In the book The Salvage Crew, author Yudhanjaya Wijeratne writes about a salvage crew led by an AI that is not the best or even kind of the best, but are expendable. Things go terribly wrong and now they struggle to survive. But what is going on with this planet? And who will get off the planet alive?
The book was alright. It was written from the AI perspective with some diary like entries from some of the crew. The audio book was well done and the narrator did a good job of pacing his reading to keep me engaged. I received a copy of this audiobook from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

So I found this book very disjointed and difficult to follow in places. I liked the blurb, it held a lot of promise, the idea we are following a computer formerly a person and the job he has decided to undertake as a salvage ship. But it was fairly difficult to follow at times, I felt there were a lot of bits that weren’t necessary, like the random poetry throughout.

I listened to the audiobook of this one, read by the dreamy Nathan Fillion who I just love and tbh is the reason I wanted this one! But sadly even Nathan couldn’t get me to follow this one easily, I had to keep going back as my brain kept wandering away from the story.

2/5 ⭐️

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I had mixed feelings about this one. The writing is solid though the inclusion of poetry was something I had to get used to along the way. I also found the couple, very brief, changes of POV in the second half of the book rather jarring given the first-person narration and single focus for the vast majority of the story.

All that said, I enjoyed the audiobook, but I can’t help but feel that it was saved by the narration.

If we are being honest I felt as though this book was a good effort.

However, I did find the fact that this was an audiobook and that I didn't feel like Nathan should be the one doing it.

I felt as though I knew what was going to happen to some degree with the whole crew. I would have liked to see the world building and descriptive text be more predominant then it was here.

I felt like I was reading a pretty decent book in the first little bit, but I felt as though again Nathan's voice took me away from it.

The when he becomes the big ship, why is it so much more powerful? What's the difference? Why can't they just transfer themselves over into one 5k begin with?

I feel like the book leaves you with too many questions and it is starting to get done when you all of a sudden no longer have a chance because it's all done..

I really do hope the world building own brought up and expended upon.

I've tried multiple times to get through this book and was unable to, Nathan Fillion is a great actor but there's something about his narration that made me unable to even finish it.

I'm going to buy the book instead and will follow up with a review in the next few days when its done!

This book is so unexpected! It's a brilliant, technologically advanced world, yet still has all the political and business red tape and social dramas of today and yesterday. This story is an exploration of alien intelligence, artificial intelligence, and the experiment of combining the human mind with A.I.

The narrator is a human turned A.I. that is well and concisely explained. It's fascinating! The writing is somehow conversational and poetic--especially in that it contains actual poetry written by the A.I. The settings are so well described, the characters are realistic and developed. The story itself is dark and interesting. It's like a fantasy thriller that feels like sci-fi with a sort of dead pan style of humor that I absolutely adore. Particularly in the very beginning, I had an out loud chuckle or three. The whole story is so excellent and strange. The characters, philosophy, and poetry are Buddhist influenced in a neat and casual way--in contrast to fiction that is religiously influenced for religiousity's sake, rather it's not heavy handed or over explained.

This book is an incredible combination of science fiction, fantasy, dystopia, poetry, and philosophy. There's a dead-pan humor ever present as well as a lingering darkness, despair, and danger. My favorite combination. This will not be for everyone, but it's exactly the type of treasure that strums my heart strings and is candy for my brain. I was captivated from beginning to end. And that ending! I loved it, a well written tie up.

The narration is also unique. I enjoyed Nathan Fillion's voice and how he brought the narrator to life, but his voice also has a sort of deep and breathy Dan Carlan (of Hardcore History) quality that made it difficult to understand at a speed higher than 1.75--and even that was a bit fast, 1.5x was perfect. I usually listen to audiobooks at *at least* 2x speed. His voice matched the drama and humor very well, but was more like a podcast than book? So I both adored his narration and struggled with it; take that for whatever it's worth. It does make me wonder if I loved this as much as I did because of how well Fillion's voice/voice-acting fit the characters--would I love this equally had I read it in print?

Thank you NetGalley, Podium Audio, and author for a copy of this audiobook in exchange for my honest review!

The Salvage Crew by Yudhanjaya Wijeratne, narrated by Nathan Fillion

OC is the AI/human overseer of a human salvage crew, sent to Urmahon Beta, to salvage an ancient United Nations spaceship. OC was once human but at one point OC lost most of his humanness when his mind was removed from his body and it's since been housed in a variety of machines...sorry I'm not explaining it well but I don't know how it really works. Being a Buddhist seems to be one of the requirements for this type of being "reborn". This rebirth happened centuries ago and OC is still working to prove himself for the time he might, if ever, move up in AI status. For now, his latest crew is three ragtag rejects that he doesn't even consider C team worthy on their best days.

Still, OC hasn't lost his humanity completely and he becomes attached to Simon, Anna, and Milo, who often fight like cats and dogs, practically trying to kill each other when OC and the trio get stranded on hostile Urmahon Beta, with not enough of anything to help them survive until they can salvage enough to merit being picked up again, by the company ship, name Ship. At some point, it seems that OC might be required to cut losses and just leave the others there but he won't, he feels an obligation to take care of his crew, especially when each of them rises way above what he first thought of them, to try to do what is right for each other.

