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The Accidental War

A Novel of the Praxis

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The Accidental War

By: Walter Jon Williams
Narrated by: David Drummond
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About this listen

Blending fast-paced military science fiction and space opera, the first volume in a dynamic trilogy from the New York Times best-selling author of The Praxis, set in the universe of his popular and critically acclaimed Dread Empire’s Fall series - a tale of blood, courage, adventure, and battle in which the fate of an empire rests in the hands of a cadre of desperate exiles.

It’s been seven years since the end of the Naxid War. Sidelined for their unorthodox tactics by a rigid, tradition-bound military establishment, Captain Gareth Martinez and Captain Lady Sula are stewing in exile, frustrated and impatient to exercise the effective and lethal skills they were born to use in fighting the enemy.

Yet after the ramshackle empire left by the Shaa conquerors is shaken by a series of hammer blows that threaten the foundations of the commonwealth, the result is a war no one planned, no one expected, and no one knows how to end.

Now, Martinez, Sula, and their confederate Nikki Severin must escape the clutches of their enemies, rally the disorganized elements of the fleet, and somehow restore the fragile peace - or face annihilation at the hands of a vastly superior force.

©2018 Walter Jon Williams (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers Adventure Military Science Fiction Space Opera Fiction War
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Story is another great listen. The narration was a change that didn't agree with me at first, but I found that playing at 90% speed made it sound less like a computer generated train station announcer.

Good continuation

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I really struggled to convince myself to listen to this book due to the change of narrator! A really good book ruined by such a poor decision.

Change of narrator!!

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Great story although honestly no offense to the narrator the series started with one narrator and I was used to the voice and recognize the character by the way he was speaking and with the new narrator it’s just terrible. The rythme is like google translate voice.

Great story but spoiled by narrator

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A reasonable continuation of a great story spoiled by mediocre narration by a new narrator. Why change narrator in the middle of a series and why not get a really good narrator to add to the story, this narrator sounded bored and the next narrator in the series is even worse l, wake up audio books depend on good narration.

Spoiled by mediocre narration. Why new narrator and not a good one at that

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changing narrator in the middle of a series has just ruined the immersion and characters of the story.

changing narrator has ruined it.

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New Narrator is much better than the last by far! Brings more depth to the characters

Awesome new narrator, Great follow on

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Not a patch on the previous 3 novels. Narration/reading terrible makes it difficult to feel the story and get into the rhythm of the previous books.

Poor reading

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I think they used some sort of Stephen Hawking style text to voice for the narration. Except for the parts containing speech, that was done by some over the top performing arts students. Very strange. Ruined it.

Walter Jon Williams should complain about narrator

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This is the worst narration I’ve ever tried to listen to. It is so wooden it completely removes you from the narrative. Story only gets three stars as I had to give up lest I pull my own ears off or die of boredom from the narrator’s voice. A shame as I was enjoying the novel on my kindle but this has just ruined it for me.

Couldn’t stand the narrator!

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The frustrating inactivity of the story makes this entire book come off as a total stall tactic. There is no evidence of of continuity in this entire instalment barring the fact the characters have the same names. not only does the narrator compete depict a different atmosphere the writing itself feels like the author was either completely lazy, forgetful or edited into the ground.

My major issue is the lack of urgency, stakes, and mainly satisfaction. Almost every opportunity for a character to move a story line forward they would conveniently forget their character traits of competence.

At best this book was lazy but I think it was more of an attempt to pad the book count up for a longer series.

I mean they can't even read the chapter numbers accurately.

worst in the series so far.

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