Out of the Soylent Planet: A Rex Nihilo Adventure

Starship Grifters, Book 0

By: Robert Kroese

Narrated by: J.D. Ledford

Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's summary

Interstellar con man Rex Nihilo has a price tag on his head. Railroaded into smuggling a shipment of contraband corn to a planet short on food, Rex finds himself on the run from an insidious corporation named Ubiqorp, which reaps obscene profits by keeping the planet dependent on shipments of synthetic rations.

When Rex and his long-suffering robot companion Sasha are sentenced to work as slave labor on a massive Ubiqorp plantation, they learn the terrible secret behind the corporation's products. To escape, Rex and Sasha team up with a mis-programmed combat drone and an intelligent mutant plant to lead a rebellion against their merciless corporate overlords.

Out of the Soylent Planet is a novel-length prequel to Starship Grifters, the book New York Times best-selling author Hugh Howey called "one of my favorite space romps of all time".

©2017 Robert Kroese (P)2018 Robert Kroese

great book

one of the best in the series. narrator takes a bit to get used to but she is good

the reader made this almost unbearable,

but the story was so good as is always the case with Rex nihilo Adventures.

Terrific narration and hilarious story!

Out of the Soylent Planet: A Rex Nihilo Adventure
Starship Grifters, Book 0
By: Robert Kroese
Narrated by: J.D. Ledford

I have the book and the audio version! The audio is so good thanks to the wonderful and talented performance of this narrator! She can do any voice or sound effect! Amazing! She makes an already hilarious book even funnier with her timing and voice inflections.

The book tells how Rex and Sasha, an android/robot, get together. There first adventures which land them in plenty of trouble which Sasha should get use to if she is going to stay with the crazy nut! Rex has nothing but dangerous and hair brain schemes to get money and he doesn't seem to care if he runs afoul the mob, the law, crooked agents, or other con men.

In this adventure they end up making friends with a crippled military robot and a sentient plant. They are almost executed a couple of times. Slaves for a while. Sasha losses an eye for a while and so much more fun! This was hilarious as the others I have read have been. I am glad to know how the two got together.
Now, on to the next book!

A perfect recipe for intense laughter.

A prequel to the first two books of the "Space Grifters" series,  "Out of the Soylent Plant" explores the first tangled and out of control encounter of the humorously unlucky robot Sasha and the incredibly reckless hairbrained schemes of Rex Nihilo. The story mostly centers around a plan to get off a planet ruled by an evil company that forces it's citizens to eat horrible food, but there is also a shorter two hour story at the end of the main audiobook that recounts a tale of a simple smuggling run going sideways by Rex making it more complicated than it needed to be. Both are great stories written with a lot of thought and self aware humor.

Simply put, this audiobook is a roaring good time that will have you laughing like a lunatic for hours. The narrator here, J.D. Ledford, just makes the audio experience absolutely perfect here. Her range for all the wacky characters is spot on and she hits every comedic cue in the writing. If she keeps this level of quality up in her narration for all her future audiobooks, she could easily be one of the most sought after on audible in the next few years.

This book is highly recommended to listeners who just want to laugh. There is no required reading from the first two books in order to enjoy it and no need to take in a bunch of new science fiction concepts here. It's straight self aware comedic gold, designed for people who just want to enjoy a ridiculous setting with ridiculous characters.

Not good

The narrator can do decent voices but the bulk of it is done in a slow 1950's robot voice which is annoying.
the story is juvenile and not very funny.

change of narrator was kind of a step down

The story was good, but it feels like this novel didn't have as good an editor and the choice actress doesn't give the characters as much personality as book 1 did.

the Narrator is amazing

If you are considering a Robert Kroese book, you are already moving in the right direction. They are hilarious and smart on many levels. For me, what makes these books even more amazing is the narrator, who magnifies the satire, silliness, and absurdity of the characters, the situations, and the story. If there were a nobel prize for narrating silly audio books, I would nominate J.D. Ledford without hesitation. She does what every great narrator does- take the book to a different level.

I almost never give 5 stars

I can easily see an either I Love Rex Nihilo stories or hate them, no in between. If you are a Mel brooks fan, like me, you will probably love them.

Hilarious antics, wonderfully told.

There are several stellar match ups of narrator to story, and this is one of them. J.D. Ledford does an outstanding job of reading this series. She brings the characters to life with unique voices, pacing, and pitch. (and no, she's not pitchy!). Not only that, her delivery is consistent across the series. The match up is on par with:

Jennifer Van Dyck and Seeker.
Mark Boyett and the Undying Mercenaries series.
Jay Snyder and the Gray Man series.

The Rex Nihilo / SASHA series is some fumy stuff. Not the same as the hilarious puns of Piers Anthony in the Xanth series, more of the humor you'd get from Jasper Fforde's Fourth Bear or Michael Rubens The Sheriff of Yrnameer. Light hearted, occasional groans, hilarious over the top characters. impossibly humorous situations, etc.

And did I mention ... Sp'ossels? You will just have to dig in to know who they are...

Most I’ve laughed in a long time

This is my first exposure to both Kroese’s writing and Ledford’s performance, and my biggest regret is that I didn’t pick up the Rex Nihilo series sooner. I’ve been listening during the work day, and SASHA’s narration of Rex’s misadventures had me in stitches all week. Kroese’s sense of punny humor reminds me of Piers Anthony, and the narration by Ledford was brilliantly delivered.