The Sojourn Season 1 Volume 1 – 5 Star Audiobook Review

The Tantalus Cluster is the fragile cradle of humanity.

Welcome to one of the October 2nd stops on the blog tour for The Sojourn Season 1 by Daniel Orrett & Rowan J. Coleman with Audiobookworm Promotions. Be sure to follow the rest of the tour for spotlights, audio excerpts, reviews, author & narrator bonus content, and more! Oh, and come back on the 9th for my review of Volume 2!

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About the Book

The Sojourn Season 1 Volume 1
Episodes Sojourn #1-3
by Daniel Orrett & Rowan J. Coleman

Published 15 December 2020

Genre: Science Fiction, Space Opera
Length: 1 hour and 34 minutes
Narrated by: Larissa Thompson, Emily Serdahl, Laura Faye Smith, Ben Prendergast, Stephen Trafford, Matthew Kaufman, Lelia Symington, Tim Parker

Add it to your Goodreads TBR!

The Tantalus Cluster is the fragile cradle of humanity.

Adrift in the divide between galaxies and surrounded by the vast emptiness of the intergalactic void, the Tantalus Cluster is the only home humanity has ever known.

Desperate and facing starvation, humanity’s only hope is a strange nebula that has suddenly appeared beyond the edge of the cluster. It’s shifting clouds may hide a source of salvation for the people of Tantalus, but time is running out.

Signing on to the ambitious Avalon Expedition, Privateer Captain Cassandra Farren will face the shadows of both the past and future as she leads her small crew into the unknown in a last, desperate bid for the survival of the human race.

Directed and produced with careful scientific consultation, The Sojourn captures every detail of life aboard ship, from the sounds of the smallest airlock seal to the largest space battle.

Featuring a full cast of veteran voice actors, backed up by high-quality sound effects and an epic original soundtrack, The Sojourn is a unique and striking audio experience.

Starring Larissa Thompson as Captain Cassandra Farren, Emily Serdahl as Director Elizabeth Ancelet, Laura Faye Smith as Tamara Melari, Ben Prendergast as Mathias Croft, Stephen Trafford as Inquisitor Castian Vadric, also featuring Matthew Kaufman as Lieutenant Jasper Ravi, and Lelia Symington as Empress Valendra the Sixth. Written by Daniel Orrett, sound design and audio editing by Kennedy Phillips, music by Sam Redfern.

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My Review

My Rating: 5 Stars
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I was granted complimentary access to The Sojourn Season 1 Volume 1 as part of my participation in a blog tour for both Season 1 titles with Audiobookworm Promotions. Thank you to all involved in affording me this opportunity! My thoughts are my own and my review is honest.

This is a collection of short episodes making up the beginning of a space opera series, and the experience is like so few other audiobooks I’ve ever listened to. There’s a fair-sized cast of very talented voice actors and an excellent soundtrack of scores and sound effects that made it feel like I had a video playing in another tab and I was just choosing to ignore the visuals. It also felt a bit like the cut scenes in an RPG video game.

Now, normally when I make that statement comparing a SciFi audiobook to video game cut scenes I follow that up with a statement that it was fun but too formulaic and predictable. That is absolutely not the case here! This truly feels like I was listening to the audio track of a well-written TV series. The characters all feel very well-rounded and unique, very three-dimensional, and the plot is unique. I feel like we’ve got a very good understanding of who these characters are and what their plight is now, and I’m eager to get on with volume 2 to continue the adventure!

A note on the soundtrack: I quickly got used to the constant layered soundscape and I do think it added a lot to that video playing in a different tab I just wasn’t looking at feel, but at first I wasn’t quite sure what was going on. What felt like brief intro music continued to play longer than expected, and louder than expected. I was about to make a note for myself that the backing soundtrack was distracting and too loud when the first non-music sound effects came in and then I realized what they were doing. Overall it was great, but the length of the musical score at the beginning at that volume felt like an editing error at first.

I’m not sure if this collection was previously offered elsewhere in single episodes or not, but in a combined volume where five episodes play consecutively, I think I would have preferred that they edit out the ending credits and “for the next episode, keep listening” bit between episodes. This volume is still rather short even though it contains five episodes, it’s shorter than most audiobooks I review, so I did listen all in one sitting and I expect the average audience member will do that as well. The interruption between what would otherwise just be chapters brought me out of the story each time.

Do I recommend this series to others? Absolutely! Fans of SciFi television and RPGs in particular will absolutely love The Sojourn!

About the Author: Daniel Orrett

Daniel enrolled in Bangor University, North Wales in their film program, but quickly found that his work on his YouTube channel ‘Spacedock’ was proving to offer more experience in the entertainment industry than his formal education. His work on the channel quickly drew the attention of popular video game company Slitherine Software, which had been given the license to work on the Battlestar Galactica property. 

Recognizing Daniel’s knowledge of science fiction and writing acumen, they granted him free reign to contribute to the canon of the Battlestar Galactica world. He was later brought on by SyFy to do similar work for ‘The Expanse’, which turned into his popular series ‘Force Recon’.

In his spare time Daniel enjoys reading and learning from the works of heritage science fiction authors and screenwriters, such as James S.A. Corey, Ronald D. Moore, and D.C. Fontana. He took several courses through The Open University to hone his craft in creative writing and screenwriting, practices his writing abilities with several screenplays and short stories, and frequently analyzes narrative theory in video essays on his channel.

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