Kronos
Jeremy Robinson makes a splash (ha! I slay me…) on the site today. He’s releasing the serialized audiobook version of his science fiction novel, Kronos:
Two years after his wife’s death, oceanographer and former navy SEAL, Atticus Young, attempts to reconcile with his rebellious daughter, Giona, by taking her on the scuba dive of a lifetime-swimming with a pod of peaceful humpback whales in the Gulf of Maine. But the beauty of the sea belies a terror from the deep-a horrific creature as immense as it is ancient. There is no blood, no scream, no fight. Giona is swallowed whole by the massive jaws. Only Atticus remains to suffer the shame of the survivor and his inconsolable grief turns to an unquenchable thirst for revenge.
Drawn by the spectacle, Trevor Manfred, a ruthless billionaire, approaches Atticus with a proposition: Trevor will make available all the advanced technology of his heavily armed mega-yacht, the Titan, to aid Atticus in his death-quest. In return, Trevor is to receive the beast’s corpse as the ultimate hunting trophy. But in the midst of the hunt, Atticus makes a terrifying discovery that changes the way he sees the ocean’s creatures and begs the question: what is Kronos? The answer sets him on a new and much more deadly course.
The first six episodes of the book are in the default feed. That gets updated every time Jeremy loads up new episodes. Or if you want to consume it in a more civilized manner, get a custom feed and control how often you get new episodes.
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April 3rd, 2009 at 11:53 am
Way, way too much spoilerish information in the episode descriptions. I’m amazed this got through the submission process without a single person looking at those at not saying “Umm… maybe we should reveal THAT in the actual episode and not on the download page?”.
April 3rd, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Good point, Zeus. Luckily we’re not too far into the book and the biggest surprises have yet to come. I don’t think there is much given away in these first six episodes that isn’t given away in the story description above. The rest of the summaries will be much more vague. But, the rest of the summaries will be much more vague from here on out.
April 4th, 2009 at 7:28 am
Is this book not available on iTunes? I have always wondered if some authors decide not to put their stuff up there
April 4th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
It will be submitted to iTunes next week. Still in the launching process.
April 5th, 2009 at 10:23 am
Too many books. Too little time. Will have to make time for this though!
April 5th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Enjoyed the first 6 episodes and having listened to them don’t think there’s any problems with the details given in the description. It’s all just a nice intro to the story, a nice setup for the rest of the story. Looking forward to the next episodes.
April 8th, 2009 at 8:59 am
Thanks guys! And yeah, the set-up episode summaries don’t give away too much, so they’ll stay. The rest will be more vague. There was a long post on here from someone named Jim. It was very nice and I meant to reply earlier, but now it’s gone. Where’d you go Jim?! At any rate, thanks for checking it out, and I’m glad you are enjoying it!
– Jeremy
April 11th, 2009 at 11:03 am
One of the unfortunate things about listening to some audio books is that you have to occasionally wait for subsequent chapters to be uploaded. Fortunately if there is enough of the story released for me to form a reasonably solid opinion, this doesn’t prevent me from writing a review on the content thus far submitted. It’s true; a piece of work can sometimes begin well and take a tumultuous turn for the worse. Conversely a writer can come to grips with a feeble story and complete it auspiciously. Those unlikely occurrences aside, I will stick my neck out and express an opinion.
Somehow I don’t think I will be treading too fine a line in voicing one here. This book is good. In fact I will go one further and say this book is very good. I have up until the latest chapter release enjoyed it thoroughly. It is a well planned, interesting and exciting story well worth listening to if slightly cliche’d. It has all the components of a heart-rending, action-packed, Hollywood corker, but there is a depth of writing that manages to pull it off without the blatant cheesiness you might expect. It has a cast of well developed, fully laden, larger than life characters whose strange situations are sufficiently intertwined in the events that unfold to effectively electrify this tale of adventure. There are some dramatic situations that fringe the storyline, good dialogue, a rugged ‘all terrain’ hero, lost love, and a host of other elements that work very well in the story that unfurls. This story has been successfully bound together with all the necessary facets of a great tale and the fit in my opinion is a very good one. Jeremy Robinson has a very smooth, but sharp and precise writing style that gives a very clear depiction and an intense delivery. His style reminds me somewhat of Basil Sands, so if you liked Mr. Sand’s work (which can also be found on this site) you may quite like this one too. Additionally if you like this one, you may want to sample some of Mr Sand’s work. I’ll refrain from going into too much detail as I tend to do when my opinions are slightly less favourable, as in this case it is fairly pointless. I will simply urge you all to listen and judge for yourselves.
The quality of the production is very good, and both the recording and the oration are excellent. I would guess a lot of time and effort have gone into both the writing and production of this piece, and it shows. It’s great work, and gets and emphatic thumbs up from me.
