The Oncoming Storm

Narrators never up to Nuttall's stories

This is the first in a very promising series. Nuttall is a fine writer. Here the conflict is between a "normal" government and one of religious fanaticals. The religion looks like some we know, but is never specifically paralleled. And then there is a traitor among the good guys. There are terrific battles, and some minor philosophical discussion about whether one conqueror should be any better than another. I enjoyed the story and the promise of more to come.

However, here are my gripes. Katherine--Kat-- is promoted to the captaincy of the Lightning. She is too young and too inexperienced, but her aristocratic father managed it. This causes some tension between her and the much older second in command, the XO. He is not happy to have been overlooked for this position. However, this tension simply fizzles away as Capt. Kat proves to be capable. It seemed all too smooth and easy. But that is acceptable, we can shrug it off. The story is well developed, and engaging.

But then there is the narration. (Ark Royal's narrator drove me to quit the series.) I hate to diss people at their work, but this lady needs a new career. Her normal voice is light and breathy, probably suited for fairy tales, but then she couldn't do an ogre. Her hyper-correct pronunciation of the plosives (p,t,k especially) causes extra syllables such as "lookt uh down" that were distracting at best, and actually confusing at times. Her male voices are terrible, just scratchy low, and then they are inconsistent-- people's voices changed. The females sounded kittenish. The best voice was the enemy cleric, a simpering, snide snake of a person. I quite enjoyed him.

Other than that, editors should have caught things like:
A. non sequiturs:
1. "I'd bet that isn't a coincidence."
"Me neither."
2. Her father should have understood. Or perhaps he didn't.
B. grammar
1. Another explosion rung out.
C. wrong words
1. they should hide in uncharted asteroid habits.
D. pointing to the title
1. "the oncoming storm" is said at least 3 times in the book. Once would have been questionably acceptable. The contexts in which it was said are unnatural; this is not a typical phrase for military persons to be tossing around so liberally.

Nevertheless, this is a good story, with sequels to look forward to. It just needed a final editing.

26 of 30 people found this review helpful

This is more of an Honor Harrington reboot

It still was a good listen. I felt the narration was sub par. it took some getting used to,

13 of 15 people found this review helpful

Narrator's voices are terrible, story very good

Would you consider the audio edition of The Oncoming Storm to be better than the print version?

I don't have time to read the story, but it has got to be better than many of the vocalizations by the narrator.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Oncoming Storm?

When the Captain goes with the XO to buy critical information from the XO's shady brother, he sees that the Captain, although part of the ruling family, is a capable officer who is not afraid to "get her hands dirty".

How could the performance have been better?

Bring in a male for the male voices. Narrator sounds like she uses various amounts of nose pinching for many male voices. Female voices for other than the Captain can get pretty squeaky. My poor ears.

Any additional comments?

Please replace the narrator or at lease get a male to help with moices.

7 of 8 people found this review helpful

How many component plots can you jam into a novel?

What would have made The Oncoming Storm better?

A disappointment, as a fan of his space novels, as this time Nuttall attempts half-heartedly to blend different dimensions that don't fit well together into one novel. An intriguing premise if not for the absolute flawed execution, and that's where the story line takes a fall. You follow a female protege, ashamed of her parents wealth and ambitious political power, as a space captain (plausible) at the age of 26 (okay..), with neural enhancements (bio-engineering added to the theme only confuses the story), and autonomous from the Theocracy or Non-Theocracy aligned Independents (which picking a side will inevitably become an issue, not too much plot twist here yet). All of those elements by themselves can be used to create a fascinating story, but Nuttall falls shy of fascinating with all of the confusing plot lines going in different directions and yet somehow merging. It's really a confusing read, and having tried the audio books in hopes of a more refined understanding, the narrator (L. Ezzo) makes it worse with her single-tone by-play of seemingly important events, personality and emotional qualities of characters that should have some variance in pitch or vocal tone. It was very disappointing, as I'd hoped for not even a stellar story but more of a decent read (which became a read of descent as it seemed, at some point, to be an effort in madness trying to follow the plot).

Would you ever listen to anything by Christopher G. Nuttall again?

I certainly will, I like his stories (not too canned space hero or over-techy reaching except this novel) and will try the next in the series as it develops.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Lauren Ezzo?

