The Digital Renaissance: Review: The Salvage Crew

Thursday, May 5, 2022

Review: The Salvage Crew

The Salvage Crew by Yudhanjaya Wijeratne
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Narration was very good.

This story is told from the POV of the post-human AI Overseer and was written in similar fashion to "We Are Legion (We Are Bob)" which is a series that I very much enjoyed because of the first person POV and the somewhat irreverent humor (although you do get a POC change toward the end of the story). The voice of Nathan Fillion was pretty good here to get the tone of that humor; however, it was a little difficult to catch some of the POV/voice changes. The basic concept here is that some the first wave of interstellar colonists failed, so eventually 'salvage crews' are sent into to recover the valuable tech (not sure why that is more economical than just building more ... be hey, I can forgive a few such things). So the scene is set ... a lost colony and a small, private salvage crew of 3 meat puppets and a ghost in a shell. Unfortunately for the hapless salvage crew, somebody got there first and they don't seem overly friendly (or sane) ... And then it all goes pear shaped.

There is a lot of Sci-Fi tech described in this story ... and from my perspective, it was pretty solid (at least more so than most ... I would put it up against Expanse here); and I really enjoyed that aspect. That is until it goes weird when we get the machines talking to each other and it is harder to pay attention. This is really a solid 3.5 star story; but it hit all of the things I like, so I am rounding up.

I was given this free advance review copy (ARC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

This story is also available on Kindle Unlimited.

#TheSalvageCrew #NetGalley

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My Ratings Explained ...

[ ***** ] Amazing Read - Perfect story, exciting, engrossing, well developed complex characters, solid plot with few to no holes, descriptive environments and place settings, great mystery elements, realistic dialogue, believable reactions and behaviors; a favorite that I can re-read many times.
[ **** ] Great Read - Highly entertaining and enjoyable, exciting storyline, well developed characters and settings, a few discrepancies but nothing that can’t be overlooked. Some aspect of the story was new/refreshing to me and/or intriguing. Recommended for everyone.
[ *** ] Good Read - Solid story with a 'good' ending, or has some other redeeming feature. Limited character development and/or over reliance on tropes. Noticeable discrepancies in world building and/or dialog/behavior that were distracting. I connected enough with the characters/world to read the entire series. Most of the books I read for fun are here. Recommended for fans of the genre.
[ ** ] Okay Read - Suitable for a brief, afternoon escape … flat or shallow characters with little to no development. Over the top character dialog and/or behavior. Poor world building with significant issues and/or mistakes indicating poor research. Excessive use of trivial detail, info dumps and/or pontification. Any issues with the story/characters are offset by some other aspect that I enjoyed. Not very memorable. May only appeal to a niche group of readers. Recommended for some (YMMV).
[ * ] Bad Read - Awkward and/or confusing writing style. Poor world building and/or unbelievable (or unlikeable) characters. Victimization, gaslighting, blatant abuse, unnecessary violence, child endangerment, or any other highly objectionable behaviors by Main characters. I didn't connect with the story at all; significant aspects of this story irritated me enough that I struggled to finished it. Series was abandoned. Not recommended.