The Orville

Sympathy for the Devil

By: Seth MacFarlane

Narrated by: Bruce Boxleitner

An original novella set in season three of The Orville—straight from the pen of Seth MacFarlane, creator of the beloved sci-fi TV show! When Captain Ed Mercer and the crew of the U.S.S. Orville come face-to-face with one of humanity's most vile ideologies, they must solve the moral conundrum of who to hold accountable for evil deeds real… and imagined. Occurring just after episode 308, this is the Orville like you've never seen it before.

©2022 Seth MacFarlane (P)2022 Hyperion Avenue

Great story, great voice, great value

To quote the beginning of my review for the Kindle version, this story spoils the series up until season’s 3 ‘Midnight Blue,’ although I heard some reviews that it’s supposed to be after ‘From Unknown Graves.’ You’ll still enjoy the show and book if you enjoy them out of order, just be warned.

That said, what I wrote for the Kindle version can be applied here (I'm not sure if Audible counts Amazon links as external so I'll just say look for the review on the Kindle page titled 'Sympathy for the lost episode') so I’ll summarize: great sci-fi story and great addition to the Orville canon.

As for this audio version, Bruce Boxleitner has a great voice. I’ve only seen him as Alcuzan, the president of the Planetary Union in multiple season 3 episodes, but I've heard his name thrown about and I liked his work on the show. Whoever decided he should be the narrator for this clearly listened closely and knew his voice would be great for the 3 hours and 5 minutes needed for this recording. Just a great voice to listen to and he spoke clearly and steadily enough for an audio book.

If I have any negatives, it’s only in comparison to other audiobook narrators; the ability to play different roles. It’s not even his acting ability, it’s just the technical/art of copying other characters’ voices. He gets the emotions of every character, but I could always tell it was the same guy for everyone. For examples of a narrator making each character unique, listen to Star Wars: Dark Disciple (Marc Thompson, who is a near match for several characters, ESPECIALLY for Count Dooku) and Star Trek: The Return (William Shatner, who I surprisingly thought was better at other well known Star Trek characters than Kirk).

That said, even Mel Blanc would have a hard time voicing all the characters featured in this story and, short of this featuring a separate actor for each character (up to and including The Orville’s main cast), I can’t ding this too harshly for that. (Amazon needs to allow 1/2 star ratings for customers). If you prefer audiobooks or want to listen while doing other stuff, especially if it’s during an Orville rewatch, I’d recommend this over the Kindle version.

That said, as the price for both together is a measly $7.50, I highly recommend both just in case you’re ever in the mood for one or the other. The price point, compared to a lot of other audio book prices, makes this an EXCELLENT test subject to see if you want to get more into audiobooks. Even if you decide audiobooks aren’t your cup of tea, you’re only out < $5 (audio by itself) and still got to listen to a great sci-fi story, part of a great sci-fi TV series, read by someone with a great voice. Highly recommended :)

Well, that was fun!

Hang in there...it's a bit of a long set up, but the payoff is SOOO worth it. Boxleitner delivers a fabulous performance through some tricky pronunciations. I loved this!

No spoiler review

Just as well this wasn't an episode we could watch because the first part of the story doesn't include any characters from The Orville. This was engaging because we see the story from the bad guy's point of view. This leads to engaging us with The Orville crew as to how to deal with the problem.

Wonderful Surprise

This is a great story. Seth develops wonderful deep characters and this is a fresh new sci-fi story. It will make you think about how tech can impact the lives of everyone.

Love Orville and loved this!

This was amazing! I want more, the show has been soooo thought provoking in general so this was so thought provoking and will stick with me for a while.

Excellent writing!!

This was so much more than expected, so powerful, so dang interesting! I would have loved to see this as a mini-Orville movie. As much as I love the show, it took me forever to finally purchase this book, then it took me another month to finally hit “play.” There is a very long setup to the reveal but damn, the reveal is an eye opener and intensely interesting. Very highly recommended!

Episode 8.5 in book form

This is hard to talk about without spoiling anything. But I'll do my best. Did I like it? Yes. Did this make me extremely uncomfortable? Yes. But in true New Hirizon fashion it makes you stop and think about your own values.

One thing I'm not a fan of was the narration. The narrator was a little too stiff for my liking.

The Orville is story telling at its finest.

Thought provoking story. I don't want to give anything away. If you like the TV show this is better.

WOW!!!

too bad this episode wasn't filmed, although I doubt filming this story would have done it justice!!

Just as Good as Episodes of the Show If Not Better

Just as Good as Episodes of the Show If Not Better. Who knew Seth MacFarlane was secretly a master at expert dramatic writing as he married historical fiction and science fiction together in this unforgettable tale.