Nathan Fillion does an excellent job narrating this book. Every pause, sigh, every inflection that he gives to OC's thoughts and speech, adds to the character. And OC is a poet, he spouts poetry all the time, he'll be in the middle of thinking/talking about something then he'll be reciting his poetry. Now, I'm not good at poetry but for the most part, I could somewhat understand what he was saying, as well as I can understand any poetry. The strange thing is that during some of OC's downtime (computer maintenance type downtown), when he's dreaming or whatever it is his mind does then, he awakens and finds that he's written poetry that he doesn't remember writing. He also has very vivid, horrible dreams of things happening to the crew, to him, and to his surroundings.

The surroundings are bad news. There are extremely hostile human/machine things with rotting, oozy flesh, trying to make contact with them and/or trying to kill them. There are gigantic sloth like monsters and small weird doglike things that want to attack them. There is what looks like a square boxed city but it's not a city. And the spacecraft that crashed so long ago still has bodies rotting inside of it. Then Simon starts going crazy and OC is hearing things. Everything is horribly wrong and OC can't contact Ship. 

It turns out OC's poetry is important to the story which is where things went from 4 stars to 3 stars for me because I'm lost with poetry. And also because this became less about OC and his crew but about something much bigger than us humans and I'm there for the characters. But I slept on the story overnight and became okay with how the story ended and what became of OC and the crew, so the story went back up to 4 stars. There is more out there than just us and in this world that has been built, we have to change to be able to stay in the game. I really like OC and I came away from a very sad story, feeling like there was hope and a future...of something. Maybe it helps to be Buddhist, which I'm not, to understand this story better. 

Thank you to Podium Audio and NetGalley for this ARC.

oh my goodness, how soon can they make this into a movie? I was drawn to the story by the synopsis, looked into the author and was fascinated by his story, then opened up the audiobook to Nathan Fillion reading me a story. Be still my heart!!
The story itself was highly enjoyable, tying in lowly salvage crew, an AI with a mind of it's own, some nefarious deeds and bad guys, and some verrrrry interesting new friends. Thanks to Netfalley for a review copy.

Excellent narration! Nathan Fillion is an absolutely perfect fit for the narrator of this book. This was a sci-fi action/adventure that was filled with exciting moments that kept me interested throughout the entire story.

The first person POV was a great way to tell the story, and I really enjoyed it. This easy salvage mission turns into an absolute nightmare for this crew, and it was hard to pause the story. I had to know what would happen next!

I think this is perfect for any sci-fi fans. Readers that enjoyed To Sleep in a Sea of Stars would enjoy this one as well!

I was provided a gifted audio copy of this book for free. I am leaving my review voluntarily.

Name: The Salvage Crew
Author: Yudhanjaya Wijeratne
Genre: Sci-fi, Fantasy, Drama, Adventure, Space and Technology
Rating: 3.5/5
Review:
The service crew with an interesting science fiction novel. The protagonist, a digitised human is leading a salvage crew on an uninhabited planet for his second expedition. His team, which consists of Simon, an inexperienced young man, Anna, a girl who is running away from her real identity and Milo, cannot considered the perfect crew, not even a good one.
They arrive on a distant planet to salvage an abandoned UN starship. But when they land on the planet Urmahon Beta, they encounter something they never expected. The supposedly uninhabited planet is not at all what it was supposed to be. It is covered with dangerous megafauna and terrifying high-powered gear. Now, they have to encounter with their nightmare, they must save themselves while secrets that terrify humankind unfolds in front of them.
The protagonist is really interesting character, I likes his backstory as well. The characters are well developed in this book. The readers will be fascinated by the technology and society developed in the story.
I am giving this book 3.5 stars because I felt that the story did not get to me until the second last part of the book. While listening to this audiobook, I lost interest after chapter 10. But I had to get through the book. This book is perfect for the sci-fi lovers as well as space enthusiasts.
For Further Reading:
To Sleep In A Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini
The Martian by Andy Weir

What an entertaining and enjoyable Sci-Fi survival story! The Salvage Crew by Yudhanjaya Wijeratne was pretty awesome and the best part is that it is narrated by Nathan Fillion. That alone is worth the price of admission folks! His performance was brilliant and really brought life to this thrilling story.

The story is told from the point of view of an AI Overseer, which Fillion not only brings life, wit and energy to but also sets a fantastic tone and personality to the overall story. I can't imagine this story without Fillion's performance. As enjoyable as the story was, I found myself wishing that the other characters in the story were more likable and had more personality. This is my first time experiencing Yudhanjaya Wijeratne's work so I am not sure if this is his writing style or just a miss to add more likeability to the characters in this story.

Overall, I am glad I got to listen to this story. I was hooked with the Fillion's performance and the story was satisfying. I will definitely check out Wijeratne's other novels. My interest has been piqued and I think yours will be as well. I recommend this to all Sci-Fi fans, you wont be disappointed.

I want to thank Yudhanjaya Wijeratne, Nathan Fillion, Podium Audio and NetGalley for providing an ARC of this audiobook in exchange for my honest review.

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 a 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