In Our Stars

The Doomed Earth, Book 1

By: Jack Campbell

Narrated by: Andrea Emmes, Tim Fannon

Lieutenant Selene Genji has one last chance to save Earth in this pulse-pounding science fiction adventure from the author of the New York Times bestselling Lost Fleet series.

Earth, 2180
Genetically engineered with partly alien DNA, Lieutenant Selene Genji is different from ordinary humans. And they hate her for it. Still, she’s spent her life trying to overcome society’s prejudice by serving in Earth’s Unified Fleet.
Genji is stationed on a ship in orbit when humanity’s factional extremism on the planet reaches a boiling point, and she witnesses the utter annihilation of Earth.
When the massive forces unleashed by Earth’s death warp space and time to hurl her forty years into the past, Genji is given a chance to try to change the future and save Earth.

Earth, 2140
Lieutenant Kayl Owen’s ship is on a routine patrol when a piece of spacecraft wreckage appears out of nowhere. To his shock, there is a survivor on board: Selene Genji. Once her strange heritage is discovered, though, it becomes clear that Genji is a problem Earth Guard
command wants to dispose of—quietly. After learning the horrifying truth, Owen helps her escape and joins her mission.

Together, they have a chance to change the fate of an Earth doomed to die in 2180. But altering history could put Genji’s very existence in danger, and Owen wonders if a world without her is one worth saving. …

©2024 John G. Hemry (P)2024 Recorded Books

Bad Reading

The story was not nearly as good as I expected from Jack Campbell and the to reading was worse. The woman reader was the worst but they switched back and forth for no good reason. You had to continually reset your brain after each switch.

Not up to Campbell best!

Readers sound like teenagers. Ending is not an end. It seems Campbell got tired and put a period at the end of a sentence. Storyline is interesting but characters personalities and relationship is too much.

Female Narrator Was Weak

The woman narrator had a childish voice and kind of made the character silly, i thought.

Voices need help

Female characters were cartoon like voices and preaching a lot. Writing meant for young female audience. The story concept was strong and interesting, as were the artfully crafted escapes from danger.

Once you get to know someone different, they no longer are different.

That the news can be slanted to tell a totally different story than the truth.

Cliffhanger so sharp it will cut your soul

Well, there's a sharp cliffhanger, but book 2 has already been announced and is available for preorder.

Other than that, this story rhymes with the Pillars of Reality series the author previously wrote. It is definitely not the same story in a different setting, but there are elements/themes that rhyme. If you liked Lost Fleet or Pillars of Reality you should enjoy this too.

Dual narration is fine, but I think the two narrators could have tried a little more to match cadence. It felt like they speak at different speeds and it is noticeable every time they handed off (which isn't too often, each chapter is written from a single viewpoint).

Good story but the narrator was wrong foe the story

I own most of Jack Campbell's novels, I looked forward to this one and I was not disappointed with the story but the female narrator was wrong for the story. There are two narrators for the story when one was all that was needed. The male was ok but he was no Christian Rummel. I have multiple novels series narrated by females and most I like but the female that narrated this one sounded like a six year old child, that would have been good in a children's novels but it was not right here.

So much potential but poor dialogue writing

Pros:
-- This book has an extremely intriguing plot line that a lot could be done with.
-- In general, I really like Jack Campbell's writing.

Cons:
-- The dual male/female narration did not mesh. The narrators would alternate chapters but each chapter had male and female characters speaking equal amounts of time, so there was no advantage to having the male narrator read one chapter and then the female narrator read the next. The transition was rather jarring and disconcerting.
-- The dialog between characters seems canned and below average for Jack Campbell.
-- I know this is science fiction, but some scenes seem unbelievable. For instance, running over flat ground with little to no obstacles for 200 yards with a dozen military shooting rifles at you from not very far away, and they can't hit you?!?
-- As others have mentioned, some of the motivations are also hard to believe. A major part of the military wants to kill the main characters on sight, but there doesn't seem to be a believable reason (in my mind) to justify it.

I really wanted this book to be great, as it has so much potential, but it seems like it was written by an unseasoned author, and not the experienced one that I know Jack Campbell to be.

First Contact

I'm not really a fan of cliff hanger endings but other than that it's a good listen. I'm also wondering if this might have been written, or at least started, in John's earlier phase. I thought it sounded like some of the JAG in Space books from earlier.

She is a bit crazy

it was a hard to get into and the female character was extremely annoying. Her character messed up the story some.