I received this book for free from the Author/Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Source: Author/Publisher
The Queen’s Road by R.S. Belcher
Published by: Audible Original
Release date: December 19 2019
Genres: Adult, Science fiction
Length: 10 hours, 20 minutes
Narrator: Kaleo Griffith
Source: Author & Publisher
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The nitty-gritty: A big-hearted, fast-paced and thrilling space adventure, complete with fast cars, aliens and a magical road. I didn’t want it to end!
As you may have read in this post, The Queen’s Road was my very first experience listening to an audiobook, and I had a lot of thoughts about it. As happens whenever you jump into something new, there is a learning curve involved, but listening to an R.S. Belcher book definitely made this a more pleasurable experience than it could have been. Kudos to Rod for having the writing chops to pull this off! As far as reviewing an audio book, well, this review might be a little different from my usual reviews, but I’ll do my best!
Ray Cosa lives in the small town of Port Arthur, Texas and lives a hard-scrabble life, trying to keep his head above water while caring for his junkie mother Juanita. Juanita owes drug money to Mateo, but Ray is finding it harder and harder to come up with the cash to keep Mateo and his gang at bay. The only bright spots in his life are his best friend Lou and a pawn shop owner named Keim, but everything changes one day when he spots an old abandoned Ford Galaxie in a parking lot. In an act of desperation, Ray decides to steal it in order to pay off Mateo, but the car, it turns out, is not abandoned, and Ray gets the shock of his life when he finds a very sick man in the backseat. Evan claims to be a Ranger, an intergalactic traveler who cruises the Queen’s Road, trying to keep the galaxy safe. With his dying words, Evan convinces Ray to put on a strange looking jewel-encrusted ring and take the Galaxie to find a man named Chain. The ring, he explains, will allow him to travel on the Queen’s Road and lead him to Chain, but there’s a catch: once you put the ring on, it’s on for the rest of your life.
Once he finds Chain, Ray discovers he’s been thrust into the middle of an intergalactic war, and that the Rangers are the only people who can stop the galaxy from being obliterated. Armed with the ring, Evan’s car and the ability to travel through space, Ray embarks on a dangerous adventure to save the world.
I had no idea what to expect going into this book. This is an epic space opera that reminded me a lot of Guardians of the Galaxy and at times, Star Wars. Belcher proves once again that he knows his craft oh so well. Pacing, characterization, world-building, plot, emotion and humor—all these elements work so well together. He structures his story in three acts—a tried and true method that’s utilized a lot because it works. In this story the structure is focused on Ray’s character growth, and the three parts are called Initiation, Journeyman and Ranger. Even without printed pages in front of me, I was excited to see a chapter listing in the audio version that was easy to pull up whenever I wanted to see where I was in the story.
I’m a little sad that I can’t talk a lot about specific characters, simply because I’m not feeling confident about spelling their names, but I will say that in typical Belcher style, most of the characters dug their hooks into me and held on tight. I loved Ray’s sense of duty to his mother, even though he struggles with his feelings for her at times. Another favorite character was Keim, who is sort of a father figure to Ray and who has some big secrets that are revealed early in the story. Even Mateo and his gang of drug dealers, who threaten Ray and Juanita in the beginning, completely surprised me. And this is a big cast of characters, so there are lots of others you’ll meet that I haven’t even mentioned, including various aliens from other worlds, some friendly and some deadly.
Despite my lack of being able to keep good notes while listening, several scenes were memorable: an elaborate prison break, a really cool rock concert, and of course, the final battle against the invading alien race, which was a nail-biting experience in audio, I have to admit! And despite being an action heavy story, the author doesn’t forget about two things that are so important to me and other readers, I’m sure: humor and heart. This story gets crazy at times, but Belcher manages to keep everything grounded by making Ray a character that many of us can relate to, someone who is just trying to protect the people he loves, even when the world turns out to be much more dangerous than he expected.
Any negatives I have are directed toward the audio format and not the author or the narrator. My biggest frustration with audio is that I have no idea how to spell the characters’ names, and I like to talk about the characters in my review, so this “glitch” is a big negative for me. I can talk about the characters listed in the Goodreads blurb, but there are so many other wonderful characters that aren’t mentioned, so I either have to leave them out of my review all together, or butcher the spelling of their names (which I’ve probably done in this review!)
I also felt my mind wander a few times. I tried my best to listen to the book while I was doing mindless things like chores, walking the dog, etc, but the ability to multitask in this way is something I’m going to have to work on. I’m quite sure I missed a lot of important information, not to mention all the times my husband interrupted me or the dogs started barking! I think with practice I’ll be able to master the art of listening and doing stuff at the same time, which is one reason I’m actually ready to try another audiobook.