*a special thanks to Podiobooks for removing my previously non-spellchecked submission, and my apologies to Mr. Robinson for causing confusion with the previous ‘disappearing’ review.
April 11th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
This an excellent book I stumbled across it after seeing Jeffrey Kafer do a video of 2 chapters raw (http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/1301536). I was hooked straight away the story just keeps getting better and really good work Jeffrey in bringing the characters to life.
I can feel another little twist coming and want to find out if I’m right bring on the next episode.
This is the first time I found podiobooks and I’m still finding my way round the site, great work everyone. I just cant believe its all free.
May 6th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
Jeremy, great story and great production. I try to wait until books are complete, but I couldn’t resist. Kudos for packing so much in each episode and releasing each and every one on time. Looking forward to the rest. Thanks for presenting your work in this format.
May 15th, 2009 at 8:39 am
Thanks Janeinpa! I wanted this to be a professional product and have put a lot of time and effort getting it there. So I really appreciate your comments. I also didn’t want to tease the book along for too long. I know I would get impatient only getting a chapter or two per week so I wanted to make the episodes long AND get the whole book out pretty quick for folks like yourself, who wait for the whole thing.
Simon, glad you enjoyed the live recording with Jeff. I’ve been trying for some time to get that up on youtube as well, but the footage is being fussy in my editor. It will happen, though!
– Jeremy
July 28th, 2009 at 6:58 am
Initially, I wasn’t so excited when I started this book. I think the title put me off a bit. I’m not so much into fantasy/mythology (without a big tie in to an edge of reality)…
But that’s not what it is at all..It’s a little bit of everything.
It’s really very, very good.
I zoomed through all the chapters (and meaty chapters, they are) one after another..
Great characterization..great plot..suspense, action, ..even a bit of fantasy and a little sideline romance. Hits all the right notes.
The narration is top notch.
I thoroughly enjoyed this podiobook and will check out some of his published works.
That is something I never would’ve done without being exposed to this one.
August 13th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
Thanks for your kind words about my narration, Rosanna. Jeremy’s wonderful prose makes my job lots of fun.
Whoever wants more of Jeremy’s novels on Podiobooks, raise your hands!
September 3rd, 2009 at 2:39 am
How great is this book! I could not stop listening to it. the narrator has done an excellent job and the writer has created an engrossing story. I can see how this could easily be made in to a movie. Are there more of the same to be released? Pulse etc? Great job Jeremy. Donation on its way.
September 15th, 2009 at 9:22 am
Rosanna and Robin,
Thank you so much for the kind words about Kronos. I’m thrilled you enjoyed the story AND Jeff’s great narration.
As for future books, I am planning on it, but which one will be next is still up for debate. I would like to do my only unpublished novel, BENEATH, which is similar in style, pacing, etc to my other novels, but takes place on Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons. But I am waiting for the final word on this book from my publisher. It might be too sci-fi for them. We shall see. If BENEATH isn’t next, I will most likely do ANTARKTOS RISING. As for PULSE, I will have to wait until my listener numbers are high enough to justify giving the audio version away–I’m no Scott Sigler, yet.
Of course, the print version of PULSE is primo. I certainly wouldn’t mind if you picked it up in the meantime. Heh.
Thanks again!
– Jeremy
September 15th, 2009 at 9:23 am
Oh, and hey Robin, thanks for the donation! You rock!
– Jeremy
December 4th, 2009 at 8:35 am
I enjoyed this book and look forward to more from this author and the narrator. 4 out of 5. Well done.
January 23rd, 2010 at 1:47 pm
Wow, great book. The narration is enjoyable as well. Do you have any idea when more of your work may become available on podiobooks?
June 17th, 2010 at 8:07 pm
I’m really enjoying this book. My only criticism concerns all of the hero characters deciding that God is the reason Kronos exists. While He may be the Maker of all things, there is more emphasis put on Him than I normally like in a Science Fiction book. Otherwise, I’ve really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading the next. Beneath, here I come!
July 5th, 2010 at 7:36 am
Thos an amazing story. I liked it even better than Beneath. Atticus and Gionna were great fullformed characters. I would love to hear a continuation of this novel for sure!
November 26th, 2010 at 9:08 am
Only on episode three but loving it so far.
May 10th, 2011 at 1:21 am
Competent thriller, incompetent science. I can forgive the author for the one scientific speculation crucial for his point, but he makes an unforgiveable number of stupidnesses that any decent copy editor should have caught. In addition, the author seems to derive indecent amount of pleasure of describing firearms.
Anyway, decent entertainment. I will be checking some of the other writings by this author.
November 1st, 2011 at 8:54 am
I really enjoyed listening to this. It was well written with wonderful, consistent narration. I enjoyed the science and mythology tied together, and didn’t think it was too forceful toward a definite viewpoint. Also, the violence and sadism was well portrayed without being over-the-top and graphic.
Thanks for sharing this!!!