Annihilation - Tommy's Tale

Annihilation Serie, Book Four

By: Saxon Andrew

Narrated by: Liam Owen

Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins

Publisher's summary

From the number one best-selling author Saxon Andrew comes the fourth book in the best-selling Annihilation Series, Tommy's Tale.

The Stars Realm is finally at peace and the Algeans are now allies of the Realm. The Gardner's youngest child, Tommy, has made a quest to free the captured Alfont from the Captors that have held them imprisoned for more than sixty million years. The Captors are hundreds of millions of years more advanced technologically than the Stars Realm Military and nothing in the Realm's arsenal can match their ships, some of which are more than 3,000 miles in diameter. The Captors have annihilated more than a million planets whose starships had the misfortune to stumble into their domain and Tommy is putting the Realm on a collision course with these beings that show no mercy. What the Realm doesn't know is that the Captors are coming no matter what course Tommy decides to follow. The difference maker in the coming conflict could be two Algean adolescents that have started their education. These two will find redemption for all the destroyed worlds their race harvested and perhaps even more than redemption, each other.

The Annihilation Series continues and the action is non-stop as the Stars Realm fights to survive its most dangerous opponent.

©2011 Saxon Andrew Publishing llc (P)2014 Saxon Andrew Publishing LLC

Plenty of Reasons Not To Like This Series

Here we are at book four of this series and I have read and enjoyed every one. The trouble is, that I still do not fully understand why. Until recently, the reasons have well resisted rising to the top of my consciousness.

There are plenty of reasons that I could have not liked this series:

For example:

- Some of the writing is cliché, syrupy and even goofy ("I love you more than life itself", 'You are close to my heart", "I do not want to live without you").

- The author seems to confused about the differences between interstellar space and intergalactic space and between scale of the two. In fact, the sense of scale in this story in terms of dimension, speed and raw numbers sometimes gets so implausible that it crosses the border into silly land at times.

- The "science" in the "science fiction" feels like something out of the old "Buck Rogers" movies or sometimes even more like the old "Twilight Zone".

All that said, I have loved every one of these books and have pretty much done straight through listens on all of them (plenty of credit to the excellent skills of Liam Owen as well). I think it is because Saxon Andrew's stories provide a vision of what things could be like if we were primarily driven by the desire to love and care for one another and the will to find large non-zero sum solutions for our differences. The strength of these themes make me suspend my disbelief on the types of issues described above and instead look at these stories as inspirational fantasy with a science fiction flavor.

I would recommend these books (especially, but not solely, for young adults) not because they are strong examples of the sci fi genre (as I see it, they are not), but because they provide food for thought on where want to go as a civilization. I am very much looking forward to the continuation of the series.

not well thought out

The book feels like it was written by a 13 year old instead of an adult .The author tries to hard to shock an awe his readers. The author even forgets some of his own details an contradicts himself.

Another home run for the Rhelm

Would you consider the audio edition of Annihilation - Tommy's Tale to be better than the print version?

I love audio books I do not often read print version.

Who was your favorite character and why?

I found Tommy to be an outstanding character. Like the first book where his father was the core that others developed around. He is the catalysts by which all other outstanding characters were pinned.

What about Liam Owen’s performance did you like?

Liam has yet another outstanding performance in book 4 of the series. For me he is the voice of their Universe. He is easy to listen to and has a dynamic that brings the characters to life.

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

When Tommy's best friend was married. It was well written and creates a pivotal foundation for many of the other characters to develop their bonds.

Any additional comments?

This book is a book of relationships, at a level the other books in the series did not reach.
I hope there will be a fifth book to the series.

many editing errors repeated we spoken sentences

a good continuation of previous books in the series. the story is interesting and generally engaging. but one gets the feeling after a while when the Human Alliance is stuck in a corner or needing help to resolve a last-minute crisis that the author off and pulls a rabbit out of his hat comes up with some miraculous change of the laws of physics or a hidden discovery that just by chance happens to come to someone at that moment and can be implemented in a very short period of time in order to save all of the Human Alliance.

Also after a few books this one is continuing the pattern where the editor has failed to notice that the author occasionally either restates or repeat sentences or paragraphs. this is become rather annoying as you were listening to the story and suddenly the author restates the same exact sentence with a word that has previously or restates the paragraph entirely and you're wondering if there's something wrong with your player there isn't there something wrong with the editor couldn't be bothered to hear that the book was repeating itself and make the appropriate edits

Like the first three

The science and possibilities aren't well thought out, but these books are more adventure than sci-fi. There's never been a reason given for instance why races stick to the same area of space or even the same galaxy as it seems just as easy to cross the universe as to jump to the closest star. Or why if you can teleport a whole planet you don't just drop a gas giant in your enemies, teleport their planet into a star, or use the teleportation field as a kind of shield and turn the enemy's weapons against themselves...

These books are more for younger people, but I still find them enjoyable.

A Bit Schmatzy For my Tastes but..

The book was a fairly satisfying ending with a couple of nice surprises but was for me, (and I am female) a bit too filled with 'oh darling without you I would die' and 'don't worry Dahling, we will live together or die together' s/he said, 'kissing/holding/who care-ing' Way too much. I thought what storyline there was, well, it was OK, but it left too many holes, and was a bit too far fetched to be believed. Although this was the weakest of the four, it seems there are more. So as long as they are not going to become more twee I will try another if it becomes an audiobook. And I can find it!