Entanglement cover art

Entanglement

The Belt, Book 1

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Entanglement

By: Gerald M. Kilby
Narrated by: Steven Jay Cohen
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About this listen

You can run, but you can’t hide - not even in space.

Commander Scott McNabb, of the science vessel Hermes, is three years into a five-year-long survey of the asteroid belt. It’s an excruciatingly dull mission, yet it keeps him far away from the agencies that are chasing him down. However, his fortunes change, along with the other four crew members, when they discover a derelict spaceship in orbit around a binary asteroid. Scott’s share of the salvage would be enough to clear his name and start a new life.

But the ship contains an experimental quantum device, lost while en route to Europa, and ownership of this technology could fundamentally change the balance of power within the solar system. Now that word is out of its discovery, the Hermes finds itself being hunted down by the very people from whom Scott has spent so much time and effort hiding.

If Scott wants any hope of a new life, then he’s going to have to fight for it. Yet, after a lifetime of running and hiding, he’s not sure if he has what it takes - maybe he really is just one of life's losers. Then again, there is a deep river of rage welling up inside him, born out of a lifetime of countless accumulated injustices, each one inching him ever closer to the edge - and this could be the one that finally makes him snap.

©2018, 2019 Gerald M. Kilby (P)2024 Gerald M. Kilby
Hard Science Fiction Science Fiction Space Opera Fiction Solar System Greek Mythology Ancient Greece Mythology

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All stars
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Listener received this title free

Compelling and immersive first installment of another undoubtedly classic Kilby saga. Clever, entertaining, and an absolute pleasure to listen to. Masterfully constructed and brilliantly read.

A beautifully crafted sci-fi adventure

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The story is good and keeps you engaged however the narration is so slow and monotone, if you want to fall asleep he has the perfect voice for it, for a ‘thrilling’ book not so much.

Story good and the author has a good imagination.

Good story but narration frustrating

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Listener received this title free

You can run, but you can’t hide - not even in space.

Commander Scott McNabb, of the science vessel Hermes, is three years into a five-year-long survey of the asteroid belt. It’s an excruciatingly dull mission, yet it keeps him far away from the agencies that are chasing him down
shame about the narrater

good book

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Listener received this title free

Entanglement is the first book in The Belt trilogy, written by Gerald M. Kilby. It is a space opera about a science ship captain named Scott McNabb, and his crew of 4, and their experiences following a lucky run in with a derelict space ship carrying a piece of cutting edge quantum technology. Unfortunately, everyone in the solar system appear to want this piece of technology, and McNabb and his crew are in for a hard time trying to evade getting killed, while still ensuring that the device doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.

The book was okay written, with a fine story that was overall quite coherent. A good mix of action and non-action, which made the story presented with a good flow to it. A relatively short story but well contained, and it ended with a fine setup for the sequel. Dialogs were okay, but not too profound. I did find a bit lack of descriptive prose, to really create a setting and set the mood for the reader. Some parts were greatly described, others lacking.
The author did have a tendency to do info dumps, with sections of way too much show and not tell, which I could have been without. There were also a parts where there were too much technobabble, and meta science explanations, while most other parts were pure space opera. Either stick to science fiction and skip the long science-y explanations, or make a hardcore science story where everything more or less stands up to the real world. This book is a good (Bad!) example of how plot McGuffins can be used by adding ‘quantum’ to it, similar to how “mutation” was the carrier of science fiction books 20 years ago. You give a pseudo science explanation of how a thing works, slaps “QUANTUM” on to it, and call it a day.

Unfortunately, while the story was fine as such, it was also very superficial and generic. There’s the slightest hints of political intrigue and developments of technofobia, along with information on a previous nuclear war that changed the political spectrum, yet this is always just used to set an undertone and is never developed at all, which is a real pity. I felt like the story was really just scratching the surface of a potential much deeper and complex story, which I really would have liked to see. Our main protagonist is the cliché space captain that doesn’t believe in himself, with a cliché crew of misfits that just randomly happens to run into a MacGuffin that sets thing underway. If it had actually set things up for a deeper and complex story it would have been fine, but when the books just develops to be “Bring McGuffin to good guys, fight bad guy, the end”, then I would have liked quite a bit more.
The same lack of depth was also felt for the characters, as they were quite undeveloped and without almost any background. The main character is unsure of himself, is just there to earn money because of an implausible backstory, and has no skills whatsoever (At least, we’re never told). One of the other characters is even mentioned early as never saying anything, and that turned out to be true, because I can’t remember the character doing anything at all in the book! I assume she was just there because her role is needed in book 3 of The Belt trilogy (Where she is also speaking all the time, which of course is completely contradictory to what we are told in this book). Our main protagonist of course also, completely out of nowhere, falls madly in love with another member of the crew. I guess this was another setup for the sequel where it is needed, but to me it felt extremely forced and I actually laughed out loud when it happened because there was no setup. The sequel also tells us that they actually didn’t like each other before the story in the book, so why they are now suddenly madly in love makes it even more strange. And then we have the death of yet another crew member, and out of nowhere this character is suddenly and old and trusted friend of the protagonist, and he mourns a lot due to the loss. Overall the book comes of as missing a lot of backstory and depth, and since it was so short to begin with, I really felt that it could easily have added some additional background to flesh out things.
The spaceship is an old trashy one, but for some reason it has a state of the art artificial intelligence, and sent to the middle of nowhere to do a simple science survey, which I found hard to believe. That being said, I liked the inclusion of this artificial intelligence, as it added a bit of complexity into the crew of the space ship.
The ending climax was also over way too fast. I had expected a good build up to a fight with the bad guys, but well… That was over quickly.

I listened to the audiobook version, and the book was narrated by Steven Jay Cohen. In general he did a fine job, although I did find his voice quite flat, which made it somewhat uninteresting and forgettable. He was quite good at doing different voices though, which was nice.

Overall this was an okay science fiction adventure, and fortunately not too long, given my many points of critique. If you want something relatively short and easy to follow, this may be a good pick. But if you are looking for something with a deep plot, a complex setting, and interesting characters, you need to look elsewhere.

I received this audiobook for free in return for a review. I have no affiliation with the author, the narrator, the publisher, or their pets (Although I am sure the latter are quite nice!).

Somewhat shallow space opera

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I really enjoyed it Cant wait to get the next second part of this. love all the books

Fantastic

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