Excellent book, great listen!

I've read this once before, NI enjoyed it then, but I've never been a huge fan of sci-fi, I prefer fantasy (Star Wars, btw, is fantasy in space, not sci-fi). The author reads the audiobook himself and he did an excellent job, IMO. I found the tale more engaging as an audiobook than in book format.

This is true sci-fi, hard sci-fi. There isn't really any magic, though there is some unexplained science (the "glamour" of one race, for example, and the FTL drives). But the focus of the tale is humanity dealing with the questions that arise from technological advancement. The world building is fairly solid, he's devised a plausible future universe.
That's important. His characters take actions that make sense and they have believable motivations that their actions are consistent with. One of the reasons I tend to dislike sci-fi, especially classic "hard" sci-fi like Asimov, Heinlein, or Star Trek, is that its writers understand science but not people. The stories are ultimately unbelievable because the people are unbelievable. Noah Chinn avoids that trap very well.

I really enjoy this and I am hoping he does the rest of the series as audiobooks. Considering my general dislike of sci-fi that is impressive!

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A Great Introduction!

I enjoyed the universe-building in this book. While I enjoy a great deal of science fiction and space fantasy, one of my problems with it is that quite a bit leaves our solar system out of the loop. I enjoyed the engaging way the author dealt with Earth and its history, along with the introduction of several alien species.

The plot was engaging with the "old, crusty pilot" and the fresh new sidekick with various twists and bends along the way.

I look forward to more.

As this is the author's first foray into narrating their work, I give the voice work a sold A-. Very engaging and easy to listen to though I did listen at 1.2(x) speed. Only one slightly confusing part was that two characters sounded alike so that made for a misunderstanding or two from me but that was easily fixable. I believe the author is definitely suited to do their own voice work and has plenty of room to grow as a narrator. Always a good thing!

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A funny space opera

I’m familiar with Noah Chinn primarily from his column in KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE MAGAZINE, which is the successor to DRAGON magazine except for the fact it is much-much funnier. There he reviews indie books and science fiction/fantasy that has served as one of my guides to purchases for the past few years. He was also the author of Fuzzy Knights, which was a cartoon about plushies playing Dungeons and Dragons. So, like Ben “Yahtzee” Croshow, when I heard he had written a book, I decided to check it out with all haste. I’m glad I did.

The premise for LOST SOULS is that Maurice “Moss” Foote is a star pilot turned smuggler that has recently lost his ship to a crime lord. He used to be a big famous intergalactic hero supported by a megacorporation but lost his mojo when he went on a drunken binge that cost him all his endorsements. Accompanying him is the AI of his ship, Violet, and a runaway kleptomaniac slave named Hel.

Lost Souls is definitely of the Firefly, Traveller, Privateer, The Outer Worlds, and Han Solo Adventures sort of storytelling. It’s not about big galactic adventures and overthrowing evil empires but dealing with the day-to-day problem of keeping the lights on in your ship as well as your hyperdrive fueled. When I played Star Wars D6 back in high school, this was actually the game style preferred by the tabletop RPG as the rules meant that if you tried to do too much pulpy heroic science fiction heroism then you got shot in the face.

The universe that Noah Chinn has created is definitely on the funnier and enjoyable side of things, though. Moss has strong Malcolm Reynolds energy and yet he’s a lot less cynical and grumpy despite his losses. Perhaps because he has the self-awareness that the majority of his problems are his own making. He is very much against casual killing and is happy to give an escaped slave a lift or a job but he’s also someone that isn’t seeking out adventure. Whatever he used to do in order to be a big hero is something he can’t afford anymore and he’d prefer to try to just rebuild his life quietly if he can.

Too bad there are SPACE PIRATES out there. Yes, I put the words all in caps because SPACE PIRATES deserve to be capitalized. A hero is only as good as his villain and the SPACE PIRATES are pretty well-realized in this world. They’ve taken over a border world with their syndicate but are a feuding bunch of questionably professional scumbags that prefer to go after the lowest hanging fruit they can. They’re dangerous, don’t get me wrong, but not so terrifying as our hero can’t believably oppose them.

The world building for this space opera setting is also pretty well done. Like in many settings, humanity made a bunch of genetically engineered slaves and they rebelled. However, this is centuries later and said genetically engineered slaves are now the ones in charge. It’s left natural born types like Moss in a second class citizenship state but not so much that it dominates the storyline. Also, there’s a very humorous bit where an out of universe document talks about how the idiot science fiction writers of the 20th century envisioned aliens all looking like humans. Then we went out into space and it turned out all aliens looked like humans anyway (despite it being acknowledged as making no scientific sense).

Lost Souls, despite its title, is a light read even if it’s not a short one. It’s about 350 pages or as many as your typical paperback science fiction or fantasy book from the Nineties. The story is neither especially humorous or overly serious but keeps a brisk entertaining pace throughout.A little more serious than your typical MCU movie I’d say and far less on the quippage. There’s some ridiculous stuff in the book but I was reasonably able to buy it as a “serious” setting. What’s my recommendation? Well, I’m going to go buy and read the sequel now so you tell me.

Narration? Top notch.

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