Ashen Stars

Exile, Book 0

By: Glynn Stewart

Narrated by: JD Jackson

A Captain shielded by his mother’s rank. An enemy determined to buy freedom with blood. A battle no one expected to fight.

Captain Isaac Gallant is the only son of the dictator of the Confederacy, his career slowed by a dozen measures to protect his reputation and safety alike - but he has no intention of being a pampered child. He is determined to do his duty. An attempt to force his crew to acknowledge their own duties puts his ship in a unique position to intervene when an overwhelming rebel attack is launched on one of the Confederacy’s most critical facilities. The rebels didn’t expect to fight anyone. The Confederacy didn’t expect Isaac Gallant to fight at all. All of them were wrong.

©2018 Glynn Stewart (P)2021 Podium Audio

Very entertaining.

Great plot, good narration. Time well spent. Go ahead and hit the play button. Enjoy!

Good short story, I liked it. **** **** **** ****

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I .A. THIS IS A PAIN TO REVIEW

Enjoyable short

Short - less than 2 hour, detailed account of the 1st (major) battle in the dictator's son's lackluster career.
Accounts well for himself considered everyone had beeen sheltering him from any chance of being in a precarious situation.
Done in fine fashion, as al this author's stories are.
This was covered, from what I remember in another book, but this short gives an expanded look into this piece of action & I think will be enjoyed by any fan of rhe series.
Loved getting a great freebie like this woth my membership!

great introduction

having read the books. I was looking forward to hearing them. and this book is a good introduction to the series.

Good story, frustrating narration

A good space drama, clear introductory to a larger series but still a fun read.

However, the narrator often feels like he's teaching the book. He does different voices well but the tone often has a "let me tell you this fact" sense to it that takes you out of the story.

solid but not spectacular

yes this is a short story and as such won't have near the depth of a full book. I guess I was expecting a little more than it delivered however. if you haven't read/listened to book 1 then stop reading if you dont want spoilers...

ok. so we knew from book 1 that it starts off with adm. Isaac Gallant coming out of the shadows in rebellion of his mother and the confederacy. I expected this to lead up to that point. instead the clock was rolled back further & this story never got to the point of his full secret rebellion coming out into the open where book 1 started. I was expecting this prequel to fill that gap in a bit more and is why it left me wanting more.

it was fine to explain how he became the heir apparent to his mother and the confederacy through his, ahem, gallant actions ;). and how he had the seeds of disillusion planted in this prequel leading up to his rebellion that book 1 starts off with. thats why I consider this a solid entry...but spectacular would have been bringing this up to the point of his outright rebellion and partnering with the unknown and secret leader of the rebellion that book 1 explains and unfolds. I would say this book probably needed 1-2 more hours to fill in that gap...kind of like what expeditionary force did with their smaller books that were 1/2 to 1/3 the normal book length (roughly 4 hours each). this book is just under 2 hours and again...not bad, pretty solid, but definitely left me wishing for more of the story between where this ended and book 1 begins.

ps. again JD Jackson as a narrator was also decent after listening to book 1, its what I expected. but I was also hoping for a little more. he still narrates and speaks as character as if speaking to an elementary aged audience. but im grateful there was no f bombs in this prequel which was rather jarring to hear combined with the elementary aged style of Jackson. perhaps I could ding this to 3 stars for performance if I was being cruel, but no swearing gives this a tie breaker to 4 stars. I was truly hoping that perhaps Jackson would grow into the role for this series a little more...a bit more gravitas and seriousness to the story set in a rough and tumble galactic struggle (and likely why book 1 contained quite a bit of language to try to make it edgier...but truly unnecessary if narrated better imho). but hey always room to grow right?

oh. speed 1.05x is much easier to listen to (maybe even 1.1x). just my personal preference! :D

A great book ,

It was short but was able to follow along , the narrator was great

Brilliant

An incredible piece of Sci-Fi space opera equal to any of Roddenberry’s great adventures!

Short intro to this story

Want to know what happens next. Short and sweet intro into an interesting story line

Wow!!!! What a story.

Where can I get the paper back??
As I see, it was great. Like e-books but some time printed books are best. Just wished they were not so bulky.