Kyrathaba Rising

Kyrathaba Chronicles, Book 1

By: William Bryan Miller

Narrated by: Christine Padovan

One hundred and seventy years from now, aliens decimate Earth. A relative handful of humans survive, hidden in deep subterranean enclaves that offer some protection from surface radiation. Although the main attack is now seven years in the past, one alien ship remains in orbit, and the conquerors are not content merely to let humanity lick its wounds...

©2013 William Bryan Miller (P)2014 William Bryan Miller

An Entertaining Blend of Scifi and Fantasy

Miller created a setting that should, by all accounts, be completely bleak and oppressive. Humanity's numbers are dwindling, there's an alien threat looming, and A-3, the small pocket of environment that the humans are sheltering in is becoming increasingly unstable.

Kyrathaba Rising is a hard book to summarize so readers will know what to expect. Be prepared for the story and setting to change drastically as chapters unfold, and if you think you know where the plot is going, you may find yourself surprised.

The characters are, for the most part, distinctive and likable and I'm looking forward to seeing how their stories turn out. I plan on continuing with this series and recommend to it anyone who enjoys both scifi and fantasy stories.

I'm a little wary to criticize Christine Padovan's reading performance, because I could never do what she does. She does multiple voices just fine, and I think her voice is professional and clear. However, she tends to draw out the ending of all of her sentences in an odd and incredibly distracting way, like she was reading sing-songish poetry. I saw a couple other readers/listeners complain about this and their reviews were mercilessly voted as unhelpful, but I feel like their complaints were valid. Putting the setting at 1.5x speed did seem to help a little, but I feel like it took away from the listening experience overall.

--I received a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.--

Original story

I really found Kyrathaba Rising an original story with some interesting concepts. On the one hand it is a scifi with an alien invasion, androids and lots of tech talk. On the other hand its a dystopia because earth has been destroyed and the remaining humans are trying to survive. But... there is also a fantasy element where some characters find themselves immersed in a World of Warcraft type game.

Unfortunately, the narration let the story down. The narrator tended to draw the last word of a sentence out to the point where it was such an annoyance I had to increase the speed to 1.5 so it wasn't quite as noticeable. This reduced my enjoyment of the book as it is quite dense with a lot of different plot lines happening at once and the higher speed meant it was difficult to follow. My recommendation is to try the sample before purchase to make sure the narration doesn't bother you. If it does bother you, consider buying it in print because it is a good story.

Great sci-fi writing for a debut novel

I don't normally write reviews but wanted to say this was a refreshing change, seeing a newbie author with a great story and concept, coupled with excellent narration throughout. I enjoyed Ms. Padovan's tone of voice - it made the story very enjoyable to listen to.

Looking forward to more from the author - looks like there will be a continuation of this series. If you like stories about aliens, and human survival (with a twist), you'll enjoy Kyrathaba Rising.

Very well written and crafted.

Usually attempts at fantasy and sci fi mixed don't mesh well. This book manages a very difficult task and intention, while also entertaining. Well worth the listen.

Sci-fi story with a small slash of fantasy.

Where does Kyrathaba Rising rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

This is one of the best stories I've read. If you are are a sci-fi fan and enjoy a little fantasy this is the book to read.

What did you like best about this story?

I was surprised by all of it. Mostly, I was impressed with the writing. This was edited well. I really enjoyed the parts that they Tolkien parts.

What does Christine Padovan bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

This was the first time listening to Charistine Padovan. She did well with the story.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

For some reason I was reminded of Anathem by Neal Stephenson. I'm not sure why but I felt a connection with this story and Anathem. Perhaps its the style.

Any additional comments?

This book really blew me away. One of the best sci-fi books I've read for the year.

Cool story - great character action

Honestly, you can't judge this particular audiobook by the sample. The main character, Sethra is doing a monologue into his implant as part of his diary - basically giving us the setting for why these humans are where they are today. So Sethra is asking questions to himself (reason for the narrator's 'up' tones here) for almost a full 4 minutes, then reverts to regular conversing. And Sethra is a geek, so he isn't going to speak like a Toast Masters speaker. (Think Sheldon or Leonard from Big Bang Theory).

