discovered a threat to the entire planet and becomes a target for the authorities who fear she might cause a panic.Despite his training to obedience. .
As the title suggests this is a series and the story will continue in the next book .

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Lots of action but not very realistic

Any additional comments?

For me the plot was good and so was the narration, this book does leave a lot of questions unanswered. To have come so far to live on Mars but not having a lot more than they had on earth is a little too much to believe. I expected it to be more advance but the only where I saw this was in their weapons. I found a lot that was hard to believe from the Mob not being able to keep track of their soldiers (hit men). If you are going to go as far as program humans I would have thought you would have put a device in them to know where they are and a way to kill them if they were to out step the line. This hit man was going to the hospital to visit a friend with no worries of being caught didn’t change his look at all even with a price tag on his head. This is how it goes through out the story. He doesn’t change his look until later at the end of this one or the beginning of the next one. Running around looking like a policeman is fine why he is on Mars but not so cool when on a space ship with a price on your head. It was way to easy for him to get in and out even when there were soldiers waiting for him on the outside. The members of the mob knew him, knows what he is doing but they let him get on the ship without stopping him even when he comes face to face with one. So much of this makes no sense to me but it does make a action pack read.

Mr. Kessel does a good job of narration at first I thought his tones were a little off but as he goes along he does get better with a few places sounding a little off. His character voices were not but when the female were angry they seemed a little too soft. At times it seems like he is pushing the emotion with other times hitting them right on the money. His different characters have nice pleasure voices. The voice he gave to the mob members were strong, deep and full of power. His performance for the most part was good he did make this a more pleasurable listen. A little more work is needed to make this come across more easy flow. At times if felt like the narrator was as lost as I was at times. If this is the case it would have a big effect on his narration. I did not hear any background noise. If any breaks were taken I could not tell. The music used at the beginning and end fits the story went well with the story wasn’t over powering and was very smooth as you go into the story. With not having enough information given and at times too much I thought this narrator did a great job. I have listened to the next one in this series and plan on listening to some more of his work to get the full impact. I really think with the right book this narrator would be outstanding. I just really felt he felt as lost as I was at times trying to understand all the pit falls of a story that leave so much out. I feel it was a 3.5 but giving him a 4 until I listen to more of his work.

The author does a wonderful job explain why Mars is falling and that the people haven’t learn must from the past using up it resource never looking to the future. I do understand why they would want to move on and why maybe earth might be the better place since so many years have passed it might have refueled itself. I understand why they picked who they picked to take back and why they tried to ease the peoples mind with the lies they told. To me this was just too unrealistic and leaves a lot of questions unanswered. We may find the answers in the next book or we may not. This book needs more development with more information given to make the reads understand the full impact the author is trying to give us. I did think it was entertaining and at times an interesting read but was very lacking. This is just my thoughts please give it a read or listen and see what you think. It has some major

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This is a simplistic story

It is far in the future and mankind has left the dying Earth to live on a terraformed Mars. Cruel syndicates (mobs) run commerce and government with an iron fist, murdering anyone who threatens their control. The main character is a hit-man who learns from his scientist sister that Mars is dying due to lack of maintenance of its nuclear power plants.

And that’s about it. This is a simplistic story of a one-dimensional character who kills his way through society to save his blubbering sister. She is being threatened by the mob who is letting Mars die so they can return to an empty Earth to build a bigger empire. If you are wondering why ruthless, megalomaniacal mobsters would destroy an entire developed, industrialized world to rebuild on one they previously abandoned, keep wondering; because you will not find the answer in this book. If you are wondering how a former hit-man can be threatened, tortured and captured multiple times, but always escape because his enemies neglect to take away his weapon, keep wondering.

Exodus reads like an outline of a story, without detail or texture. The buildings are “tall,” and night is “dark,” people get information from “media devices.” Of course this technique can give a sense of strangeness to a story, unworldliness, unfortunately in this case, the listener is simply given no soil for his imagination to grow. Mars and its inhabitants sound like a wire drawing done on a CAD program.

Al Kessel narrates Exodus and does a generally competent job. He seems to be trying hard to put excitement into the words that aren’t carrying it.

