Symbiosis

Impact Earth, Book 1

By: Timothy W. Long

Narrated by: Todd Menesses

It was a quiet Seattle morning until the skies filled with fire: without warning, a catastrophic meteor shower caused buildings to crumble and the lights to go out. Out of the rubble, five ordinary people arose to find themselves manifesting undreamed-of abilities.

Will they be enough to do what the military cannot - stop a massive alien invasion before the entire West Coast is destroyed?

©2016 Timothy W. Long (P)2016 Timothy W. Long

Needs another Narrator. Great story!

What did you love best about Symbiosis?

I liked the idea of actual Super Hero's.

What did you like best about this story?

The fact that another alien race tried to help us survive. It's wonderful, since sometimes we don't seem to deserve any help....

What didn’t you like about Todd Menesses’s performance?

This guy doesn't seem to know the difference between an Asian Female and a Latina Female's speech patern. I believe this was supposed to be a Latina woman but it had the stilted inflection of an Asian.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

UNEXPECTED HERO'S

Any additional comments?

Great story. Loved the way the Hero's were actually able to save people in different ways, according to their best human instincts.

Seattle Falling Down!

This audiobook is fantastic! I have to admit though I almost felt like I needed a flow chart in the beginning to keep track of everyone in this book! But don't worry by the end you really feel connected to each and every one of the five main characters in this audiobook. It also took a little getting used to the author jumping between characters, but once I got a feel for each character, I honestly enjoyed how the story was told multiple points of view, it made total sense. What really helped was the narration by Todd Menesses, but we'll talk more about that later. So, in this ensemble cast, you have Brian, the overweight pimply faced 16-year-old kid. Elise, an abused woman just starting to rebuild her life. Sean, the big, kind-hearted divorcé. Martin, a crotchety old veteran dying of cancer and last but not least, Victor, the family man.

While the entire population of Seattle is caught up in an alien invasion, these five characters are fighting not one but two alien invasions. Talk about sensory overload! I'm not one for spoilers, so I'll leave it at that. Timothy W. Long really takes his time building this story, so expect this tale will roll out over several books because I really feel like book one is just the beginning! Speaking of that, I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but when I went to Long's website to see when the next book in the series was scheduled for release, I looked high and low and found zilch, so I'm assuming it will be awhile before book two is released... sigh.

OK, so let's talk about narrator Todd Menesses, I dare anyone to tell me that narrators are not actors of the highest caliber and that one person is voicing ALL of the characters major and minor! Genius! Each character has their own distinct voice and not once did I have to question which character was talking and trust me it's quite a feat to keep that many characters straight!

Amazing story, awesome narration, buy or credit this audiobook is worth it!

Fun story with some annoying dialogue

The dialogue felt stunted between the characters and the lack of cohesion of the 5 main characters was frustrating and was never resolved. The narrator sometimes sounded like he was announcing for a monster truck rally commercial and his inflection on the last word in a sentence was jarring and kept removing me from the story. I will read the next novel in the series instead of listening to it.

Independence Day meets the Marvel Universe

Would you listen to Symbiosis again? Why?

Yes, I would listen again. Very good story and narration plus there will need to be a sequel so I would probably listen to it again before getting the next one when it comes out.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Actually, I liked Victor the best, just a regular guy trying to get through a regular day and bam aliens attack and he becomes a superhero still dealing with his family.

Have you listened to any of Todd Menesses’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Yes, I have and it's just as good as the others giving each person a different voice so it makes it easy to tell who is speaking when.

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

I never listen to a book all in one sitting but there were nights where I was listening longer than normal to find out what happened next. I usually listen on my commutes.

Any additional comments?

Pick it up if you like alien invasions or superheroes worth a credit!

Earth invaded & has the most unlikely saviors

We're being invaded and have the most unlikely saviors

An alien invasion strike Seattle, while the attack is happening, five strangers will find themselves now flowing with very unlikely... powers. What can these unlikely heroes do to prevent this alien invasion?

Impact Earth: Symbiosis was narrated by Todd Menesses who does a wonderful job. It's always nice to hear a narration that I would consider a "full cast" ensemble with only one narrator. A lot of the accents were really well done and it really helped move the story along.

Another book that has superhero undertones to it. Looking at the cover of this you would have no idea (but I guess that's why you shouldn't always judge a book by its cover).

While I enjoy superheroes, especially those who basically came from nothing -- this isn't my go-to genre. Menesses narration really kept me interested in this and helped me to continue listening to it.

