Renegade

Spiral Wars, Book 1

By: Joel Shepherd

Narrated by: John Lee

One thousand years after Earth was destroyed in an unprovoked attack, humanity has emerged victorious from a series of terrible wars to assure its place in the galaxy. But during celebrations on humanity’s new homeworld, the legendary Captain Pantillo of the battle carrier Phoenix is court-martialed then killed, and his deputy, Lieutenant Commander Erik Debogande, the heir to humanity’s most powerful industrial family, is framed for his murder. Assisted by Phoenix’s marine commander Trace Thakur, Erik and Phoenix are forced to go on the run as they seek to unravel the conspiracy behind their captain’s demise, pursued to the death by their own fleet. What they discover about the truth behind the wars and the nature of humanity’s ancient alien allies will shake the sentient galaxy to its core.

©2015 Joel Shepherd (P)2015 Audible, Inc.

Humans, aliens, and cyber-species

Contents: PG 13. No sex, lots of F-bombs (marines), no religious cussing, several ship-to-ship battles and close-quarters combat. There is obviously death, but nothing too grisly. The violence does not feel gratuitous. The tone of the series (three books so far) is fairly upbeat and heartwarming, but serious, not frivolous.

I've heard all three books in the series and am looking forward to book four. Sequel or bust!

Set in the distant future in the far reaches of the Milky Way, Joel Shepherd serves up a solid space-opera populated with humans, aliens (froggies, humanoids, furballs, bugs) and even some robots and drones (various species of cybernetic super-intelligence). The crew of the military warship Phoenix are likable, and the main characters grow on you across the three books published so far. Bonding occurs credibly as this honorable but renegade crew gradually uncovers a conspiracy at the highest levels of authority, a secret terrible and fearful, hidden away for centuries, and protected at all costs. When Phoenix stumbles on the truth, they are forced to make some tough choices, and to engage in desperate missions, driving them further and further from home, into deep space. For the most part, they stand alone, but gradually they do acquire a few allies. I hope to see some of the current alliances deepen.

Spiral Wars feels a little like Sullivan's Riyira fantasy series, because long-believed lies are slowly uncovered, history revealed to be myth. Some friends prove fickle and some alliances false. There is a sense of suspense and intrigue, of holding one's breath for the next shoe to drop.

I've been reading space opera lately, but I tend to avoid tales told in 1st person "i-me-my perspective" because a singular voice gets old fast. This SPIRAL WARS series, told in 3rd person, is better than most I've read. It compares on a par with THE EXPANSE series by Corey. I loved Bujold's VORKOSIGAN series, too, but it’s quite different in tone. I would rate SPIRAL WARS higher than Ryk Brown's FRONTIER SAGA — which became repetitive and drawn out. I rate SW a little higher than Dalzelle's BLACK FLEET and OMEGA series. I liked SW more than Fox's EMBER WARS series, and far more than the EXPEDITIONARY FORCE series by Alanson (told in 1st person, alas). I also recommend the engaging LINESMAN series by Dunstall, but it is quite lightweight. I also enjoy the LIADEN series by Lee and Miller, but it is a mixed bag and a very slow work in progress. SPIRAL WARS is my current favorite in space opera.

Shepherd's writing style is generally flowing, vivid, and interesting but he tends to occasionally slow the pace by stopping to describe things too much — including trivial aspects of the setting, and how the technical stuff works. Some people might like the technical explanations, but I zone out a little.

If the author can maintain this quality of storytelling until the conclusion of the series, he will have created a solid hit.

The narrator John Lee delivers a value-added and highly enjoyable rendition of Spiral Wars.

Not my usual subset but very much my style.

After hundreds of hours of John Lees very unique style in my ear I can hardly listen to anyone else. Unfortunately I've run out of obvious deep SciFi's so I decided to try a subset I dont care much for.. Im not much of a "space military" fan but this was a pleasant suprise. I really enjoyed the slow and complex character and plot development and the overly descriptive writing style. I would have given it all 5's but personally felt Joel Shepard missed many opportunities to colorize and flesh out his obviously well designed and complex universe by not putting as much focus describing the non battle scenes. I definitely felt like I could "see" the battles and had a real marines eye view of the action but was always wishing I had just a little bit more "experiance" with the worlds, ships, and stations. Over all yes, yes it is very good.

Narrator and Story.

Enjoyed it, narrator was too chopping. Distracted from the story. Character development too long! Aliens too odd and hard to understand! But appears to be getting better.

Fantastic fun.

Fast paced and well written. A great conspiracy, spy and scifi novel rolled into one.

Surprisingly good military science fiction

I'll admit that I had little expectations when I started listening to this. I had been searching on Kindle Unlimited for a book with audible book for free to listen to on my 12 hour drive home for Thanksgiving. I'd found a few that I tried and deleted, and this didn't catch my attention initially, but I hit the play sample button and out came the voice John Lee uses for Minalan the Spellmonger. Even though the dystopian description sounded pretty dull, I figured that at the very least imagining it as Minalan the Spacemonger fighting the evil space gurvani, I'd at least get a laugh.

It turns out I was completely wrong to discount it.

Joel Shepherd does a very good job of immersion into the culture of a human race that has lost everything and a military that saved the few remainder. Joel doesn't focus on the tech so he doesn't get bogged down and leaves it believable enough that you can ignore anything that might break the immersion. The pacing of space battles and ground combat are fast enough to not bog down the rest of the story and still give a sense of trepidation for the characters of the book. The battles themselves aren't filled with many tricks like some military science fiction books use, and instead rely on the competence of people who are familiar with their roles and jobs and understand the tactics and strategies of their forces. I'd rate it at least as good as Honor Harrington combat. Joel gives the sense of a military culture that is built around something like what we expect today, which makes it easily relatable, such as rules relating to fraternization and the like.

John Lee's performance is enjoyable, even if it is the same voice and accent for the LC (Elsie) that he uses for Minalan. There are a lot of women in the book, which John doesn't have quite enough of a tonal range to be able to make them all that distinguishable, but it still works out.

I ended up finishing the book before I got back from visiting family and instantly ended up buying the second book so I could listen to that as well. I don't know if I would have enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed listening to it, but the combination of John Lee and Joel Shepherd left me quite pleased and happy to listen to more... as I'm doing right now.

Great series

Would you listen to Renegade again? Why?

Yes great storyline John Lee makes it all come alive best Narrator yet.

What other book might you compare Renegade to and why?

Just started this side of sci-fi can't help

What does John Lee bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Everything

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No

Any additional comments?

Great series so far looking forward to book 4 Hurry up....

Great story, can't wait for the next book.

I love a book where the storyline takes twist and turns, and you can't see the plot unfolding. Here's a great plot, and with solid narration, it makes for a great listen. Recommended for all fans of space opera!

Absolutely Fantastic!

Any additional comments?

After my introduction to the space opera genre via Peter Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga (which remains my favorite) followed by the Void Trilogy (pretty good) and the disappointing Night's Dawn Trilogy (quit after first book), I was pleasantly surprised by this book and can't wait to listen to the 2nd. It has the perfect mix of action (not too over the top) and just enough depth as far as character development and the story line which makes it an exciting tale.

Pure space opera

Like space opera? This yarn delivers it straight no chaser. Space battles, hand-to-hand fighting, intrigue, the whole bit.

Stories good, narration monotonous

The store just keeping me up at night. This particular persons Narration however, not so good. He’s just got this English twist to it. Which is fine if it only stuck to a few characters. But this guys using it on everything, he also drolls out long sentences and vowels, making for a very lengthy Listening.