This reviewer knows the effort that goes into writing a book and respects that. Unfortunately, all that effort results in a book that is extremely difficult to listen to. If you are a fan of futuristic Sci-Fi mobster stories, you might give it a test run, but others should look elsewhere.

Audiobook provided for review by the narrator.

Please find this complete review and many others at audiobookreviewer dot com

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A Cool look at far future Mars.

I was given a code for this book by the author in return for an honest review, so here goes. I enjoyed this book, which is set on Mars 2500 years after a large, rich chunk of humanity left a dying earth. The rich oligarchs that financed the exodus, Known as the Syndicate, rule Mars with an iron fist, with a puppet pontiff controlling the masses spiritual lives, and the Policemen, basically political assassins, keeping the peace through fear. The story revolves around one of these policemen, Serus Blackwell.He is assigned to kill a member of the Syndicate. As he is about to kill the man, the man orders the death of Serus's sister, in a move that was not actually related to Serus. After he kills the man, Serus races off to save his sister. He kills the 3 Policemen assigned to kill her, and they start a race against time to save their lives. His sister is a scientist with shocking information: Mars is dying. The Artificial Magnetic field which keeps the atmosphere in and the meteors out is going to fail, since the nuclear reactors are out of enriched uranium. So begins a race against time to save their lives, and somehow find a way onto the transports going back to a primitive level Earth, where the Technologically superior Mars Humans will dominate. Through an exciting series of events, they manage to get onto the ships, where Serus and his sister have a final Showdown with the leader of the Syndicate.After that is resolved, Serus continues on to Earth, where he plans to put down the rest of the Syndicate, whatever the cost.

The story has a good pace, moving from place to place, fight to fight, without a huge lag in time. It has interesting characters, although the Syndicate leaders seemed a bit one dimensional, but then again, I imagine Oligarchs would be, so that's a wash. The technology is advanced without getting too techie, so its fun to imagine using it. Al Kessel did a decent job of narrating, using different tones and accent to differentiate the characters, although his accents seem to fall a bit flat, but not in any jarring or off putting way.Overall, a good read that I would recommend to any fans of Sci fi, and I will be waiting for book 2.

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Great story.

The premise and story of this book is great. The performance, although, is lacking somewhat.

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Poorly executed

I made it to the one-hour mark in the audible version of this and that’s it, I’m done.
What killed the read for me:
1) RUE (resist the urge to explain). When RUE is not enforced the reader is left with several, “Thanks Captain Obvious” moments. Being talked down to is annoying, and in general it makes a read very self-conscious. Explaining a culture, a place we’ve never seen before, or the way an unknown technology works is fine. Explaining that a character loves his sister because she’s his sister is just a waste of word count.
2) One dimensional characters. Using exposition narrative/exposition internal dialog to tell the reader x,y,z about a character is fine, however using this as the only way to define a character makes them one dimensional. The tricky thing about a character telling the reader how super cool and smart they are in a first person narrative, is the reader will assess how big of a liar the character is based on their actions over the course of the book. If actions are not witnessed to support most of the characters super cool and smart claims, then the reader will feel detached from the character and the ongoing plot.
3) The futuristic cultural elements failed to meet my common sense thresh hold. Mars has been colonized but its run by a tyrannical government. There’s no crime because if you commit a crime assassins will be sent to kill you. Wow, how does that work? The people selected for assassin roles are removed from their families and not allowed to get married or have close relationships with anyone. They also can’t own property and are rigorously tortured before being given a role that makes them the social pariah’s of their society. Why do these guys want to participate in life at all? It goes against some pretty basic fundamental facts about human phycology, and I couldn’t listen to Serus Blackwell try and rationalize why he was motivated to do anything anymore.

This is the kind of read where I sit amazed at the writers willing to figure out how to self publish and promote a book to the masses, but aren’t willing to fund a basic copy edit or read a few books to improve their writing craft. If a writer doesn’t take the occupation of writing seriously enough to spare readers from copy edits and several adverbs, then I can’t in good faith recommend the work.

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