One's Aspect to the Sun

By: Sherry D. Ramsey

Narrated by: Shannon Burgess

Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's summary

Captain Luta Paixon of the far trader Tane Ikai needs to know why she looks like a woman in her thirties--even though she's actually eighty-four. She isn't the only one desperate for that information.

The explanation might lie with her geneticist mother, who disappeared more than sixty years ago. But even if her mother is still alive, it's proving to be no small task to track her down in the vast, wormhole-ridden expanse of Nearspace. With the ruthless PrimeCorp bent on obtaining Luta's DNA at any cost, her ninety-year-old husband asking for one last favor, and her estranged daughter locking horns with her at every turn, Luta's search for answers will take her to the furthest reaches of space--and deep inside her own heart.

©2013 Sherry D. Ramsey (P)2014 Tyche Books Ltd.

Good Story with Strong Philosophy and Family Ties

What did you love best about One's Aspect to the Sun?

I thought the book was well written including three major themes; when corporations take over, what are the limits and boundaries of family ties, and what price immortality. The author commits to a clear path on all three. Not a lot of in-depth character development, but if I was just a fly that was listening and started observing when the book starts, this is how the characters would look.

Who was your favorite character and why?

The main character, the captain and daughter, is the deepest, though I liked the spy who I cannot name, for obvious reasons. I cannot say that I formed a clear attachment to any of the characters, but as a whole they were believable and were a solid part of the total story.

What didn’t you like about Shannon Burgess’s performance?

She is the RUN-ON Sentence Queen. I actually slowed the book to .5x and I was finally able to enjoy the book. I think I could have lived with .65, but not any faster. Now, she does creditable character differentiation, make no mistake, though slowed to .5x they sound just a bit gruesome sometimes. In fact, ONLY during the times where there were multiple characters in the conversation could I listen at 1x and not have my eyes glaze over and my head ache. BUT her voice is fine, her voice characters well defined, only her blazing speed of run-on makes her performance a 2. I have to ask this? Did anyone listen to this book before it was published? This is NOT a rhetorical question! I would like to know. Shannon was not well served by her producer or director or whatever they have running these recordings. Producers, if you can't hear the pauses at 2x, you have an issue!!!! If a listeners feels relief playing the book at .5x, you have an issue!!!!My advice to Shannon: Slow down, pause for commas (we need them and that is why the author put them there), take a breathe between sentences (your breath lets our brains package the sentence), and take a long breath between paragraphs. You should be able to hear sentence pauses even at 2x. Seriously! You did fine on the rest.

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

The title. I thought the title was great, though the author might have brought it up more than once and a bit earlier.

Any additional comments?

Overall I thought the book was good. I would invite everyone to use .5x. Yes, the characters can sound a bit off at times, but overall the reading is much better at that speed.

Excellent story!

This book was a delightful surprise. It is well crafted, has some surprising twists, and, best of all, well developed characters.

My only criticism is the attempts of the narrator to do the male voices. I found them annoying and not believable.

Fresh perspective

What made the experience of listening to One's Aspect to the Sun the most enjoyable?
I liked the relationships between the lead character and her family members. I also enjoyed the concept of a person who doesn't appear to age, but doesn't know why.

What other book might you compare One's Aspect to the Sun to and why?
I can't think of anything really comparable. It's tempting to try to find comparisons to Honor Harrington, due to the female ship captains as main characters. However, the differences in themes, plot, characterizations, and motivations are significant. Also, writing style and methods are quite different.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Shannon Burgess?
I think the author would have done better. I don't have any other specific female actor in mind.

Any additional comments?
I'd been "warned" about the reader in advance by looking at a few reviews on Audible, and I have to agree with them. It seems clear the reader was also her own director and sound editor, and has some work to do if she will continue to read books. Her voice acting wasn't bad as narrator and Luta, but her other voices ranged from absurd to annoying to hilariously stereo-typed. At times, I wanted to both laugh out loud as well as pull out my hair. I think the biggest problem was that she tried too hard to make each voice extremely distinct, and the male voices were almost all very silly and/or overdone.

The other issues I had were with pacing and pronunciation. Sentences tended to run together, and the cuts and splices were often done with almost no silence in between, causing the words to come on so fast that it was unnatural. A person couldn't start with the next sentence or paragraph so quickly without pausing for a breath. One common example of a pronunciation issue was the word "jettison". It was pronounced "jetson" every time. Also, the main character's named was spoken so it sounded like "Luda", and I didn't know for sure how it was spelled until I checked the book synopsis/teaser.