Perdition by Ann Aguirre

Narrated by Kate Reading

Perdition is a former mining (space) ship now converted to a prison ship. The worst of the worst (or those with enemies in high places) are sentenced to Perdition. There is no escape and no getting out. There are no guards and no government (“Conglomerate”) imposed order. New inmates (“fish”) are deposited on Perdition via transport and basic supplies are provided on an irregular and therefore unpredictable schedule.

The inmates of Perdition have sorted themselves into six territories – Queensland is run by Dred (too often referred to as “the Princess in Chains”), a woman who is regarded as a serial killer by the Conglomerate. Dred has psychic ability and through it, she can identify murderers, torturers and rapists. After the authorities failed to believe her, she took the law into her own hands and served as judge, jury and executioner. Dred also sees emotions as colors when she reads someone and she reads any new fish before accepting them into Queensland, the safest and most orderly of the territories.

Perdition has three POV characters – Dred, Jael (a new fish), and Tam, a spymaster/chessmaster type character. Tam is mysterious and it is clear he has plans for Dred and an agenda beyond the prison ship and but whether he is a good guy or a bad guy is not so clear.

Jael is the lone survivor of a genome project designed to make a super soldier. He has incredible regenerative powers and this ability means that Dred, through him, is able to access parts of the ship (and what is contained there) previously off limits to her. I understand that Jael previously made an appearance in Aguirre’s Sirantha Jax series, but I don’t think it is necessary to have read or listened to any previous books to understand this one.

Dred receives word that two of the other territories have allied against her and plan to overthrow her rule.  Perdition is basically the story of how Dred, Jael, and Tam and the people of Queensland answer this threat.

The first book of the Dred Chronicles, it’s a complete story with a strong romantic element but there isn’t a HEA exactly. There is no clilffhanger and the ending is satisfying but it is also clear there is more story to be told.

While I enjoyed the narration, it wasn’t the amazing and immersive experience that marked my first listen with Kate Reading (in Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold). I’m having difficulty articulating exactly why this was. I can only say that I expected to sink immediately into the narration because of my previous Reading experience and I found that I could not. And it was definitely the narration, not the book. With both books, I had no prior expectations nor much of a clue as to what I should expect. As much as I enjoyed these two audios, I was a little lost at the beginning of each until the story provided enough markers for me to mentally map it (using my audiobook GPS?! :D).

There were times when I felt Ms. Reading used the wrong tone. For example, there is a scene where Dred says “Kneel” and the text immediately after indicates that the command was so powerfully stated that various other characters (than the one to whom she was speaking), responded and went to their knees. However, to my ears, the word sounded… bored and cavalier.

That said, I did enjoy the narration – very much – but it was not, for me, the seamless experience of Paladin of Souls. It’s the difference between a B+ and an A so it wasn’t terrible by any means.

Ms. Reading has a very pleasing-to-the-ear voice and has many character options at her disposal. Her natural tones are relatively deep to begin with (when compared to someone like, say, Sophie Eastlake in Dragon Bound for example) and her male character voices are, for the most part, more husky than deeper.

Although I was jarred a little out of the story a few times by a misplaced tone or difficult-to-differentiate character, but my criticisms are fairly small in the bigger picture. Kate Reading is an exceptional narrator and Ann Aguirre drew the lucky-narrator-straw here.

This book was a winner overall and I’m definitely looking forward to the next one in the series and I plan to read or listen to more Ann Aguirre books in general. While it is not the same, I think fans of Bujold’s Vorkosigan series would enjoy Aguirre’s work..

Kaetrin

Narration:  B+

Book Content:  B+

Steam Factor:  You can play it out loud (mostly)

Violence:  Escalated Fighting

Genre:  Science Fiction

Publisher:  Tantor Audio

Perdition was provided to AudioGals for review by Tantor Audio.