Drone Ensign

A Sci-Fi LitRPG Story (Drone Rising, Book 1)

By: Kyle Johnson

Narrated by: Stephanie Nemeth Parker

Humanity has moved far beyond the cradle of Earth, into the stars themselves. In the Collective, energy is limitless, travel and communication are nearly instantaneous, and every person's basic needs are fully met. Citizens are free to choose the lives they wish to lead, and the omnipresent Overnet tracks their strength, power, and accomplishments. Even death has been vanquished, and Citizens are effectively immortal, reborn anew after each death.

Benning Kidd is a Drone, the lowest class of humanity. She exists without memory, purpose, or more than the most basic awareness of herself and the world around her. An accident changes all that, and Benning becomes a Citizen of the Collective, the first Drone to do so in history. She is uniquely talented and unscrupulously driven, choosing a path of battle and glory that will take her from arena to arena and out among the stars themselves. Benning's existence, though, is a threat to those in power, and forces move against her from the moment she steps out of the respawn chamber. As a starship officer, she's sworn to serve her new captain, but he might not be serving her in turn. She faces threats from without and within, and the only person she can trust is her personal AI, who guides her through the Collective.

Her only chance of survival is to be stronger, smarter, and more cunning than those who stand in her way. Her path is unique, and only she can forge it. She is the Drone Ensign, warrior and starship officer, and none will stop her from fulfilling her desires!

©2021 Kyle Johnson (P)2021 Kyle Johnson

Insights into humanity

Now with immortality !

A good listen, with an engaging and inventive story line. MC draws you in slowly then bang your hooked. No bouncing around timelines or POV Just straight progression

The narrator does a superb job and is easy on the ears.

The Narrator needs to learn units of measure..

Or specifically learn to properly pronounce metric units of measure. She pronounces them as they are spelled..so ‘cm’ is ‘sem’ or meters are ‘ems’.

Pulls you out trying to figure out what she is talking about. Like ‘AU’s she pronounces phonetically instead of saying the acronym. It’s not a word!

Kilograms she says ‘kigs’ and kilometers are ‘kilms’ … why can’t she say ‘kilos’ or ‘klicks’ like they are usually shortened to by people who use them?

Otherwise she is good, just sounds ignorant of basic nomenclature.

Story is great. MC seems pretty neurodivergent so it was hard to really identify with her and follow her decisions. She has little to no empathy and is incredibly selfish. The events around the MC and the world building are what kept me interested.

Starts slow, great high concept

This book has truly a whopper of an information dump at the start. I almost put it down. However, once it gets going it's not bad and it has a great high concept.

Great work done

The story was a great new take and a very easy introductory story for this genre. While seeming YA in nature, and honestly, probably being so, the entirety of this story was all written given from the perspective of a multiple level minority character, while also giving the ability for that character to learn and grow. Other reviewers have talked about issues with the way that the narrator performed and pronounced certain things (measurements etc) However, it is expressly explained in the beginning of the book that these things would be changed so that it would be easier to digest. All in all, it is a good story with an interesting promise, but in need of maybe a little bit of character development hopefully seen in book two.

Yes! Space Opera LitRPG

I've been so excited for this release. Actually watching for it for quite some time wondering when it would come out on audio. The voice acting was stellar, the writing solid, and a great value. Highly recommend.

An interesting start to the series.

This new series is fairly different from this author's other works. Especially the main character. While I certainly wouldn't want to meet the MC I am definitely looking forward to seeing where her path takes the story.

Interesting world, unlikable MC

I rarely DNF books. The ones I drop in the last fifth or so can be counted on one hand. I just couldn't finish this one.

It starts well. Very well. The world building is good, and the narrator does a fine job. Unfortunately, the MC becomes entirely unsympathetic about halfway through the book. Her worldview can be summed up as, "It doesn't matter who I hurt out of self-interest, as long as I don't enjoy it."

If you like despicable MCs, enjoy. Otherwise, expect to be disappointed.

Very much YA

I was totally unable to get caught in the story - way too much Young Adult or perhaps Very Young Adult for me.

a bog standard rebellion story

hero is neuro divergent, a minority, is not evil because only systems can be evil, will one day create a rebellion freeing an enslaved people. this story I would have called good back in 2014 but I've heard it so many times in so many ways now it's hard to not simply be board.