Willful Child

Willful Child, Book 1

By: Steven Erikson

Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews

These are the voyages of the starship A.S.F. Willful Child. Its ongoing mission: to seek out strange new worlds on which to plant the Terran flag, to subjugate and if necessary obliterate new life-forms, to boldly blow the...

And so we join the not-terribly-bright but exceedingly cock-sure Captain Hadrian Sawback and his motley crew on board the Starship Willful Child for a series of devil-may-care, near-calamitous and downright chaotic adventures through "the infinite vastness of interstellar space".

The New York Times best-selling author of the acclaimed Malazan Book of the Fallen sequence has taken his lifelong passion for Star Trek and transformed it into a smart, inventive, and hugely entertaining spoof on the whole mankind-exploring-space-for-the-good-of-all-species-but-trashing-stuff-with-a-lot-of-high-tech-gadgets-along-the-way, overblown adventure. The result is an SF novel that deftly parodies the genre while also paying fond homage to it.

©2014 Steven Erikson (P)2014 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

It's fun. It's funny. It's exactly what I wanted.

It's what I wanted, and I didn't even know it. I'd gotten a little sick of epic fantasy and Space Operas. I love them, but what I needed was something that didn't take itself so seriously.

It's a great satire of Star Trek, and our culture as a whole. The Star Trek/Sci-Fi jokes are spot on. I was previously unfamiliar with Erikson, so at first I thought the book would descend into lampooning Sci-Fi tropes and cheap blue humor. I was pleasantly surprised by the more insightful shots at our culture as a whole, which persist throughout the book. The story is utterly absurd, and remarkably enjoyable.

From here I went on to Redshirts (another excellent Star Trek parody), and some fantasy satires. Orconomics was by far the best I read.
Now I'm going to start Erikson's 10 book epic fantasy series, and others like it. However, this little break was just what I needed. Give it a shot, it might be what you need as well.

Oh, there is a Willful Child sequel now. I am planning on reading it as soon as I need a break from grand, epic worlds...

5-star Narration of a funny book

This is a fun book that would have been good, even with a mediocre narrator. Luckily for us, though, this audio recording offers listeners a great book read by an extremely talented voice actor.

A fun satirical sendup of -- well, everything!

It has a few problems, particularly in the area of gender politics, but it is nonetheless an extremely entertaining and insightful and downright funny satire. I would not have thought one of the authors of the Malazan epics capable of such a story, and it adds considerably to my already very high estimation of him as a writer and thinker.

Works for me

Easy to enjoy. Very entertaining performance. Good enough that I’m encouraged to continue with the series

Very funny book but the plot was hard to follow.

A satire/parody and social commentary book that is oozing with humor that absolutely was up my alley.

Reading other books by this author I absolutely recognize that there are a lot of deeper meanings to what he writes about that actually I felt thecriticaldragon did a really good written review about when I looked this book up to see what people thought.

I agreed heavily with what that reviewer said, however, I dunno, i feel like I sorta lost the plot several times which really hurt my enjoyment.

It sometimes felt like a fever dream, if I like glazed over anything for even a second, who knows where the plot would end up. I was all a bit hard to keep track of and I wish could have paced itself a little slower. The pacing though is likely part of the parody part though, so I dunno, it's definitely a me issue more then anything.

I also didn't particularly like any of the characters. They were all satarized versions of common TV character tropes which is why they wernt likable but some character growth would have been nice to have something to latch onto.

I enjoyed my time with this for the humor but if anyone were to ask me to summarize what the heck went on with the plot threads, i simply couldn't. It made me dizzy at times and honestly would probably need to do a re-read maybe with the physical book and audiobook going at the same time and a notepad before I think about getting into the 2nd book of the series.

Star Trek meets Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

What did you love best about Willful Child?

The fact that it was able to spoof nearly every overall theme element from Star Trek and turn into one cohesive satire story.

What did you like best about this story?

It doesn't stop, once you get going on the maiden voyage of the Willfull Child there is no stops or breaks.

Which scene was your favorite?

HA! When The Captain has to resuscitate the Chief Medical Officer.

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

Yes

Any additional comments?

This book is seriously Star Trek meets Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. It takes all of the overall repeating themes from Star Trek along with some of the mundane ridiculous and blends them with the comedic style of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Seriously what more could you want?

For those of you whom are disappointed that this is not a long running deep rooted series Al la Malazan Book of the Fallen, well there is some serious social political undercurrents to this book but they are buried deep underneath the hilarious and ridiculous.

picard/beeblebrox/brannigan love child

Equal parts Star trek hitchhikers guide and Futurama all rolled up into one great series. the narrarator is a too teir voice and makes every character different and memorable. times I'm even reminded of Tehol Bedict

Hilarious and ridiculous parody

If you imagine all the memes about Captain Kirk happening on an actual episode of Star Trek, you get this book. The characters are outrageous and exaggerated versions of Star Trek favorites. Everything has a ridiculous name, and the captain puts himself and everyone else in unnecessarily risky situations. I laughed a lot while reading it.

I nearly puked! With laughter. (No joke.)

What did you love best about Willful Child?

The character depictions and the adventures of the Willful Child were a non-stop romp through the SF (largely Star Trek) universe at warp... er T speed.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Willful Child?

There are many, but the opening conversation between Capt. Hadrian and his superior almost made me spit out my coffee!

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

He gives the characters their own voices and to the captain, in particular, he excellently translates his "devil make care" attitude.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I did! As I mentioned in the title above, I nearly puked! At one point I was laughing so hard that I was gagging on my coffee... Thankfully, I survived!

Any additional comments?

If you loved or even just had a passing relationship with Star Trek or Futurama's Zap Brannigan you will lov.... you can guess the rest.There is one WARNING however, the book is R-rated (not X-rated thankfully). It never goes beyond F-bombs, sexual allusions and implied sex, but it is there and not for the young. This is, without exception, the funniest SF book that I have ever had the pleasure of listening to and I can't wait for the next book in the series...OH Wait! I don't have to wait at all! Book 2 "Wrath of Betty" is already up on audible! I'm off to download!
Geez, I sound like a commercial~

crazy!!

story is a crazy romp through space. so very unexpected. a lot of fun, sad it is a short listen.