The Amber Project

The Variant Saga Volume 1

By: J. N. Chaney

Narrated by: Alexander Edward Trefethen

In 2157, a mysterious gas known as Variant spreads across the globe, killing or mutating most organic life. The surviving humans take refuge in an underground city, determined to return home. But after generations of failures and botched attempts, hope is beginning to dwindle. That is, until a young scientist makes a unique discovery, and everything changes. Suddenly, there's reason to hope again, and it rests within a group of genetically engineered children that are both human and Variant. Terry is one of these children, modified and trained to endure the harsh conditions of a planet he cannot begin to understand. After years of preparation, Terry thinks he knows what to expect. But the reality is far stranger than anything he can imagine - and what he will become is far more dangerous.

©2015 Jeff Chaney (P)2015 Jeff Chaney

Narrator needs to project more

Good story, good narration which could use more consistent volume. all in all, very enjoyable.

Really cool book

At age 7 children of the underground city go to the academy. After several years of education they also start some military training, at least Terry's group did. Than they were exposed to a strange gas, finally, everything was explained, before they were sent to the surface after two of their group that ran away. They were told that they had been genetically modified with both the human and the variant strains. They were the last hope that one day people could one day live and repopulate on the surface of the earth again. Meanwhile, Terry's mother is fighting for, and starting a revolt for, the rights of those children and their mother's.
This is a great science fiction book, between the two storylines this book will keep you hopping and cheering for the small guys. The characters are awesome, even the bad guys. I had the audiobook version and I have to give kudos to Alexander Trefethen, he is awesome! His different voices for the different characters really set them apart, he gave this book heart and left me asking, how far would people really go to save the human race?

Great Story with an Unexpected Ending

From the beginning it reminded me a bit of the book "The City of Ember" by Jeanne DuPrau. The second chapter brought the life in "the village" from Casey Hays' book "Breeder" to mind.

What is it that makes a law abiding citizen (of America), get your hackles up when a book says "such & such...as a perfect law-abiding citizen"? 😱

As a mom with that special mother-son connection, I love how Mara keeps finding ways to get around the rules in order to keep Terrance as a part of her life. She's a mom on a mission!

As for editing and word building, some descriptions were over done &/or superfluous. Grammar and spelling errors were few and far in between.

Okay, you know what, there are cliffhangers & then there are epilogues that will mess you up. Great ending!

On a side note...I started reading this on my Kindle. However, with my eyesight I switched over to Audible audio. The story seemed to move along faster. The narrator just read quite slowly. He did annoy me at first but I was able to adjust to his reading style fairly quickly. Some more intonation and voice changes would improve it a great deal.

My star ratings include these 5 elements: a great story line, engaging characters, use of word building, being well edited and the ending.

I was pleasantly surprised about this book

In the year 2157 a gas exterminates almost every living being on Earth, and the few humans who survived seek refuge in the underground, building a city and a political system aimed to the species survival and the genetic engineering  of new human beings, with the right modifications, to be able to survive on the surface and give a future to mankind.

Terry is one of these children, which enter the academy at age seven to not only receive an education, but also to get checked and see which ones of them could make it in the presence of the lethal gas.

The book is divided in two parts. The first part focus on the children's evolution at the academy and ends with an incident which triggers the second part, when they have to go to the surface and see if they could survive there.

The story is very well paced. I understand that some people did not enjoy the audio logs, but for me it was a great addition to the story, giving us some background and depth. The first part, when the children are still at Terry tries new techniques, I could not help but think about Ender and how he also innovated at the battle school, giving him the victory in many cases.

I spend much time thinking about the origin of the gas and the Jolt, the event which triggered the gas. You cannot just throw a mystery like that at me and be sure that I will not care about it. Where did that gas come from? What was it? I was worried that the author was going to leave us in the darkness, but Terry and his friends will discover what triggered it but not where it came from and what exactly is. The book ends with a cliffhanger that will makes us need to read the next book and maybe know where it came from, so I hope J.N. Chaney will have it ready soon.

Alexander Edward Trefethen's voice helps to bring the story to life, with very clear diction and an energetic narration,  changing his voice tone depending on the character. The audio production was very good too and listening to this book was a delight, being able to listen to it at a higher speed without losing intelligibility.

I was pleasantly surprised about this book, taking into account that it is his first published work. If you like dystopian books, this one is for you, it will not disappoint.

Audiobook was provided for review by the author.

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

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Eh, skip this one if you’re over 14

First, narrator. What’s with the odd pauses? And same deep voice for everyone no matter the age or gender. It makes me think of like Phil Hartman when he’d do the pretend news stories on SNL.”Everything was… spread out… When you guys… get too far… away… it’s harder… to…” etc. The story has great potential, but the characters bug me. I’m going to to for no spoilers, ok let’s discuss the bad guy. First he tells the over and over he saw the other guy get ripped in pieces and they’re all still like “oh shut up, you don’t know, he could have survived. It’s worth risking all our lives” yeah, surely he pieced himself together and is doing fine. Then the WHOLE time Bad Guy was saying let’s not do this etc. Then he suddenly was helpful, led them somewhere and when they became trapped the little geniuses were like “whaaaat? Who could have guessed Bad Guy would do this? I thought he was our friend now. I mean, those last 4 minutes he was so different than his WHOLE LIFE of not being a helpful friend.”

Love this book

I am a big fan of this book and can't wait for book 2. The narrator wasn't my favorite, but he was certainly entertaining and he grew on me throughout the story. Most audio books I have listened to had female narrators, so this was new for me too. I highly remind this book.

Too meandering for me

It was an ok story and story line. Not terribly intriguing. It felt meandering. I found it a bit ridiculous in places. I also had a hard time following the timeline at places. Ok read. I finished it. But not looking for any others in the line.

took a chance, not disappointed

this was a really good novel, quite intriguing and with good depth. could have moved a bit faster, but that could have been how the narrator spoke (slowish and as if he was trying to talk in a lower tone than his natural voice) overall I like it though!

slow

good book but it was super slow didnt like how they would switch between who was talking

Good First Novel for Chaney

As a post-apocalypse/dystopia fan, I enjoyed this author's first novel. The origin of the event that drove our characters underground isn't explained until the last third of the book, but the information was revealed in an organic fashion. Thankfully, a logical end point is provided with this story, but seeds were planted that piqued my curiosity about the next installment. However, I would like to see (or hear, in the case of an audiobook) the characters mature in their speech, reasoning, and inner dialogue. There's room for improvement where reading level difficulty is concerned, but overall it was a very enjoyable "listen".

The narrator speaks clearly, and offers distinct variations in voice for the different characters.