Rath's Gambit

The Janus Group, Book 2

De: Piers Platt

Narrado por: James Fouhey

Rath just assassinated a senator, and completed his final mission for the Janus Group. Now every Interstellar Police officer on Alberon is searching for him. If they don't find him, one of his fellow contractors certainly will...and the most feared criminal organization in the galaxy has severe punishments for employees who break the rules. Rath's only hope is to find the rogue contractor who helped him escape a company deathtrap after his final mission. United, the two assassins might just get free from the Janus Group and get what they're owed. But first they'll need to survive.

©2015 Piers Platt (P)2015 Piers Platt

Good book, but very short.

Compelling and well written story.
That said, that this series is made up of five books, seems like the result of the author/publisher doing a profit maximizing analysis.

Was on sale for $10 so worth it

This Book is short and splitting the story like this is like how movies these days split the third book of a trilogy into two movies. The story is good and the performance is about as good as it gets on Audible so I think it was worth the $10, but I do not plan to pay more than this for any of the next four installations.

Didn't get my money's worth

Not enough happened in the book to make it seem like a full novel. The ending wasn't much of a cliff-hanger more lie the end of a chapter and a setup for the next book.

Otherwise the story was pretty good great concept - just some motivations and devices that don't seem too likely.

Too short.

I love the story but feel the author is cutting the books up to sell more.

Shorter than book one, equally compelling

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Absolutely. Book one (Rath's Deception) was a gripping and thrilling novel. I had to find out what happened next. Like many mystery/thriller novels, you're left wanting more, more, more. This is a great addition to The Janus Group series, one that doesn't fall short of a new, enticing story as a stand alone book.

What did you like best about this story?

I enjoyed the depth that this novel takes readers into the underlying elements of the story. To go into detail here would spoil the read, but Platt answers the necessary questions that were left from book one, and gives readers new thought provoking scenarios looking forward into book three.

Have you listened to any of James Fouhey’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

This is my second listen to Fouhey's performances. I enjoyed this novel more than book one, but this is preferenced by any lack of character performances that changed between the two novels in the series thus far. I think this is a testament to Fouhey's ability to keep characters unique, and as a listener, it allows me to immerse into a novel far easier with the continuity.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Exposure comes at a high price.

Any additional comments?

I was a large fan of the first novel, and now I am a fan of The Janus Group series. I look forward to book three's availability.

Rath still hasn't figured things out yet

Rath's Gambit, Book 2 of Piers Platt's The Janus Group picks up immediately where Book 1 finished. Rath must first remove his hemabots and turn off the automatic feed from his implants. He then embarks upon hooking up with contractor 339, but she fails to show. In desperation, Rath teams up with the disgraced and now fired detective Bousoran that assists in sleuthing out her location. In parallel, agent 339 has been sentenced to a prison camp out in the territories after a botched theft attempt. When Rath manages to bust her out of prison, they end up in the clutches of the Janus Group. The power structure behind the Janus Group is also revealed.

The sci-fi elements are in line with Book 1 with FTL spaceships and the nearly magic forge backpacks that can make almost anything needed if the plans are available. The writing is rather crude and the characters are becoming a bit rigid and formulaic with Rath the remorseful, 339 the cold blooded killer, and Bousoran the boy scout, but the story is compelling and engaging.

The narration is quite well done with an excellent range of voices, although delivery is a tad on the slow side.

great read

super solid sci-fi. the narrator hits the mark 95% of the time, missing the occasional voice inflection. besides that I loved it!

too short, man. come on,now!

Dude, it is too short and you know it. Well, at least, for this price. You or your publisher made a conscious decision cut it short and still charge the price of a book 2-3 times as long. You story is really good, man. Don't let such greedy tactics ruin you.

Warning: Cliffhanger

This is a hard review for me to write. The book was engaging, the narration was great, I was captivated throughout the entire book.

Issue? This book feels like a money grab. At 6 hours its short compared to most books, which would be fine if it was a nice self contained story. Its not, it leaves the reader in the middle of the story with "I hope you enjoyed this book" audible tag line.

So if you liked the first book in the series like I did and want to read more then you need to expect you will need to buy this book and then at least the next one. The next book picks up right where this book leaves off so its like they took the text of both books and arbitrarily decided they wanted more money and just cut this book off at a random point. Many times in a series there's a little bit of rehashing of the previous story so readers who happen to not read the previous books can jump into the story. This book (and it seems like the next book) have none of that. (which could be a good thing to some people)

I haven't made it through the entire series yet so i don't know if all the books end this way, just be prepared to pay 2 credits for this story arc to receive some sort of conclusion.

The issue with this review is I still liked the book, i like the way the author writes and i like the way the narrator reads so i cant really give this book less than 4 stars overall even though i really want to give it closer to 2 stars for how the publisher/author treats us, the readers.

Too short!

I'll admit I'm now invested in the story to the point I want to find out what happens to the characters.

But...a couple of notes first:

1) This second installment (Rath's Gambit) seemed much shorter than the first. I haven't compared the runtimes, so if they are similar it may be due to the plot being faster paced. Compared to the first book, which spanned over a decade, this one runs its course in weeks of plot time, so the action is more compressed.

Either way, it felt as if the story was cut in the middle, leaving me a bit surprised and disappointed.

2) Some of the plot points / events in the timeline seem disjointed, as if they should have occurred before reading other chapters...perhaps it's a plot device by the author, but in some instances it's not entirely clear why it's used. For example, in some cases it takes one character weeks to travel from one planet to the next, where others seem to make the journey extremely quickly.

One other thing that bugs me - and since this is sci-fi maybe it shouldn't, but the instant, flawless communication and interplanetary transmission of video and audio signals, even in remote places with seemingly no infrastructure or way to beam such a signal, sorta bugs me.

But it's Piers Platt's world and I'm just living in it.

Those grumbles aside, the story remains compelling. I'm buying the third book because I want to find out what happens to Rath and others.