AudioBook Review: Embedded by Dan Abnett

Now I need to start off my saying that I've  been wanting to read this book for a while, but never got around to it. I have a ton of books lined up to read for this blog and wanted to get some trilogies reviewed in a timely manner as well. But I was able to stumble along on this audiobook format and thought that it would be a great way to kill two birds with one stone. I will read my other books at home and listen to this one at work.

I was really excited to get into this story so I took it to work with my portable CD player and I had just about everyone freaking out that I was using such ancient technology. So I popped in some fresh Duracells and started listening to the 8 CDs over a two day stretch. As soon as it started I was impressed with Eric G. Dove, he really knocked it out of the park reading this story.

And that was where my excitement started to take a dive. The first four chapters seemed to just be filler, and I thought I was reading Abnett's Teen Titan comics. Two things kept me listening, Dove's reading and the fact that I was already invested (and I didn't bring any other CDs to swap out).

The first thing that popped in my head was that Abnett must be trying to write a book with more F-Bombs than the South Park movie. I get it that military movies and books have foul language, but it just seemed to be overkill. I thought about listening to it again and count all of them, but I can't bring myself to it.

Now by the time I got to the sixth disc the story was actually pretty good. I was interested in what was going on and then it was dragging again. I just don't get it because the amazon reviews were so positive. I was just praying that it would pick back up again and on the last disc the book actually wrapped up pretty well.

I think this would have been an amazing short story or a screenplay for a movie or TV show, but as a full length novel I feel it just fell flat. I don't want to include spoilers for those of you that were looking forward to reading this story, and I do not mean to sound so negative to keep anyone from wanting to, but it just seemed to drag like most of his comic book work.

I consider myself a fan of Abnett and I think his Warhammer books are amazing. That might actually be the reason why I am rather tough on this book. I may actually give it another shot after I finish a few more sci-fi and fantasy books. So how would I rate this on the ol' beard scale?

3.5/5 Beards

I was going to give it a 2 or 2.5, but I felt that if it wasn't for Eric G Dove that I would not have cared as much about the few parts that actually kept me interested. So for that factor alone I bumped it up to a 3.5. 

As far as the product itself, it is done really well. The box art is fantastic and the sleeves held in the case are a plus as well. You won't have to worry about losing the sleeves or misplacing the discs. Is it worth $19.99?  If you are interested I would recommend hitting up eBay, Amazon, or your local Half Price Books.