Rise of Mankind: Publisher's Pack, Books 1 & 2

By: John Walker

Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin

Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins

Publisher's summary

Behemoth, Book 1: Three years ago, Earth was attacked by an invading force so devastating, only one ship in the fleet survived. Their hard won victory came from the aid of an alliance of aliens long at war with an aggressive force. With the aid of advanced technology, humanity retrofitted their surviving vessel. The Behemoth became a shield against any future incursions.

Now a strange ship has arrived, heading straight toward Earth. As it is not answering hails, the Behemoth heads out to intercept. The operation is interrupted by other visitors from beyond the solar system. Outnumbered the Behemoth must fend off the invaders once again - but this time, the stakes are much higher.

Warfare, Book 2: Barely recovered from a battle against an alien incursion, the Behemoth waits to see how the alliance wishes to leverage their discovery, the weapon code named Protocol Seven. When two warships arrive from their allies with an offer difficult to refuse, they find themselves leant out to travel outside the solar system to a secret research facility across the galaxy.

But what was promised to be a milk run turns into something completely different. With limited resources and a new commander on board their companion ship, they must stay alive. Combined with a potential threat from within, the odds are stacked high against them. Only their ingenuity and the perseverance of the human spirit may keep them alive.

©2016 John Walker (P)2017 Podium Publishing

Corny and clicheish

Could've been an interesting book but after suffering the continual bravado and childish truisms I had to leave. Nice try

narrator was meh

narrator ruins main character almost cant. listen for that reason. worst voice ever sounded like re traded robot

Good but ....

It's officer centered, Action is good, story is a bit predictable I'm the second book. A good listen but could have used more character building.

Space from an airplane point of view.

Hard to finish but it has promise for the author. Some solid research should give some good ideas.

Action packed!

For scifi lovers and adventure seekers, John Walker's creation of this futuristic space battle will keep your attention throughout both books.
Some reviews bash the narration but I think James Patrick Cronin does a phenomenal job at giving each character their own tone of voice, their own emotion, and a vision the author is trying to portray. The female alien voice can be a little cringing at times but that is how James thought to portay that particular character. Aliens should have their own tone so the listener can distinguish who is talking and I feel the narrator did that for me.
On to book 3!

Cue the Violins...

A solid story line that was spoilt by too much introspection and unrealistic description of emotions via unbelievable dialogue. The author seemed to find wrapping the story up especially difficult. I found myself being pulled out of the story frequently by this jarring disconnect. James Patrick Cronin is an accomplished narrator but struggled to overcome this shortfall. Passed the time with a lot of wtf moments.

Fun Read

Having read several series similar to this one in plot, I was pleasantly surprised to find that humanity was at a distinct disadvantage.
At least in terms of rare resources they’re stuck with the one ship to defend Earth with. This allows humanity to excel with quality over quantity. That along with having to prove themselves to the galaxy at large. All in all, it is an excellent start to the series with a great cast of characters.

As with all audiobooks…

Look.. everyone needs a job, and i can put up with some bad narration, but if you’re only capable of enunciating a handful of distinct tones this ain’t the job for you. it’s not so much i lost track of who was speaking, it’s that some of the voices like the main character had a very obvious false inflection, minor characters were like a overly deep voice or they sound like they have a stick up their a**, others like the alien liaison were better but the MAIN character? i’m going to try to finish the book but im hours in and i can’t take it anymore lol… you need good narrators to make a good audiobook. i’ll take RC Bray or Mark Thompson any day. i feel mean saying this but it’s just my honest opinion.

basic space opera...

So basically the crews of the human ship always panic over any kind of conflict and the fighter jocks make dumb choices and get people killed. Aliens believe humans are stupid but fight like crazy demons and are lucky... am i missing something?

OMG

From the first chapter i was trying to figure out if the writer was messing with is or if he/she was really that BAD, the writer is very very BAD and the actors well let me say this they made a very very poorly written book into absolutely the worse audio i ever listened to and when the second book started and the alien ship came into earth space they actually stated their ship was called crystal font at that time i knew the author was thinking how stupid the people who buy these types of audio is. Come on if these two books didn’t come together no one would ever spend hard earned cash on the second one.! I feel so used.!!!!