And let’s talk about the narrator for a minute, Kaleo Griffith. Since this is my first audio book, I have nothing to compare him to, but I thought he was excellent! Griffith narrated the entire book by himself and was able to convincingly do all the different character voices, including both male and female, as well as various accents. I was told to try listening at 2X the normal speed, but that was way too fast for me. I settled on 1.30X and it worked great. And bonus points to the narrator for visiting my blog and leaving a comment! I’m looking forward to listening to more of his work.
Overall, this was a great experience, despite some of the challenges. Rod tells me The Queen’s Road will eventually be out in print form, and you can bet I’ll be doing a reread as soon as I can. In the meantime, if you are in the mood for a super fun, action-packed urban space opera written by one of my favorite authors, don’t hesitate to check this out!
Big thanks to the author and Audible for providing a review copy.
Great review! I think that once they print it I would give this one a try! What you wrote about the story, the characters and the fun was captivating!
I’m already ready to read it again in print:-)
Awesome review!! This book is kind of giving me The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy vibes. I like it!
Stephanie @ Bookfever recently posted…Review: Lustrum by Robert Harris
I can see that comparison, definitely! It’s a lot of fun with tons of humor.
This does sound like lots of fun! I’m glad you had an overall good experience with your first audiobook!
I’m glad I started with this book:-)
Being almost through with RS Belcher’s Brotherhood of the Wheel – which is an amazing read – I’m very excited by your review of this novels, which sounds like a successful jump from UF/horror to science fiction for a very eclectic author….
Thanks for sharing! 🙂
Maddalena@spaceandsorcery recently posted…HOW RORY THORNE DESTROYED THE MULTIVERSE (The Thorne Chronicles #1), by K. Eason
Yes, he is very eclectic! I never imagined him writing space opera, but here we are!
It sounds great – I’m loved both the Brotherhood books and would love to see more of these but in the meantime this will go on my wishlist.
Lynn 😀
I swear he can’t write a bad book!
This sounds like a fun read. I’m also right there with you on having trouble spelling character names if I only have an audio version. That’s about the con I have on my list when it comes to audiobooks. Otherwise I love them.
Suzanne @ The Bookish Libra recently posted…Backlist Briefs: A Round-Up of My January Backlist Reads
I feel like it’s one of those things I could probably get over, eventually:-)
When I was listening to this, I kept thinking of you because I knew you had it for review as well, and I just kept thinking what a great first audiobook this would be for someone new to the format. I’m so glad it worked out for you! I thought this was the most lighthearted of his books, and it was such a blast going to all those different worlds!
It was definitely on the lighter side! Which I think really helped for audio:-)
That’s a good point that I wouldn’t have thought of since I don’t listen much to audiobooks, to not be able to spell characters or anything really hahah Great review, Tammy!
Lashaan Balasingam recently posted…Gantz Omnibus Vol. 1 by Hiroya Oku
Thanks Lashaan:-)
I’ve only read one Belcher book but from that experience he seems to have a knack for taking things that might not necessarily work and making them work somehow haha- I definitely want to try more of his work. This sounds great!
He’s awesome. And I really do want to read this again in print!
Great review Tammy :)! I’m actually impressed you have as many details as you do. I don’t know that I get that many when I’m listening.
I also gave up on audiobooks that were 10+ hours. I really have to keep it in the 8 hours and under range. I think above 8 hours the story is just too complex and I lose lots of details. (0-6 hours is my sweet spot).
Narrators make a huge difference!! You might try Ray Porter? He’s my all time favorite. Emily Woo Zeller does well for female voices I think, but I stray towards listening to male voices if I have a choice.
Either way- glad you enjoyed this! Maybe I’ll give it a try.
I’ll keep an eye out for those narrators. I love tips!
hey Tammy sarah is here..!! well i write short poems Goodbye Poems but somehow, I get some time for reading books & you give me some awesome stuff..! definitely i’m in 🙂 thank you for lovely sharing.. 🙂
sarah shahzad recently posted…Corona Virus
Thanks for visiting:-)
I hadn’t heard of this book, but I’m going to go check it out! It sounds like the kind of book I’ll like! I agree that a negative of audiobooks is not knowing how some of the names or places are spelled. I hope you try some more audiobooks soon. There are certain books that I find easier to listen to instead of reading. Great review, Tammy!
Everyone’s been telling me to try different genres, and some are easier than others.
I have to admit when I read the description of this sort of story one of my first thoughts is often how ridiculous it sounds. There’s no way I’d enjoy something like that. And yet your review has me very interested, and having read The Brotherhood of the Wheel I know the author can pull it off. I really enjoyed that book, and suspect I’d also enjoy this one. Great review, I hope to pick this one up one day, in either audio or print.
You would think it would be ridiculous, but somehow it doesn’t come off that way. It’s very different from Belcher’s other books, but I like that he did something different.