House of Thunder, by Dean Koontz

This audiobook was obtained for free from Overdrive Audio through the Alachua County Public Library, It was 9 hours and 57 minutes long, and was narrated by Laurel Merlington, and an uncredited male narrator.

Susan Thornton is a 32 year-old physicist who works for the Milestone Corporation. She suffered a head injury during a serious auto accident, and now all she can remember is the murder of her boyfriend during a college fraternity hazing. And this is relevant because the four sadists who killed the boy are either patients or are working at the hospital where she is recovering; even though they all have been dead for years.

The four miscreants are now bent on exacting their revenge. And Susan cannot get anyone to believe that the four young men who are all still the same age as they were 13 years ago are out to get her. Is she losing her mind? Is it a vast conspiracy? Well, this is a Dean Koontz novel, so it has to be the latter. This novel was originally published under a pen name, Leigh Nichols, back in 1981. And that's the only clue I will give you.

A fairly engaging thriller with gripping fear, violence, and a bit of romance; this is not Dean Koontz at his best. But it is a good writer at home in this genre, so I give it 3 stars.

Feed, by M. T. Anderson

This audiobook was obtained as a free download from Overdrive Audio through the Alachua County Public Library. It was 5 hours and 1 minute long, and was narrated by David Aaron Baker.

A kind of technopunk novel set in what seems to be the mid to late 21st century. I may have missed a time reference. All the kids have had live feed installed from an early age. Now you can Instant Message each other, get updates, surf the net, and even watch network programming in your head. No one has to be smart anymore, because you can look up everything right now, wherever you are. So now we are all smart! And networked, and exploited by a continual stream of advertising to let you know you can also order anything you want, right now, from inside your head.

The most powerful thing about this book is not the concept, but the way the author makes it all so real. The kids are all high school age, going to privatized schools, and getting "malfunctioned" by going to game sites that quite literally blow their minds. Except for one girl, Violet, whose parents had home-schooled her and acquiesced to having her feed installed later in her childhood. Violet's awareness of a life beyond the feed makes her especially enticing to Titus, a boy who is caught up in the consumer culture of mindlessness. She likes real experiences, instead of the bizarre fads that overwhelm kids on an almost daily basis, now that it can be done so quickly.

If you can get past the fairly regular barrage of F-bombs, this is a very well-written and disturbing book. It all seems so possible in our own lifetimes. The dialog is an especially eerie feature. The adults talk like the kids today ("Dude, that was, like, awesome!") and the kids have a new jargon in which all sentences are punctuated by calling each other, "Unit!" No, it's just the boys that do that. And the girls are all hung up on a show called, "Oh! Wow! Thing!"

This is part tech satire, part sad love story, and it is especially engaging as an audiobook, where you can experience the Feed as it periodically bursts into the narration. This is a solid 3 star book with gusts of 4.

The Cell, by Stephen King

This audiobook was downloaded free from NetLibrary.com, was 12 hours and 27 minutes long, and was narrated by Campbell Scott.

This one takes off running as a man finds himself in the middle of the Cell Phone Zombie Apocalypse with no warning at all. Whether it is a terrorist plot or demons is never ascertained, but some devilish pulse through the cell phone networks is turning everyone into their most primitive and bloodthirsty selves quicker than you can say, "Can you hear me now?"

Our hero is Clayton Riddell, a struggling illustrator who has just made the big time just in time for it not to matter. He is able to team up with a small band of people who were lucky enough to have been off their phones when the terror struck, and now he just wants to get in touch with his estranged wife and his 11-year-old son. Are they dead, undead, or just fleeing for their lives? You don't dare pick up a phone to call them. Because you could also become one of them.

Both gory and philosophical, this book is not about reaching a conclusion. The phone zombies and the "normies" are all ruined people. One group has lost its minds, while the other has lost it's faith. It's a cliff-hanger that leaves you falling and falling...

It's worth 3 stars if you like this sort of thing!

The Rookie, by Scott Sigler

This audiobook came from Scott Sigler's Podshow Page, was 26 episodes long, and includes a lot of author's extras.

I have been hesitant about reviewing these audiobooks because they are not just audiobooks. Each episode is a show, with some chatter from Scott, and promos of other podcasts. However, I just got done listening to another dog of a book that was published the conventional way, and realized that some of these books were much better.

"The Rookie" is set hundreds of years in the future, when the known Universe has been conquered by an alien race. In a new twist, human beings are not the only planetary race that has been subjugated. Several other alien races are now part of a greater empire, and that master race has found a pacifying replacement for war: American style football.

Scott Sigler has created a universe in which all the alien races have something to bring to the field. Some make great linemen, some receivers, but the Ionath Krakens have a great rookie quarterback named Quentin Barnes.

Barnes grew up in the quarries, an orphan in a slave labor camp, where they only had really big stones to use as the ball. He is recruited by a scout for the Krakens, a team that is owned by an alien organized crime boss. This is Quentin's ticket off the rock pile. But it's a dangerous game in this new universal order. It is not all that unusual for players to be killed in the game.

Sigler has given us alien creatures with flaws and foibles as well as loyalty and honor. Religion, politics, crime and prejudice have not been bleached out of the story; overwhelming us with technology. I am NOT a fan of science fiction, but this was an episode I waited eagerly for every week.

Books that can do that get 4 stars.