REVIEW: The Void Beyond

 The Void Beyond
Author: P.W. Hillard

Sci-fi is one of my all time favorite genres to read, listen to, or watch. There's just something about the vastness and unknown aspects of space that make action/adventure stories set there completely engrossing for me. 

I requested a review copy of one of P.W. Hillard's books back in 2020....and then the pandemic totally upended so many things I lost track of it. I never read the book. I hate it when I flub on a review!! 

So, when I discovered I had several books on StoryOrigin that I never reviewed, I decided to backtrack and make it right. And, of course I picked a sci-fi book to start with. 

It just so happened that the book I had promised to review was the second book in the Dark Galaxy series. So I back-tracked even further and got my hands on book one: The Void Beyond. 

I'm glad I did! This story had a awesomely creepy Aliens/Dead Space sort of feel to it. I was hooked from the start, and the story kept my attention from start to finish. 

I'm sort of addicted to audio books -- especially for sci-fi or horror tales. So, I read my digital ebook while listening to the audio book. There's just something entertaining about having a scary story read out loud -- love it! The audio book is narrated by Matt Jenkins and is just shy of 8 hours long. Jenkins does a good job of narration. His attempt at an American Texas style accent fell a bit short though....but not enough to do any damage to my enjoyment of the book. 

There were a couple times I had to suspend reality a bit (but it's a story set in space with aliens...so it wasn't that hard to accomplish). For instance, a completely alien species referring to humans as a "primate'' species or aliens having the same system of numbers that we do. Little things. I whisked those things out of my head and just let myself enjoy the story. 

The basics: Humanity and an alien race are at war. When a cargo ship is waylaid and attacked by the aliens, a horrific series of events unfolds that puts the crew to the ultimate test. I'm not going to say more about what that threat is, and how it manifests because.....spoilers. But let's just say if they fail, the entire universe may be in peril! No pressure....none at all. 

 I liked the concept, the characters, the setting -- and the foe they faced! Very entertaining story with lots of action and unexpected events. It definitely kept my attention from start to finish. Some events at the end were rough, but completely realistic given the situation. Overall, I enjoyed this story and I'm definitely reading the other two books! 

On to book 2 (which is the book I agreed to review in 2020 -- making it right!)

**I was given a review copy of this book and voluntarily agreed to review it (but I also bought the audio book and read a digital ebook through Kindle Unlimited, so that kinda negates the freebie aspects, right? But still including the disclaimer.). All opinions expressed are entirely my own.**