In 2153, cancer was cured.
In 2189, AIDS.
And in 2235, the last members of the human race traveled to a distant planet to begin the next chapter of humanity.
Several hundred years after their arrival, the remainder of humanity lives in a utopian colony in which every want is satisfied automatically, and there is no need for human labor, struggle or thought. But when the machines that regulate the colony begin to malfunction, the colonists are faced with a test for the first time in their existence.
With the lives of the colonists at stake, it is left to a bright young man named Samuel to repair these breakdowns and save the colony. Aided by his determined friend Penny, Samuel rises to meet each challenge. But he soon discovers a mysterious group of people behind each of these problems, and he must somehow find and defeat these saboteurs in order to rescue humanity.
My Review
I chose to listen to this book after receiving a free audio copy from the author. All opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased.
The idea that the human race gets lazy because everything is provided to them is interesting and probably spot on. From what I witness these days, if everything was provided for us, it wouldn’t take long for most people to devolve.
The main characters, Samuel and Penny, aren’t very well developed but that’s as it should be. The way Samuel solved problems was interesting, but there was too much detail/focus on those tasks.
It took me a while to get used to listening to the dialogue in Our Dried Voices. The narrator did a good job, but it was hard to get used to the way the people communicated with each other.
The book starts slowly, and I kept waiting for it to pique my interest, but it wasn’t until the last few chapters that I really got into the book. I’m glad I read Our Dried Voices, but it’s not a book I’d pick up to read a second time.
About the Author
Author of entertaining stories for smart readers. Download the short novel The Theory of Anything for free at https://greghickeywrites.com/anything-amazon.
Greg Hickey wrote his first novel, Our Dried Voices, while spending a year in Sundsvall, Sweden and Cape Town, South Africa, playing and coaching for local baseball teams. That novel was published in 2014 and was a finalist for Foreword Reviews’ INDIES Science Fiction Book of the Year Award.
Today, he still loves sharing stories while staying busy with the other facets of his life. He is a forensic scientist by day and endurance athlete and author by nights, lunches, weekends and any other spare moments. After his post-college travels, he once again lives in his hometown of Chicago with his wife, Lindsay.
Website: http://greghickeywrites.com/
Twitter: greghickey5