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Starfall

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Starfall

By: Drew Harrison
Narrated by: John Pirhalla
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Fantasy. Sci-fi. The world was brought back from the brink of annihilation, but its still-new institutions are rattled once again as heroes and criminals clash in a neon-drenched cyberpunk metropolis.

©2020 Drew Harrison Kurzman (P)2022 Drew Harrison Kurzman Computer Science Fantasy Fiction Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction Superhero Technology
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Listener received this title free

If Drew Harrison continues to work hard and hone their craft, I feel like they've got the potential for a great future.

I was enticed into listening to this story after coming across it on Reddit. I thought the premise was interesting and found the author's interactions genuine and engaging. I am happy to say that this is reflected in the storyline. I think Drew did an exceptionally good job creating something that felt original in a genre where it could easily been lost.

The writing is a generally good quality. Drew creates a detailed world, with some well-sculpted characters. I would say my only real criticism is that the experience could have been more concise and I don't feel like it necessarily need the full 22+ hour length to effectively tell the story and build the environment.

The quality of the audio is very good. I was not the biggest fan of the narrator, but I put that down to personal preference rather than ability.

All in all, I'm glad I gave this book a try. If (and hopefully when) I see the next novel by Drew I'll have no hesitation in picking it up.

Definitely worth your time!

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I do not know how I even found this book. I first listened to it over a year ago, just finished it again today. Holds up.

Hidden Gem

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I see and spoke briefly to the author a while back on reddit offering codes but decided to buy instead.
This was one of the most exciting Cyberpunk books i have read since Snowcrash, the book is very long could and could of been a little shorter and more concentrated, but this was a wow listen at work. Everything about the book made me feel immersed into a fully fleshed out cyberpunk High Tech, Low Life world with some deep characters at work and an excited twisting plot.

I truly hope this author carrys on the Cyberpunk genre because he obviously gets it. Some praise also to the production and narrator it was 1st class reading, voice acting and sound effects here and there.

Thank you for reading

Incredible First Novel

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Listener received this title free

For a first outing, this is an excellent debut. the world building was on point, characters were well fleshed out, though the narrator's style of reading did lead me to occasionally mix up two of the female leads. the pacing is a little front heavy, but it does help in your understanding of the world at large, which always helps with cyberpunk settings.

I think a bit of trimming to bring down the length, or splitting it into two volumes would have helped with the pacing. it did feel like it had run a bit long by the end. As a Sanderson fan I don't mind long stories, but this ran a little longer than it needed to. That said, it is a first foray for the author, and one thing I did like was that chapter length was spot on. Too often longer books end up with 1hr+ chapters but Drew keeps everything nice and tight on that front.

The narration I think may have contributed to the fatigue towards the end, it's quite a dry reading. Not a bad reading, just dry.

I would absolutely recommend it as a listen, and I'm looking forward to what comes next.

Cyberpunk with hints of the stormlight archives

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Listener received this title free

I have received a code to review this book.

Starfall seems to take a lot of inspiration from other sources, yet still brings enough to the table to stand on its own. As the title of the review says it is a decent first novel, though there are certainly points of improvement. I will list them below in no particular order.

The book is about the struggle of the common man against a corporation that controls nearly every aspect of life in one of the last cities on Earth. The reader discovers more and more about the mysterious Lightbenders along with the protagonists of the book, as well as through the eyes of the antagonists. However, rarely did a new snippet of information or plottwist feel unexpected. The metaphors also felt very heavy handed.

Starfall truely shines in the interactions between Bev and M, they give a great insight into the futuristic world that the writer has created, as well as the daily life of those living inside it. The narrator does a fantastic job during these scenes, and I would have loved to have heard more about Michelangelo. The antagonists on the other hand are uninteresting and one-dimentional. They are evil for the sake of being evil, their only motivation being greed and sense of superiority.

I would have enjoyed the book more if it had been shorter and/or leaner. Throughout the book there seems to be a lot of repetition:
- Braxton does the same monologue about change (almost verbatim) and the ship of Theseus every time there is a chapter dedicated to him.
- A lot of sentences start with "Then", or "And then" , which drove me absolutely crazy towards the end of the book. Same goes for the repetition of the phrase "By the sickness" in scenes surrounding Click-Stick Jack's storyline.
- Characters explain Blockchain theory to eachother a couple of times, and the role of the Truthspaces in the city (even though both characters are born and raised in said city, and would probably already know this information).
This is especially a shame since the writer proves in one of the first chapters that he can explain a concept in a way that doesn't feel like it is aimed at the reader through Drew teaching a school class about AI reward functions, one of my favourite scenes in the whole book.

An alright first novel

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