Just about anyone. I'm not picky about narrators, but she didn't seem to have a good grasp on emotional cues for characters or events. There seemed to be no real urgency, just the obvious amateur antics of a narrator trying to sound like a man by deepening her tone (which is somewhat insulting to hear) or the constant single pitch of a character set (whether under fire, in negotiations, sad, depressed, happy...it all sounded the same).

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

Not many. I tend to follow authors for their stories, and the right narrator can go a long way as well, but mainly this book lacked a single point of focus. I know good authors who are very capable of managing multiple main characters or various background plots (like Sanderson or Jack Campbell) but these are not Nuttall's strong suit. And in this novel, there's just too much noise to follow the idea of where you are going, heading, or if there is a real point.

Any additional comments?

Recommend the Arc Royal series by Nuttall, good narrator and simple yet certainly enjoyable series. Very little to disappoint there.

7 of 8 people found this review helpful

Good story

Good story but the voice acting of secondary characters is poor. Great start to what should be an interesting series.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Fun story and Great Series Start

First: Lauren Ezzo did a fantastic job. Her delivery strong and I felt she added to the overall experience. She has a tendency to pronounce everything exactly which I got used to very quickly.

Nuttall delivers with his novels, which is what originally drew me into his stories with Ark Royal. We've got a far future corporate aristocracy vs. a "theocracy" or religious oligarchy at a high state of tension and ideological conflict.

I liked the main character. She's intelligent, brave, dutiful, and humble. Nuttall didn't fall into the same trap as some other novels where he made here a tactical or strategic genius as well. She's resourceful and interesting to follow.

This is solid and entertaining military sci fi and I think it's worth a read. :)

5 of 6 people found this review helpful

It Was Ok

My enjoyment of The Oncoming Storm was hampered by two issues: an incredibly miscast Audio book narrator and a plot that somehow managed to not bring anything new to the genre of military sci fi. As such, the story is serviceable and packs enough adventure to keep readers/listeners invested. But at the same time, this is a somewhat unsatisfying snack, leaving one hungry for more substantial fare at the end.

Story: Cat Falcone enlists in the military fleet in order to make her own life independent of her noble and extremely powerful father. But that same father will pull strings, get her a premature ascendancy to captain, and a mission to investigate problems at the Cadiz world outpost. With a former lover leading her marines, a highly experienced but overlooked non-noble executive officer under her, and a fanatical religious government set to declare war, she will get far more than she bargained for at Cadiz.

The premise is fairly simple and rather topical - aristocratic government versus religious fanatics in space. Nuttal smartly steers clear of making the zealots related to any particular current religion - they are an amalgamation of several monotheistic fundamentalists including tight control over citizens, lack of women's rights, and the usual 'God is on our side' rhetoric. Subthemes on the power of the aristrocracy over those born outside of nobility (think ancient Rome and citizenship) as well as military ineptitude and corporate greed are also covered. Perhaps because all the topics are timely that this book feels almost dated - contemporary religious fundamentalist struggles but with a heroine reminiscent of Honor Harrington or Kris Longknife (especially). I can't help but feel Jack Campbell did it all a bit better - and tighter.

That aside, the story flows smoothly enough though hampered a bit by characters making the same obvious conclusions over and over again. In that regard, I wish the editor had been a bit tighter and sharpened the focus more. Some observations were made so many times, I would have started counting them for a future drinking game if reading on Kindle (e.g., "take a drink every time the XO notes that Kat makes a non-self serving command that impresses him she's not like the other captains). The book feels overly long in that regard.

The Audible narration was truly bad and I had a hard time getting into the book because of the bland, staccato, over enunciated, narration. The narrator seems much better suited to a YA book like Twilight than military science fiction, to be honest. At one point, it was difficult to continue because I'd cringe every time I had to start Audible and listen to the dull reading.

7 of 9 people found this review helpful

poor rip off .

This was a poor rip off of the Honor Harrington series by David Weber.

4 of 5 people found this review helpful

Good kick-off to a series.

Good story that is clearly Nuttall's work. The character-focused military story is well-executed, and I am looking forward to the next volume. The only flaw in the performance is a few pronunciation errors (e.g. "Corpsman" as "corpse man" instead of the proper "core man", and spelling HUD instead of just saying "hud" as a word as it is properly said). If I had no military background, I might not notice the errors, but they do grate after a bit.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Enjoyable

I enjoyed the story line. I was not impressed with the narrator. Her attempt at different voice characters was dismally lacking. She should have studied the typical military bridge exchange of orders to give it more genuine feel to the story.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful