Gemini

By: Ray Jay Perreault

Narrated by: Ed Waldorph

If you want to try a different sci-fi or you're tired of the same superheroes with the amazing weapons, then try a story about real aliens. How they live, love, and survive. They start as a naïve society that has everything, and when they ask a simple question, they are attacked and learn to defend themselves.

©2016 Raymond Perreault (P)2017 Raymond Perreault

Interesting Story

This audio has a very interesting storyline. However, sometimes I felt that it wasn’t believable. I think a different narrator would have made for a better audio.

Gemini

Any additional comments?

The discovery of a new planet or life isn't always worth taking a chance to make contact. This was an awesome listen. A very entertaining scfi audiobook.

May your soul always bear jargon.

Ray Jay Perreault is a classic style writer of science fiction, his work building on character and ideas, challenging thought. This seemingly simple story is, in fact, a challenging tale of change, coexistence and love for others. In order to establish the original way of life on Varo, a planet seemingly circling a sun alone in the distant galaxy, considerable time is spent word holding, establishing the society and politics, agriculture and daily life. The inhabitants are a peaceful people, living in harmony with each other and their sacred soil, to which they will one day return, and which provides everything they need for life. Without personal ambition to rule over others, leaders emerge naturally chosen as needed, but, although respected, they are not higher in the social system, there is no divide between rich and poor and all are fed and housed and comfortable. Life is good.
Then into this world comes a different, invading culture, threatening everything held dear. To survive they must face this new intrusion. To survive, they have to change. After the book's leisurely beginning, the pace increases as the people try to save their place on the planet.that has been their home and comfort back into the depths of time.

Ed Waldorf's narration, whilst being steady and clearly given, is not inspirational, being rather unemotional and far too slow. Increasing the speed helps a little but, combined with some repetition in the text in early stages of the book, his performance could deter some listeners from going beyond this stage into the more action filled sections which follow. Which would be a great pity. This is a book well worth reading.
My thanks to the author for freely gifting me a complementary copy of Gemini. I have read and enjoyed many of his earlier works, such as SIMPOC, and the other associated Virus stories. This one is different but still explores the nature of humanity - even amongst aliens.

Overall Solid Sci-Fi Book

As other reviewers have stated, the book does start off a little slow and the narrator takes some getting used to. However, at some point, I actually enjoyed listening to his reading. The story is actually very riveting and I felt drawn into the battles and story. This is one of those stories that one must really be patient with as the plot and narration do get better and better. Honestly, this is a pretty good book if you have the patience and it is reasonably priced.

I was given a free review copy in exchange for a review, but I hope my true thoughts come out in this review. It's not perfect but it is pretty good.

May your soil always bear Jabon

This book has an interesting premise and reminded me of some of the early 1950's sci-fi books/movies. However, this interesting idea seemed to have gotten bogged down in a lot of minutiae.

The Raog are a peaceful species and become curious about a possible twin planet. When they send up a satellite to find out if the planet exists, all of that changes.

If I had been reading a physical book instead of listening to it on Audible, I would probably have skipped a lot of it. The first part was rather boring and read more like a technical paper on how to grow the Raog's one crop, Jabon. Also, it was hard to follow the story at times because of the foreign names and the author's style of jumping from place to place a lot without any explanation.

The writing style was also more like a technical paper, without any flow or attempt to draw the reader into the story. And, why oh why, did Mr. Perreault feel that each and every time that a character left, they had to say, "May your soil always bear Jabon"!!!

The narration was OK, but very uninspiring. I don't know if this is due to the style of writing or not. Mr. Waldorph was basically just reading the book aloud without any emotion attached at all.

If you are a diehard sci-fi fan, especially of old style sci-fi, give this a try. I think that the whole story could have been a great novella, but seemed a little long in this format.

I was gifted a copy of this Audible book by the author and chose to review it.

I am really torn on my review of this book

I found the narration to be doll and droning and the book to be slow pace and repetitive at times. It sounds like I didn't like the book, but actually I like it very much. My best advice would be to purchase the book if you don't like it you can always return it. I think that most fans of science fiction will enjoy it a Great deal. I was gifted this book by the author, all opinions in this review our my own

Complex character development and world-building

I love it when an indie author finds a way to take a well-worn genre and breathe some life into it. Ray Jay Perreault takes a classic 1960s-70s scifi theme and brings it into the 21st century. Reminiscent of Ursula K. Le Guin and Robert A. Heinlein, this novel delves bravely into the cultural motivations and sociological possibilities of an entirely alien culture. Is it exciting? I can't claim that it is. But is it interesting? Certainly.

I enjoyed meeting and getting to understand the Raog people, just as much as I enjoyed learning about Valentine Michael Smith, when I met him in Stranger in a Strange Land. The bonus with Gemini was the refreshing lack of 20th century misogyny typical of those classic getting-into-the-heads-of-aliens novels, something this reader did not miss.

As for the audio portion of this presentation, I'm sorry to admit I found the narration terrible. The narrator, Ed Waldorph, simply read, both slowly and painstakingly, which drained any possible energy from the story. As well, the version I heard had some intermittent background noises that were distracting. Given the chance, I would have preferred to actually read, as the complexities of the characters and world-building were lost in an almost disinterested style of reading.

Four stars for the story, one grudging star for the narration --> three stars overall.

Good book but

I like getting the audible book sometimes and I did on this one . I did enjoy the book but could not stand listening to the narrator . He is the worst one I have ever listened to. About as boring as watching paint dry. I switched to my Echo and let her read it.

Compelling storytelling experience.

Gemini is an interesting book with an alien world he has invented and a very pertinent conflict. Ra Jay Perreault has done some very good storytelling, and the narration by Ed Waldorph adds texture. One of a kind audiobooks in sci-fi!

A utopia disrupted

If you like detailed science fiction that drops you into a new and exciting world, I believe you will enjoy “Gemini” which is written by Ray Jay Perreault and narrated by Ed Waldorph. The author is known for his saying, “A good science fiction author shows you an alien world; a great one takes you there.” Even though there were a few slower parts to the story, I cannot deny the author actually took me to this new and wonderful world called Gemini. The story is packed with action, emotion, and love. From the book, you really get a sense of who and what the native people are along their culture. The story is quite different from his other books such as SIMPOC and Virus, this one takes the reader to a whole new world. I enjoyed the book and even though it may have seemed slower at times allowing the author to help us understand this world, by the end, it seemed to all fit together and it made for quite a story. If you are looking for a science fiction tale of a distant world, pick up Gemini and give it a listen.

Let me say up from that the first chapter of the book spends a large amount of time getting the listener up to speed on who these people are, how they live, and the planet in general. In a world where we are expected to be dropped right into action and adventure, this book instead takes its time to simmer and allow the reader to come to know its inhabitants; and for me that was a good thing. The author takes time to tell us about the seasons and what they are called, the food the people eat, and their love of life in general. You are presented with a utopian society where roles are shared across the genders and also assigned to those most capable of accomplishing them which brings the greatest good to the culture as a whole. We see their intelligence, enjoyment of music, a focus on religion, and their embracing of technology. Again, all of this is done so the civilization can become stronger. Unlike our society, wealth is not a sign of success in this world. We are given a view into this quite unique creature along with some love and romance along the way. This people are mostly an agricultural society that grows and consumes the one crop necessary for sustaining life. We are also given a glimpse into some ancient writings which are believed to foretell of a specific event which appears to be unfolding. One thing that seemed to catch my eye while listening was the author’s use of different names for objects, yet when describing their star, he used Sun, which is specific to our solar system’s star. Not a big deal, but something that stood out for me while listening.

What can or does a society do when a discovery turns their peaceful existence into one that forces some of them to abandon their morals and beliefs to endure? And that is exactly what you will learn from this book. There seemed to always be a sense of tension along with new discoveries keeping the listener wondering what could these inhabitants do when required to turn from their life of farming to a life of war. Many were required to turn their plows into weapons if they hope to survive. Much of their research into growing crops needed to be turned towards better knowing their enemy and how to best defend against them. No matter the outcome, the people always attempted to do what was right for the society. You felt the tight bond when they would always greet one another by saying, “May your soil always bare jobalm (sp?)” and a reply of “And yours also.”. One really gets a sense of how close-fitting this society is, and at other times how naive they can be. When one’s enemy know much more about you then you do of them, it may feel overwhelming. The author did a good job of putting this feeling into the story. The characters were complex, likable, and multidimensional.

Let me turn to the book’s narration. Even though this book appears to be Ed Waldorph’s second narration released on Audible, at the time of this review, I thought he did a decent job. I would have liked to have had a few more distinct voices for the characters, but it was not required to enjoy the book. The book’s audio volume was consistent and lacked any major audio artifacts. The two things that I will mention are the audio compression which could be heard during times of long pauses. It seemed to have a computer hiss sound, but these were infrequent. The second was a slight background bell ringing sound that did not seem to be a part of the book or significant to a specific character. Again, this bell noise was very quiet, but noticeable when you listen for it. It was not there constantly nor did it appear only when a given event or character appeared. So, to me, it seemed like some artifact that was not edited out prior to production. Neither of these would prevent me from recommending the book to others.

In summary, I felt that Mr. Perreault did a great job of telling us a story while at the same time immersing us within the world. It did have points where it seemed to be slower than others, but for me, it gave me the opportunity to learn more about the world, the people, and their enemy. I like to have some periods of rest from all the tension, mystery and action. Thank you Mr. Perreault and Mr. Waldorph for taking me to this new and wonderful world called Gemini, and for giving us a stand-alone book that is complete and entertaining.

Disclaimer: I was voluntarily provided this review copy audiobook at no charge by the author, publisher and/or narrator.