I found there was some 'echo' in the prologue during Sethra's monologue, but once chapter 1 started, that went away, so it seems to me a couple of reviewers were only writing their reviews based on listening to the audio sample, thinking the narrator is elongating the last word in a sentence when hearing the echo and that she is speaking only in up tones, then reading Amazon reviews to get the gist of what the book was - then writing a review.

If you listen to the whole book (it IS very technical, so be prepared to listen closely), it's a pretty entertaining collection of characters. The narrator states the 'star' date and time in the beginning of almost every chapter like a Captain's Log from Star Trek - but that's how the author wrote it - I guess Mr. Miller wants to give us a sense of how much time is passing between each event and subplot. That sometimes seems a bit much because sometimes only hours have passed. But if you listen to this audiobook with stereo headphones, you can hear the warm, subtle shading in the narrator's tones as she mentions dates and times - it isn't monotone. Character voices were distinct and fun.

And there are several android characters in this story - I expected the narrator to sound like Data did in Star Trek: The Next Generation to voice them and she did. I actually think Ms. Padovan's narration for this particular story made it even better than how it is written.

The author tends to overdo having his characters explain their actions in the beginning, as if he is very intent to make sure we understand what is going on, but once it's rolling past the first couple of explanation chapters, you are very much intrigued and drawn into the world of Kyrathaba Rising. The humor is there from the beginning and helps keep it from ever being boring.

I enjoyed the written version and very much enjoyed this audio version. Highly recommended for sci-fi buffs :-)

YA fiction

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

It was over before it began. No time commitment at all

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

I was interested in the subterranean survival and how the androids gained sentience. The fantasy portion felt entirely too corny.

How could the performance have been better?

The narrator was in character, but I couldn't suffer it. Most annoying voice EVER

Did Kyrathaba Rising inspire you to do anything?

Not download any more short books

Any additional comments?

It was too fast-paced. More explanation and character development would have gone a long way. It was a fun premise, but the execution was more young-adult than I had hoped for.

Excellent story and narration!

Would you consider the audio edition of Kyrathaba Rising to be better than the print version?

In some ways, yes - it takes a lot of the techno speak and makes it very entertaining, but on the other hand, you have to follow the audio carefully to get the gist of what some characters are saying. This is definitely a story I would like to see Whispersync-ed and be able to follow along with the print version.

Who was your favorite character and why?

There are a lot of great characters in this story, but a few who stood out were Sethra Slatten, the lead character and Grant Thompson - I enjoyed their sense of humor when battling the aliens. Their geekiness was always cool :-)

Administrator Mephord and the aliens Svareneketchmakull and Dukensenmatchlofel get honorable mention.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

The halfway point in Chapter 13 when the alien Dukensenmatchlofel lands on Mt. Everest had me laughing throughout the rest of the chapter - for a debut novel, the author did a great job putting humor throughout this post-apocalyptic story.

I like how the author created a completely new paradigm - it wasn't a straight forward aliens versus humans story - there were several subplots that kept the story intriguing to the end.

Any additional comments?

Definitely will get the next in the series - I want to know what happens next!

Great story.

I enjoyed the sci-fi take on the post apocalyptic future. I haven't read many books in this genre, but I have seen lots of movies like this and it usually just comes off fake. This book seemed to have gotten the realism down and I liked reading about how the human race struggles to survive after such a devastating attack.

Christine Padovan has a great voice, but her accent is a bit off putting. At least, I think it's an accent. She has a way of using upspeak for every sentence that leaves you wondering if she's asking a question. A friend told me that she might be a Northerner but, to my Southern ear, it was almost too much.

Great story.

**I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.**

Great story....bad narrator

How did the narrator detract from the book?

The narrator was very hard to listen to. The inflections in her voice were annoying, confusing and made it hard to get into the story as much. Too many pauses between words that were not needed. Almost seemed like what I'd call overacting like the way people make fun of William Shatner as Kirk with the two words..pause...two more words ....pause....etc.

Any additional comments?

The story itself was a great one and I'll listen to more as it comes out even with the awful narrator.