Grand Design

By: A. M. Parilla

Narrated by: Vivienne Leheny

Humanity once ruled space, building an empire that stretched across hundreds of stars.

Now, Earth is a cold cinder in the void, its colonies and ships annihilated in an instant. The surviving races have huddled in the dying light of those few stations for five thousand years. They've avoided total destruction to eke out their existence in the shadow of the long-dead humans who built their homes.

When a piece of that lost legacy resurfaces, the few who still remember humanity have one last opportunity to find the truth and avenge the fallen.

©2023 A. M. Parilla (P)2023 Podium Audio

A+ Voice Work on a Grand Story

Perfect capture of multiple distinct character voices lending weight to a fantastic far-future sci-fi. The story is full of believable character interactions and actual consequences to decisions.

Well constructed sci-fi with an excellent narrator

The pacing is excellent; just the right amount of world building to draw you in without slowing down the plot. The characters are well written and even more well acted. I especially liked the way that the in-universe tech was explained and the “rules” of how things worked were established. In short: I enjoyed this story immensely and wouldn’t hesitate to listen to another by this author.

Too much metaphysical

This is the first book I actually selected for the narrator. Ms. Leheny can make even a poor book sound good. I gave this book 2 stars because it started out where I did enjoy it. But the further it went the more metaphysical, philosophical and techno speak it became. Plus, there was a sense of pathos throughout the book. I was pretty depressed by the end of it. I think the ending was supposed to be optimistic but I couldn’t tell.