Koban, Book 1
by Stephen W. Bennett
narrated by Patrick Freeman
I had my doubts when I first saw this title on reduction sale and I was hesitant to try it as audio books are so much more expensive. I’m glad that I took the risk
The Flight of Fancy, of the ‘I forget the name’ star liner company, was ferrying a roster of Biological Scientists to a newly established world to set up a research station beyond the rim. They didn’t even make it to the orbital habitat. Being swarmed by unknown ships that robbed them of their jump capability they submit to the boarding by…aliens. The Krull, being a warrior species that constantly competes for status within their society-clans which equates to the privilege of breeding, are stocking their training planet Koban with potential adversaries to test prey species. They want to see who is worthy to attack and who just needs extermination on their path to Galactic rule.
The crew of the Flight of Fancy and previous captives need to find a way to work together to defeat the Krull in their testing days. They need to prove that humans are worthy of battle, not just extermination.
I really enjoyed the book so much that when it was over I went and bought the next three installments. A detractor from the work itself was the use of English units rather than metric but the overall science portion was not hand wavy. Well done. My expectations are high now…just saying. The narration of this work was well done; I especially liked the mimicry of the Koban wildlife sounds and the ranges between characters. That being said I think the conversational related chuckles could have been used more conservatively but it did not detract from the overall performance. Four out of five satisfaction units go to this.
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