Citadel

The Palladium Wars, Book 3

By: Marko Kloos

Narrated by: Korey Jackson

An interplanetary battle is renewed in an epic novel of a warring solar system by the author of Ballistic.

The war should have been over. But it’s not for a group of nationalists grabbing for control.

It’s been two weeks since a missile with a nuclear warhead tore through the planetary defenses in the most blistering large-scale attack ever committed in the history of the Gaia system. Commander Dunstan Park of the Rhodian navy has been handpicked to command an experimental cruiser that could dictate the course of the escalating conflict. All he has to do is keep the ship from falling into the wrong hands.

On Gretia, the powder keg is beyond control. A terrorist attack against civilians draws Idina Chaudhary into a costly battle. It also forces a cautious Aden Jansen back into the fray. Now dedicated to a just cause, he’s still keeping his past hidden. The risk of exposing his former alliance could twist not only his fate but also that of his sister, Solveig, heir to the family empire.

With no time to waste, Dunstan hits the ground running. But as insurgents threaten the unstable peace, what’s ahead for both sides could change the destiny of the Gaia system forever.

©2021 by Marko Kloos. (P)2021 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Critic reviews

“A series you should start if you are a fan of grounded space opera with a military lean. The Palladium Wars comes at straight-up military fiction from an angle that keeps it interesting.” (Locus Magazine)

Find a narrator and stick with it.

Update 08/28/21

The reason why I gave this book one star is 100% because of the reader. I very specifically call him a reader not a narrator. His performance is absolutely horrible and flat. For a series that has such heavy inflections and important of how people speak the fact that they chose him for narration... sorry reading this book is absolutely mind boggling. It absolutely killed the listening experience for me. I had to read the book I could not force myself to listen to the rest of it after trying for over an hour. The readers way of pronouncing some of the main planetary names in a completely different manner than what was already done up to this point was utterly jarring. The story itself was absolutely magnificent. However the fact that they let this get through in this condition is completely unacceptable. Buy the book skip the audiobook. The audio experience is hot garbage and that's me being nice.


So here we are at book three, with three different audio narrators. Personally you guys were stupid to not pay Luke his money. I understand that life happens. That there are things that we don't know. However to have three different narrators in three different books in the same series is a failure. Get your stuff together. F.Y.I I have not listened to all of the book yet. I just started and went W.T.F. a different narrator again. We will see how it plays out.

Still a great series!

A 3rd new narrator for the series isn't great, but also the last narrator Angelo passed away. Seems wrong and petty to give 1 star reviews when its no ones fault.....

New narrator still does a great job

good story but the narrator is lacking

The writing is about on par with previous entries in the series but the narrator feels like he is just reading word for word. No emotion or flair

Terrible narration diminishes a great book

This shows the problems with changing narrators in the middle of a series. It would appear that the production company made no effort to give the narrator a pronunciation guide based on the prior books. But it is just as clear that the narrator made no effort of his own.

This issue aside, the narrator would have been awful anyway. He used inconsistent pronunciations of words throughout (uh-lon and al-on; uh-dros-tee-uh and a-dro-stay-uh; gree-shun and gres-shun, etc.). Worse yet, he didn't even make a halfhearted attempt to distinguish the characters by modulation or accent or tone, except to use a slightly higher tone for female characters.

The narration substantially limited my ability to enjoy the next phase in this story. Kloos is very good at creating stories and characters. It is a shame to see this treatment of his work, particularly given how well done the first two were.

Great Series

This is a fast paced interesting series. I strongly suggest starting the series with book one in the series, After Shocks. The story line is this novel continues to be excellent however, this is the third narrator and although he is great, his voice just isn't right from the past novels. The second novel, Ballistic narrated by Angelo Di Loreto is the best of the three.