Nano

The Gift, Book 1

By: Marc Stapleton

Narrated by: Andrew Tell

Kris Chambers is a nobody.

A 24-year-old man with a dead-end job and no prospects—and, to top it off, a heart condition that forever keeps him on his toes—he spends his life trapped between apathy, self-doubt, and mortal fear.

As he walks down an unfamiliar alleyway, he stumbles upon the lifeless body of a stranger. Unbeknownst to him, this grisly discovery marks the beginning of an entirely new chapter in his life. Upon mysteriously awakening in the hospital, he learns that his heart now functions flawlessly, and he feels… different.

He soon discovers he has superhuman abilities—herculean strength, a marathon runner's stamina, and an extreme healing factor—as well as an ever-present assistant: a super-intelligent AI named Vega, telling him that his gift is the result of a network of nanomachines that he inherited like a virus from the dead body. And the dead man himself? A traveler from parts unknown, time unknown…

Empowered by his newfound abilities, Kris embarks on a mission to track down the Quiet One, a domestic terrorist wreaking havoc on his city.

In a fight spanning across continents, Kris must fight to learn and establish his true place in the world while uncovering the true nature of his otherworldly gift.

©2023 Marc Stapleton (P)2023 Podium Audio

Give it a minute

This book was great overall my only complaint was the  naivety for over half the book, but once the MC’s emotional growth starts showing it turns into a fun listen! I’m pretty excited for the next one!

Moronic Superhuman

This book was well written and full of good tension. The downside is that the main character is an absolute moron from start to finish. With newly found abilities at his disposal, instead of doing anything wise, without any experience, he throws himself into a war to try and make up for the fact that he’s been a loser who has made dumb decisions his whole life. The whole book my thoughts were, he could do so many better things for himself and the world if he had a brain and wasn’t riddled with insecurities. He doesn’t deserve the enhancements.

This could have been so good!

The author’s idea was an incredible one. He really had the opportunity to wow me and other tech-sci-fi fans but he fell drastically short. If the author has done research on the military, the CIA, middle eastern Cultures, and so many other aspects of the story, the book could have been much better. The overuse of the thesaurus (and not checking the definitions of the different synonyms with a dictionary) really had a negative impact as well. Additionally, I gave the performance 3 stars as well because the narrator seemed to suffer the same issues as the author but with pronunciation. All in all the concept really grabbed my attention but the book let me down, way down. I listened until the end but alas, I shall not suffer through any more of this series.

Good not great.

I wanted to like this more but the main character is so consistently stupid that it spoils a lot of the fun.

Started off ok but got really good midway!

As title says book performance from the actor was great! I didn’t like how the main character was horrible in the beginning but his character development was great to see later on. Also didn’t like the fact that the author clearly had a vendetta against Christians as was stated in the beginning with some sayings. Overall good book I will definitely be reading the rest of this series!

great story

great story, narration was really well done. highly recommended. sci-fi done right. if you like believable heroes this is your story

Good premise, dumb protagonist

Liked the thought of how and why he was given his gift. Dislike his lack of common sense

I liked it.

This book was different. Good characters. I liked the way it ended and plan on reading the next in the series.

Stupid Main Character

I liked the premise of the book but the MC is incredibly stupid,

Spoiler Alert, Who gets amazing nano tech and decides to go to a third world country to fight for rebels, The idiot ignores the names recommendations constantly and darn near dies over and over,

So I'm over the book,

Written for teens

Struggling to get through. The main character is juvenile at best. 24 years old is laughable. Everything about him, from his awkward social bumblings to his lack of basic reasoning skills, screams teenage angst. His augments make things clunky and forced. The detective work is more Scooby Doo than Hardy Boys much less advanced AI enhanced policework. I keep hoping for some character development… advancement but nothing.