Machinations

Last Resistance, Book 1

By: Hayley Stone

Narrated by: Kate Reading

Waking up as a clone with a broken memory? Not great when you're leading the resistance.

Rhona has battled the malevolent AI intent on wiping out humanity since the first Machinations began - until she’s killed during a rescue mission gone wrong. Now, Rhona awakens to find herself transported to a new body, complete with her DNA and her personality.

She's a clone...of herself. Except for her missing memories. Some of which could potentially turn the tide of the war.

Trapped in the shadow of the life she knew and rejected by the man who once loved her, the reincarnated Rhona must fight to secure her place among old friends and newfound enemies - and quickly. For the machines are inching closer to exterminating humanity for good. And only Rhona, whoever she is now, can save them.

Experience the unforgettable start of the Last Resistance series, a sci-fi thriller filled with heart, soul, and plenty of twists. Perfect for fans of Orphan Black, Westworld, Robopocalypse, and Terminator.

©2020 Aethon Books (P)2020 Audible, Inc.

Fun Robopocalypse story

This was a fun book. Rhona was an interesting character and seeing the struggles that she faced as a clone was an pretty cool concept, but hearing rhona said over and over in the book in 2020 has a different meaning. Overall fun book. Felt very terminator like, but that is expected in this type of book. I liked the pop culture references that kept popping up. They made me laugh. The narration was wonderful as always from Kate Reading!

Good listen

Kate reading is a very good narrator. Story is captivating. I had a hard time turning it off to go to bed

Kate Reading nails it!

This Post-Apocalyptic book really captured me from the very start! I was immediately sucked into Rhona Long's POV from the very get go! From the last moments of her death (and her very poignant memories with her comrade in arms/lover), to her abrupt awakening in a lab, where she finds out that she's now a clone... Rhona Long 2.0 as it were, and the base is under attack!!! She's just awoken, and she's struggling to comprehend just what the Heck is happening !
There's plenty of action and lots of political intrigue, as Rona struggles with "memory loss" since her awakening, having received only a partial mind linkage/transference... she's also having her own existential crisis. What/Who is Rona Long 2.0? Is she the same woman? Is she just a stranger with some of another person's memories? Is she even human? All this soul searching angsty stuff would normally be a big turn off, but surprisingly it wasn't. I believe that it's Hayley Stone's tight plotting that keeps the story afloat as she navigates through the scenes!
I adored Kate Reading's marvelous performance, as she relates the story of Rona, and the last remaining resistance fighters!
So grab this audio book especially if you like post-apocalyptic adventure. Or are fans of the Terminator movies. I even think that fans of The Bobiverse trilogy would enjoy the book, I felt that Rona kinda reminded me of Bob and his wry wit and all the pop-culture references.

The sci-fi is just window dressing for the romance

“Burn the lines!”
“Hours later …”
The overall feel of the series was barely YA, fit for teens. There’s no sex or foul language, and the violence was comic level. Much of the story was told in info-dumps or happened off-screen.
For example the above quote, where Rhona yelled out the attack plan and then the story skipped the battle, jumping to the aftermath.

“Pigeons. We should go back to pigeons. Pigeons never tried to raise an army
or destroy the human race- that’s two reasons right there.”
Rhona was more quippy than snarky, like the Saturday morning cartoon version of The Terminator. Especially in this first book, it’s all about the romance between Camus and the cloned Rhona.
As tends to be the case with teenage dystopian trilogies, there’s also a not very convincing love triangle. There were interesting clone-related, philosophical questions presented, but instead of noodling those questions to death inside Rhona’s head, I could have done with a lot more sci-fi, action, or characters.

While this was fine, I’m not sure I’d have continued on if I hadn’t already bought all three at once. Thankfully, the middle book eases up on the romance and goes deeper into the sci-fi and clone angles.
It was still a slow burn, but I enjoyed the second and third books.

