To Serve and Protect

Excellent multi genre story with plenty of action!

I ran out of "Joe Ledger" , "Mitch Rapp", "Court Gentry" and "John Clark" novels. I prefer the present day /near future to past or far future (alien beings and space ships). I'm not necessarily Tom Clancy fan but rather a "John Clark" fan. I went on to "Bob Lee Swagger" novels next, then on to the author who should be the inspiration for all other authors in the spy/thriller/action/black-ops genre, the late Vince Flynn (he is greatly missed)! Vince Flynn writes about "Mitch Rapp" as most of you know. Once I finished the entire series, I read about Jonathan Maberry in a forum, he's generally a horror writer (vampires, werewolves, zombies). He had branched out into the Spec-Ops/Shadowy world of spies fighting terrorists or "James Bond" type villains with world altering objectives. The main character, "Joe Ledger" is a cop recruited by the "DMS" (Department of Military Science). He meets all sorts of people throughout the series including a vampire ex-terrorist/all female team who he works with from time to time. Joe ends up battling people who can't die, zombie-virus, mutants, killer drones and even bad guys with alien type technology. The "Joe Ledger" novels are uniquely written with excellent moments of comic relief. They are action/thrillers and move very fast but as audiobooks you receive the added bonus of having Ray Porter as the narrator.
This is how I learned of "ONSET", Ray Porter. I haven't been able to find any books that come close to my favorites. So I decided to base my search on narrators (Ray Porter).
Touchdown!!! I land on Glynn Stewart's "To Protect and Serve: Onset Series Book 1"!
Fantastic! it's very similar to "Joe Ledger" stories but there is more of a fantasy angle and quite a lot of nods to "Lord of The Rings". Glynn Stewart does an excellent job of blending magic, Elves, Mages, Werewolves, Vampires, Demons, etc with present day military equipment.

28 of 29 people found this review helpful

Okay-ish

As long as you know nothing about guns, helicopters, police procedures, etc and don't pay too much attention to the rules of the magic system it's a decent read. If you can jam with a made for SyFy movie, you'll rock this. The premise was fun and it rolled along decently (though there were certainly plenty of dead ends in the plot). You just have to invest as little thought as the author did to enjoy it fully. The narration was at times confusing with character voices being swapped at random.

I'm probably judging it too harshly because there were just enough good bits to get glimpses of what it could have been with a bit more effort.

9 of 9 people found this review helpful

Waiting for Book 2

A seamless blend of military action, magic and human nature. Too often the magic component of a story gets too fluffy and ruins the entire book. Not so here. The occasional emotional moment but in a believable way. Likeable characters with strengths and flaws and enough baddies to keep them on the hop. A great narrator and r-e-a-l-i-s-t-i-c dialogue! Just when I thought the plot was starting to veer toward ordinary there was another surprise and I wanted to hear more. One of the rare occasions where I listened to every word - (yep, right up until the end). I find that most stories run out of puff before the end of the book or worse, involve an unsatisfying ending. I'm looking forward to book 2.

8 of 9 people found this review helpful

Decent enough setup but the MC needs work

Any additional comments?

I really wanted to like this book, but ultimately i cant give it a higher rating than a three star. The world he built was interesting, particularly the idea of WHY supernatural stuff isn't that prevalent, if maybe it has a few holes. (Admittedly holes that might be filled in books 2 and 3) but really the problem i feel the book overall has is the main character. First off he is far, far too obsessed with the whole serve and protect thing. I'm not going to say its an unrealistic personality trait, but its the way the author hammers it home like every other chapter. And he doesn't just mention it in passing he will have like, entire pages full of him basically just repeating "I SERVE AND PROTECT. I MUST PROTECT THOSE I SERVE. IT IS A SERVICE TO PROTECT THOSE WHO'S PROTECTION I SERVE" and it goes rapidly from "ok thats his drive" to "ive heard this before" to painfully intense eye rolling by the 7th or 8th time he starts going on about it.

The other issue is the main character is kind of a huge Mary Sue. I've had this argument with a lot of other writers that you can't have an all powerful main character and then call minor emotional issues as a balance to being basically god. "I can single handedly kill the entire bad guy's forces with one hand but I'm a balanced character because i have minor confidence issues" does not a good character make. Not to mention they keep adding more and more powers without every explaining what he is. every other "empowered" They introduce only has 1 specific power, like a mutant from X-men. But with him every 5 minutes hes got a new ability like hes a swiss army knife of superpowers that just coincidentally happens to have the exact power he needs exactly when he needs it. The character probably would have clicked better if he had softened that blow a bit but he just kinda barrels past "my character is unstoppable, moving on"

Overall its a decent story that could very easily get better in the second or third book. but this one stand alone the main character just is too unbelievable, annoying at times, and too Mary Sue to like.

7 of 8 people found this review helpful

Awesome book

Just get the book it's a great book. If you enjoy Johnathan Maberrys work you will probably like onset. There are a few slow spots but, all around a great book.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Drilled the title way too much...

The book is ok. That's about as nice as I can put it. The main character stresses to serve and protect at least 3 times each chapter. With over 40 chapters it got annoying real quick. Main character is very unrealistic. I can deal with the powers that just seem to keep coming at random. But, his daddy issues accompanied by his not wanting to be a freak made it hard to like the main character. The supporting characters just had no development at all. They're stories would probably be more interesting over the goody two shoes. Again the book is ok. Debating on giving the second book a try.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Really wish I had the whole series!

Absolutely loved it! coming from the sci-fi genre, this story in the supernatural was refreshing. The characters were phenomenal and the story gripping. Highly recommended!

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

The rare sort of book i always hope to find

How i wish all the books i choose could be this good. it's the rare book i always to find. the people have become real, the story alive, and the hero is a real hero. well done Glynn Stewart and Ray Pòrter!!

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Overall very good

The story line is interesting.. I see that there are two other books in this series, however they are not available at this time. I did notice that Ray Porter is not the Narrator for those books. I love Ray Porter, I was looking for a book narrated by him when I ran across this book. Since he’s not the narrator for the next two I won’t be following up with this series

5 of 9 people found this review helpful

The good ship Mary Sue

I was willing to let David (the main character) hold off some vampires right at the start of the book if only because the "power" that permitted him to do so seemed to be unpredictable. Sadly David rapidly becomes a Mary Sue who just so happens to have a power that saves him in any particular situation. I include the hacker Majestic in David's "powers" because it rapidly becomes obvious she's not really a character but a plot device to get David out of a situation that could have been tense and interesting.

The general idea was interesting. Unfortunately the David is so stupidly overpowered, the ending seems almost anticlimactic. I can't help but feel the final battle in this book should have been the grand finale of the series. I probably would have accepted it much more if it had been.