The Razor

By: J. Barton Mitchell

Narrated by: Travis Baldree

J. Barton Mitchell's The Razor is a riveting science-fiction thriller about a man struggling to survive the chaos on a prison planet.

Brilliant engineer Marcus Flynn has been sentenced to 11-H37 - a hard labor prison planet better known as the Razor, where life expectancy is short and all roads are dead ends - alongside the galaxy's most dangerous criminals. At least until the Lost Prophet goes active....

In a few hours, prison guards and staff are evacuated, the prisoners are left to die, and dark mysteries begin to surface. Only Flynn has the skills and knowledge to unravel them, but he will have to rely on the most unlikely of allies - killers, assassins, pirates, and smugglers.

If they can survive each other, they just might survive the Razor....and claim it for their own.

©2018 J. Barton Mitchell (P)2018 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

If you draw ... you pull

This is a really fun nonstop action fast paced prison escape story. Reminded me a bit of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country with a alien prison planet that the main characters are trying to escape mixed in with a bit of Riddick’s universe. The setting is quite exciting and so is their battle for survival. With all the action this book is packing you will want to devote long stretches of time to listening, so make sure you settle in, buckle down, and prepare for an exciting science fiction thriller.

The plot unfolds quickly and immediately pushes you to the edge of your seat. Everything with the penal colony is not as usual and soon the thrill ensues. There is a lot going on with this prison planet, but there isn’t much time to explore it, because as soon as Flynn arrives chaos ensues. With the chaos you are greeted by a mixture of characters and creatures. Flynn indivertibly assembles a bandit team who eventually is put to a task greater than just saving themselves.

This book really had a nice mixed crew of characters. Truly some unique ones that are quite colorful that I would really like to see more of with potentially their own origin stories. The characters were well thought out and really advance the story. Zane was my absolute favorite, especially with Baldree’s voice for him. Seemed to me he may have received some inspiration from Bane, the original comic book depiction, and not from any of the movies. Gabel was another great character, and one you can tell Baldree really enjoyed narrating her. With the exception of Flynn, none of this crew is a person of moral character, yet all come together to fight a good fight and I rooted for all of them despite their personal motivations. Very much like some of the more recent comic book movies.

Travis Baldree is an amazing narrator. You can hear in is narration that he loves what he does and really likes the books he narrates. That makes every book he does so much fun and just an absolute blast to listen to. His voices for male and female characters are fantastic as he has such a range for them all. I absolutely loved his voice for Zane, as usual with Baldree’s narrations, he really gets you into the stories with all his character voices and if you close your eyes you can see everything unfold.

I wanted to hate this book

I listen to books like this during my commute. This book started slow, and the narrator began to annoy me. His female characterizations are unique and make you forget it's a male narrator, but they - all but one - sound so whiney. Maybe that's the way he saw them. However, the longer I listened, the more I wanted to know what was going to happen next, what was going to happen to the characters, and the narrator grew on me. So when the book finally ended, I was really disappointed. There are several loose ends. Do I smell a sequel?

Exciting!

This book seems to be a blending of several genres and was an exciting read. Once the action starts it does not let up.

The story holds together and the characters are pleasantly written.

Pretty Good but Way Too Long

This was a good scifi opera. What I did not like was the automatic male\female division into couples. There were too many close calls as they ran all over the place just barely escaping. I understand setting up the background for the plot but it seemed to take forever for all the characters to meet. I'm not an engineer or mathematician so I'm unsure if everything in the book actually makes sense. I did like all the characters, especially Zane and Key.

Some High Points....but many more low points.

High point: Great Narrator.
High point: Interesting Premise
High Point: Good writing

Low Point: Too long - this story didn't warrant this length in telling.
Low Point: Very slow beginning - it takes forever to get to the action. The build up was tiresome to me. If you bill yourself as action oriented - then do that, please and thank you.
Low Point: Relationships of characters unbelievable. Junkie Doctor motivates a Ranger turned inmate who failed to take action on something that haunts him. Big brain and gutter mouse - he's the bytch in the relationship - and no the attraction makes no sense. Super solider searching for something lost (I think this is the most interesting character in the bunch). Scientist/Mutant - reminds me of the snake in the grass - that you know is probably there - but you sometimes forget to watch out.
Low Point: Missed Opportunities - could have been so many epic battle scenes.
Low Point: Characters development/motivations. Madonna/Whore trope - really? In dangerous situations - but minds are on relationships/feelings about other characters. Morality - either a demon/angel - people aren't built that way.

Final thoughts:
Would I recommend it? No.
Would I listen to it again? No.
Will I seek out the next book in the series - because this book's ending suggests heavily that there will be one? No.