The Course of Empire

By: Eric Flint, K. D. Wentworth

Narrated by: Chris Patton

Conquered by the Jao twenty years ago, the Earth is shackled under alien tyranny - and threatened by the even more dangerous Ekhat, one of whose genocidal extermination fleets is coming to the solar system. The only chance for human survival is in the hands of an unusual pair of allies: a young Jao prince, newly arrived to Terra to assume his duties, and a young human woman brought up amongst the Jao occupiers. But, as their tentative alliance takes shape, they are under pressure from all sides. A cruel Jao viceroy on one side, determined to drown all opposition in blood; a reckless human resistance on the other, which is perfectly prepared to shed it. Added to the mix is the fact that only by adopting some portions of human technology and using human sepoy troops can the haughty Jao hope to defeat the oncoming Ekhat attack - and then only by fighting the battle within the sun itself.

©2003 Eric Flint & K.D. Wentworth (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Epic Fantasy with (a few) Spaceships

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

There is a space battle near the end but it's mostly a political thriller. Especially in the last third, there are lots of wheels within wheels plots. Woven through the book is the culture of the Jao. To me, it seemed more Epic Fantasy in the way the focus is on the culture of the Jao and the world they live in rather than on any Science. I'm pretty sure no Scientists were harmed, or consulted, in the writing of this book.

What about Chris Patton’s performance did you like?

Narrator occasionally got character voices crossed but did a great job overall.

Very David Weber-like but without the tech prattle

Would you listen to The Course of Empire again? Why?

Because the story is very David Weber but a better improved version of the style

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Course of Empire?

The coming together of the humans and joas.

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

No, I have not but I rank him with the best. Military scifi is hard to narrate but he is really outstanding

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

Sometimes the enemy of my enemy is just another enemy

An excellent use of a credit

Any additional comments?

I read a lot of books and buy a lot of Audible credits. It is not often that I'll plonk down a precious credit for a book I have already read but The Course of Empire was an excellent read when it came out many years ago, a book I remember thoroughly enjoying, and I wanted to re-familiarize myself with the series before picking up its sequel Crucible of Empire.

Course of Empire is not groundbreaking, but it is a well told story, well narrated, with an interesting take on an alien culture. Like many books in the military Sci-Fi genre there is a fair degree of predictability in the flow of the story, you can see the arc of the book from early pages. But its still a very entertaining Arc. Fans of David Weber or David Drake would do well to pick this one up.

A Favourite Finally on Audio

What did you love best about The Course of Empire?

There were some memorable characters, and I enjoyed the interactions between the humans and the alien Jao who had conquered Earth. I wondered from the beginning what Preceptor Ronz of the Jao strategy Circle was up to. What opportunity? Can Aille do what? I had my guesses, but the overall goal I had missed completely. Luckily for me, the authors saw fit to wrap it up nicely at the end. The Ekhat were just so alien, and the book did well on depicting them as truly incomprehensible.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Course of Empire?

Yaut disabling Oppuk

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

No, but will again. He did a good job with the voices, and the reading was paced well.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

When the humans said they would miss the Jao Aille if he gave up his life to defend his actions.

Any additional comments?

I bought this book in paper form after reading the sample chapters on Baen's website -- I just had to finish it! One of my favourite books. Enjoyable read and listen, and looking forward to listening to the sequel.

ERIC FLINT'S VENTURE INTO FULL SCI-FI MODE

Earth is conquered by alien race "Jao", as the book progresses we find out that some time ago Jao were slaves of a race which used them as soldiers. We find out that Jao were created and modified by that race. And now that race wants to destroy all sentience in the universe.
Because of that genetic tinkering, Jao do not have much of creativity, and original ideas, but they possess "the Flow" sense of time which almost feels like precognition.
Perhaps humans and Jao have something to learn from each other

One Great Audiobook.

This is a Audiobook that I will listen to again. Though I can't pronounce most of the Characters names, or titles, a great effort it seems was done to make things familiar with some of our history, I believe anyway. From start to finish you'll want to keep on listening.
Chris Patton has done a wonderful job of Narrating, his ability to pronounce the language, along with the different voices, is truly amazing.
This is one Audiobook with a great storyline, with Characters you'll want to follow, and will definitely want to reread again.

