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Scion

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Scion

By: James Islington
Narrated by: Scott Aiello
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Summary

John Wick meets Blade Runner in this fast-paced cyberpunk thriller by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Will of the Many and The Strength of the Few.

My job, when you think about it, isn’t so different from a lot of people’s.

The more old-fashioned crowd do still get hung up on the "killing people" part of it, I guess, but that’s a them problem: it’s been perfectly legal to take out lifers for ages. Besides, once ultrawealthy morons realized they had a way to live forever—limited resources be damned—there was only ever going to be one genuinely practical deterrent.

So, sure, I have to deal with a ton of boring planning. Inconvenient hours. Some pretty awkward face-to-face interactions. And like most of us, I’m really only clocking in to try to crawl out from beneath my debts. But someone’s got to do it.

Luckily, my genetic compatibilities make me really, really good at doing it.

Still. This next job . . . I don’t know. It’s something I haven’t had to deal with in years. Kind of the opposite of my regular duties. Strange, that it got thrown my way.

I’m sure it’ll all go totally fine though.

©2026 James Islington (P)2026 Audible, Inc. Adventure Best of 2026 (so far) Science Fiction
All stars
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This is a scifi horror/mystery/thriller leavened by the apallingly unsympathetic hero-narrator's sardonic humour - perfectly rendered in this brilliant performance . The characters are credibly consistent, and the writing is first-rate. The action and plot move smoothly through a succession of cliff-hanger episodes - so smoothly that it's only later that I realised the impossibility of a subway leading from an Earth-like country estate to a city apparently beneath the surface of a planet with surface conditions hostile to life! I'm usually pretty annoyed by incongruities like that, but the story and the performance were so good that in this case it really didn't matter!
It left me hoping for a sequel, although the author may have decided this was a perfect point at which to leave his protagonists.
Of course, the A.I. he has created might decide otherwise: just consider how often writers claim " the story just wrote itself!"

A perfect combination of text and performer

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Totally worth a credit even though the story is short. I found it compelling and fun with great narration. Definitely recommend.

Loved it, can’t wait for more

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If you're in the mood for the fully immersive cyberpunk experience through the medium of a short story, then this is for you.

The Full Cyberpunk

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Quick and funny in places, reminds me of Murderbot in a sense but the story was very underwhelming. There was also zero world building or even character building.

I wouldn't finish it if it wasnt a few hours read.

Funny but I'd DNF if not for the size of it

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