I saw a lot of reviews that were complaining about the amount of profanity, so I will warn you -- if you are overly sensitive to profanity, just avoid this book. Given some of the circumstances that these characters are put into, I can completely understand the cursing -- I even support it for a book like this. I think that Timothy W Long was trying to make the book as realistic as possible (yeah, yeah, with aliens). But real people talk like that, especially those who are going through extremely stressful and bad situations.

If you look past the cursing there was a lot of really unique detail in this book. Long does a great job trying to make sure that each character is explained, and their backstories are told well enough that you can continue to follow with them as they learn of their new and different powers.

Overall, while a combination of a style that I really like with one that I don't as much -- I found myself enjoying Symbiosis. The combination of Long's writing style and Menesses comic-book-character-esque narration made this for me.

I was given a copy of this audiobook in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion.

If you want to see more reviews like this please check out BriansBookBlog DOT com.

I can't wait for the next book

Excellent storytelling, good character development. Good balance of believable sci-fi. nice to have a story based in the Pacific Northwest.

Intriguing!

I read this book in one sitting. I wish there had bee more detailed descriptions of the alien entities and their purpose, origin, etc... but I found the plot interesting and the development of the characters made it easy to keep up with each ad the story switches from one to the next. I will definitely
read the book that follows this one!

Combo of Scifi & Superheroes

Seattle is the epicenter for an alien invasion.  While the attack is going on five strangers will be struck by something and suddenly have the most unbelievable and unlikely powers.  They aren't sure what happened but know that they are now capable of weird things.  What they don't know is that they may be the only thing left to prevent the destruction of Earth.

Todd Menesses narrates Impact Earth and he has the perfect "superhero" type narrator voice.  It just feels like you are flipping the pages of a comic book or graphic novel when Menesses is behind the story.  The quality of the recording was perfect with no issues at all.

A word of warning, yes this book has some profanity to it.  That is known to happen from time to time.  And it doesn't bother me in the slightest.  But as a service to others -- be warned there is a lot of cursing in this book.  I chalked it up to the types of characters that Long was writing about.  They weren't your normal 9 to 5er but more like your blue collar, un or undereducated people who are known to curse from time to time.

Superheroes aren't my go-to genre, but I still enjoy them.  I wanted to read this book for two reasons.  One, Menesses narrated it and I love his voice, and two, I want to get more into superheroes, comics, and graphic novels.  This was a nice intro for me and I found myself enjoying it more than I originally thought I would.

The book takes on the typical "normal person turned super" but does a pretty nice job with it.  The new superheroes are as confused and unsure as you would think a person would be and they even doubt what they are doing as they are doing it.  There were a few times I found myself laughing at the situations they were in.

The details in Impact Earth were definitely there.  Long takes his time making sure that the reader knows who these people are before and after the impact.  I really like when an author can do that without making me feel like they are doing that.

Overall, a great combination of science fiction (alien invasion) and comic boon fiction (superheroes).  Long is able to write a book that is both enjoyable and felt like good was served!

Audiobook was provided for review by the narrator.

Please find this complete review and many others at my review blog

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Mixed feelings

Is there anything you would change about this book?

Yes, several of the characters were truly annoying (Brian, Laura the wife) and the story wold have been better without them. Also, the beginning of the book when characters are being introduced drags on a bit too long.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

It was a truly unique idea for an "alien invasion" story. Very fun! The least interesting would be some of the background on the characters. There was a lot of uninteresting stuff and some of them seemed so whiney and self pitying.

Have you listened to any of Todd Menesses’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I haven't heard him before but I did enjoy his narration on this book. Though some of the voices were annoying, he could only voice them as they were written.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

Absolutely! It was a great twist on alien invasion stories and as I was listening I was thinking what a great movie it would make. I love Super Hero movies and though the characters were not the usual type of Super Heroes it certainly was a fun alternative idea.

Any additional comments?

I had a hard time giving this a rating. I did enjoy the story very much and liked some of the characters. However, the long introduction to the characters almost made me want to quit and do something else. I also found that much of the profanity was a bit over the top and unnecessary in some situations. The sex "scenes" were really irrelevant to the story line. There were some parts that were hard to follow like creating the "weapon" which didn't make much sense to me. I did end up enjoying it once the "action" started. Really liked the Sean character and also the individual powers that each person received.

tim fricking long

once again Timothy has creayed a world with awesome characters.. now i await for part 2 and the next Z risen