Too much romance but little world building

In a distant future, robots and A.I.’s, led by the Echelon, have turned themselves against humanity. Commander Rhona Long, a charismatic human leader, dies in battle in the arms of her lover, to return to life several months later as a clone in order to continue her mission against the machines as if nothing had happened. The world doesn’t know about Rhona’s death, so Rhona 2.0 will have to fill Rhona’s shoes to fight for humanity and try to gain her lover back, which just can’t accept this new version of her.

The long-time war between humanity and machines is not an original topic but the novelty here is that our hero is a clone, which in the eyes of some of her people is dubiously a human being, and therefore in some ways not compatible with their cause. Like that, it sounds like an interesting and controverted topic, which makes me think that this book could have been so much more, but sadly it wasn’t. Rhona spends most of the time pining for her lost love while trying to hide the fact that she’s a clone and doesn’t remember much of her past life. There is some action towards the end of the book, but for the most part, nothing of interest happens. The story drags while Rhona tries to gain his boyfriend back, while also plays with the idea of initiating a relationship with her friend Samuel. At some point, I was convinced there was some word count that stone needed to make in order to write out so many words to say nothing. The love triangle subplot was quite predictable from the start. I just hated the situation Samuel’s put himself in. I just can’t stand characters without self-esteem that are continuously manipulated and abused by their best “friends”.

One of the main problems of this book is that we don’t really know Rhona. She dies at the beginning of the book, and while everyone talks about the awesome leader she was, it’s not something we can actually see. It could be that her clone lacked maturity due to many reasons but, I only saw an immature girl with some talent to improvise and good luck at the right moment. She was not a good strategist not savvy in a way that one would assume from the leader of humanity. Her complete ignorance of technology also didn’t make much sense. I get that she hated the machines, but you need to know your enemy to have a good chance of winning a war.

There are plenty of technical aspects that are mentioned but not developed enough. We know Rhona was cloned but we don’t know how and while things may have not gone as expected as Samuel mentions. The tension and intrigue built up the beginning worked well to get the readers hooked but Stone doesn’t deliver and it seems she didn’t have herself the answers to the many questions.

The Echelon is mentioned as the leaders of the Machinations, but we didn’t get any information about it. I would have appreciated some background information to avoid having the feeling that the author is just winging it. The machines are also not described apart from the fact that they whir all the time and have red eyes. I think they might be some kind of Terminator. I think that not showing them was intended as the suggestion can be scarier than the thing itself but after a while, you need to show something if you’re writing about direct confrontations.

When I was finishing the book I thought the story would have worked much better were this the second book in a series. I think we needed a whole book to know and fall in love with Rhona, so that we could grieve her loss and then relate to her clone and the sense of loss, but that would have been a completely different book. Having less romance and more world-building would have created a more interesting story for me personally.

I thoroughly enjoyed Kate Reading’s narration, and I think it’s the only reason why I was able to finish this book. She did a wonderful job voicing all the characters and bringing them to life. Her speech is clear and her character interpretations are spot-on.

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Where is John Connor

The narrator is fantastic as I usually hate the ear-piercing S's from so many female narrators. Kate is awesome. The story starts strong with little relational drama, and the author does a good job painting a picture of the future. Somewhere along the way, I got lost when the story shifted from kick-butt sifi to General Hospital. I listened to the entire book hoping the drama would leave, and the action would lead. Unfortunately, that didn't happen; this book wasn't for me, and the "historical" cultural references lost their appeal after the second one. I was waiting for a John Connor reference way before it squeezed its way into the story.
I was given this book free to enjoy, and I did when there wasn't so much self-loathing internal dialog.
It's not a terrible book; it's just not my first choice of listens.

An excellent book!

An intriguing story, believable characters and excellent narration make this a book well worth the time. I will jave to seek out more books by this author.

She writes sci-fi too!

As a fan of Make Me No Grave, I wasn’t sure what to expect but I got what I needed. A great voice. Great characters. Great story. And Kate Reading is always amazing.

If you like Terminator – You’ll Love this!