Looking forward to the second book in the series

Eric Flint and K D Wentworth have created an interesting environment in this book. The Jao, having conquered the Earth, are having limited success in governing it and have adopted a mixed punitive - negligence policy between themselves and the humans with the current governor viewing "punitive" as being the better policy, especially toward the U.S. which, having had the biggest military, put up the biggest fight against their conquerors during the war. Into this tinderbox arrives a new Jao sent by his clan to serve as a military commander.

The book started slowly for me and I had a difficult time understanding the relationships between the characters, especially the Jao, for the first hour or so. Exactly what was a “Frata”? I was tempted to go on to something else, but I have always enjoyed Eric Flint’s books so I persisted and, as the story progressed, the relationships started to sort themselves out. By the third hour into the book I had become hooked and found it hard to put the book down.

The Jao society and family relationships are very complex and I was reminded, by that complexity, of the society Frank Herbert created in Dune where it took me two or three readings of the book to really understand what was happening and why. Here things become clear more quickly than that, but the story of a “good” Jao and a “bad” Jao and the sour relationships between their clans also reminded me of the Atraides and Harkonnen families in Dune and it became clear that this book was largely to be the story where events were governed by that relationship. And, as with Dune, I found myself taking sides and becoming invested in the characters.

While I enjoyed the book a great deal it was not until the epilogue that things really made sense. The explanations of how and why things turned out as they did turned an OK 4 star book into a very good 5 star book for me. Suddenly things were much clearer and the story no longer seemed as predictable as it did up to that point.

Chris Patton’s reading is very good. There is no stumbling over names and relationships and the narration never got in the way of the story. I found the book so enjoyable that I decided that I would buy the second in the series without waiting to see how many books there will be. Normally I would want to be sure I could actually get all of the volumes, but this book was so much fun that I decided to go ahead without waiting.

I recommend this book as a relaxing “read”. It is not a “serious” book as, say, Dune is, but it is a lot of fun.

Pronunciation is irritating

Where does The Course of Empire rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

I liked the book in print form, so bought the audio version. I was shaken out of the story frequently for pronunciation "originality." There are many words that are in general use that are pronounced strangely.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Too many to count.

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

Please learn how to pronounce the words before you read them. If you have a question about pronunciation, look it up!

Good but Hard to Rate

I found this book difficult to rate. Certainly, I enjoyed it and will buy the next in the series, but I didn't know if this was a 3 or 4 book. The characters and writing were good. I appreciated the story and thought the pacing. It was good fiction, with rough tactical/science/technical aspects that distracted from the story.

If fairly obvious distortions would bother you enough to ruin your enjoyment of a good story, this probably isn't for you. If you can get past them, you'll probably get your credit's worth.

I REALLY liked this one.

Eric Flint seems to write more books with a co-author than by himself. When he writes with a good author like David Weber, the books tend to be really good. But when he writes with a bad co-author like some of those in his 1632 series, the books are bad. So I guess I've sort of thought that maybe Eric Flint has great ideas but can't carry them off without help. I guess that could still be the case, because once again, he wrote this book with a co-author. But this is one of his books that really works.

I thought he did a great job in envisioning his various alien races. In many science fiction stories, aliens just seem like human brains in funny-looking bodies. But these aliens, both the Jao and the Ekhat are convincingly non-human. The developing relations between the humans and non-humans are convincing as well.

I have read a lot of science fiction, and this story developed in ways I've never run across before. I don't want to provide spoilers, but consider this: I've read stories where the evil aliens attack Earth, and then (though everything seemed hopeless at first) we handed them their heads in a basket and threw their sorry butts off our planet. And I've read (a few) stories where the evil aliens attack Earth and then we lose and it is the end of life as we knew it. In this story, the evil aliens attack Earth, and then... something else happens.

David Weber has written a number of books about fights between humans and aliens, and we never get ANY insight into the minds or motivations of those alien cultures. In this book we do, and I feel this made for a much richer story. In short:

I REALLY liked this book. I recommend that you get it.