Rhona Long has been fighting a war against the Machines her whole life – literally, because she’s dead.
It’s not often you start a new series, and within the first chapter of the series, the main character is killed by the enemy.
You sort of think, well, that was quick, ok, thanks for coming….
But the next page, she is awake again, but you quickly learn that it is not her, she is a clone, and not just a crappy clone of skin and tissue, but one that is a complex attempt to actually re-invent Rhona Long as she was, all the way down to her basic memories. But things don’t go as planned.
Without giving too much away (you can read about it), Rhona is damaged during revival, not all of ‘Original’ Rhona’s memories get transferred over properly to ‘Rhona V2.0’, leaving her with a mind that has some akin to amnesia, but for her, recovery for most of her memory is nigh on impossible.
The book is set in a future that is kind of like the one we have seen in Terminator, with a rather Evil A.I. controlling thousands of machines in an attempt to eradicate humanity from the face of the Earth. Obviously, with this genre, the Author is kind of stuck with the basic concept – an A.I. somehow reaches sentience, decides that humanity is the plague that we are, and that the only plausible outcome for the survivability of some outcome (Its own survival, the planets survival, something else has to live), is the death of all humans – simple enough!
There are numerous examples of this genre around, other than the possibly most famous ‘Terminator’ example. In this story though, Stone has gone to great lengths to humanise the story, and this is made all the harder, given that her main character is a human clone.
And this is the major difference to the story, whilst there is an impressive display of machines (The ‘Machinations’ as they are so appropriately called), in all shapes and sizes, and there is also an engaging amount of combat, both of which leave you in awe of the creativity, and enthralled by the complexity of the story telling, this is at the end of the day, a remarkable tale of one woman’s life, and her second chance.
The Character work is extraordinary, Rhona is an absolutely wonderful character, and she draws you in, leaving you utterly captivated by her story, which is gritty, powerful, and to a large degree downright brutal. The war with the Machinations is savage, and Stone does a master job of giving us a front row seat of just how severe the living and fighting conditions are for those in the thick of it.
This story is not all about War though, Rhona is trying to come to terms with having her life shattered, and then the pieces dropped back on the puzzle board in a different order, she can no longer see the picture of who she was anymore, and more to the point, those closest to her, including the man she was in love with, who watched her die, they don’t recognise her either. This is also a very powerful and emotional story of how the Main Character tries to desperately cling to herself, and her humanity, so that she can still be useful to those around her, and to the war effort (you learn she is rather important to the whole thing – and this adds even more depth to the story)
It is just fascinating watching how Rhona interacts with each of the other characters, her best friend who is the total genius who brought her back from the dead, Samuel, her ex, Camus, and then there are numerous other characters, Ulrich (this tank of a German Soldier – who is brilliant), his crazy girlfriend Zelda, a Soldier from another base whose nickname was ‘Glasses’ – all these people are so cleverly written giving this story such incredible depth and detail.
This is an amazing story with just the most incredible world-building, to create this exceptional tale about a Woman who loses her life, but then gets it back, but what she gets back is just this shattered shadow of her former self, and because of the horrendous situation they are in, and because of the powerhouse that she is, she has to continue, even though all those around her don’t understand who she is. It is an incredible take on this genre, and has been written so well, in a time of equity, and equality, this is certainly a story in which the Female Lead stands tall.
If you had any interest in Terminator, or anything in this genre, you just have to read this book – it is not just clever, it’s outstanding!! I have already bought the rest of the series, can’t wait to read them!!
Kate Reading is just a magnificent Narrator – with that gorgeous voice that you can just listen to forever, and her ability to create such memorable characters (she does such a great range of voices, each character gets a voice, and you can tell who is talking, just by their character voice – it is so well done) – she makes for the perfect person to perform this role, as she is capable of not only giving you the angry moments of Rhona, but she really makes you feel, and understand the total despair of when Rhona is crushed by something. Reading is so good, that you get to feel every emotion that Long feels as she tells her story, and it just adds so much extra depth as she portrays this character. She also does an outstanding job of conveying the emotions of the others though, Samuel’s up and down feelings with regards to Rhona, as well as the complex set of, well you can read about it, that Camus has towards Rhona. But the point is, she does such an inspired job. She also speaks in a really clear and concise manner, so it is easy to understand her. This is one book that it is a must to listen rather than read – Kate Reading just adds so much extra to the story!!