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The Last Watch

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The Last Watch

By: J. S. Dewes
Narrated by: Andrew Eiden, Nicol Zanzarella
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"Both readers are brilliant and nail the characterization in a way that instantly connects them to the listener..Everything here is top-notch." -- Booklist, starred review

The Expanse meets Game of Thrones in J. S. Dewes's fast-paced, sci-fi adventure The Last Watch, where a handful of soldiers stand between humanity and annihilation.

The Divide.

It’s the edge of the universe.

Now it’s collapsing—and taking everyone and everything with it.

The only ones who can stop it are the Sentinels—the recruits, exiles, and court-martialed dregs of the military.

At the Divide, Adequin Rake commands the Argus. She has no resources, no comms—nothing, except for the soldiers that no one wanted. Her ace in the hole could be Cavalon Mercer--genius, asshole, and exiled prince who nuked his grandfather's genetic facility for “reasons.”

She knows they’re humanity's last chance.

A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Books

 Adventure Fiction Military Science Fiction Space Opera Outcast
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Critic reviews

Praise for The Last Watch

“An epic tale of survival at the end of the universe.”—Megan O'Keefe, author of Velocity Weapon

“Crisp writing, vivid characters, and a plot that beguiles the imagination. The Last Watch is a stunning military sci-fi debut. I was hooked from the opening lines. If you like science fiction, then this book is definitely for you.”—Jasper T. Scott, USA Today Bestselling Author

“The Last Watch is an amazing debut. The smart world-building and explode-off-the page action scenes make it perfect for fans of The Expanse and other fast-paced Sci Fi. I predict that Dewes is going to be a 'must read' author for years to come.”—Michael Mammay, author of Planetside

“More fun than that time The Expendables, the Dirty Dozen and all of The Night’s Watch all got picked up by a random quantum tear in the fabric of spacetime and shot out the edge of the universe to kick ass and save humanity.”—John Birmingham, author of the Axis of Time trilogy

“Take the action of Marko Kloos' Frontlines novels, mix in the intricate world building of Game of Thrones or Warhammer 40,000, and light the fuse. . . . Bursting with snappy dialogue and detail and furious with action, you’ll want to catch your breath when it’s over, and then you’ll want more. Bring it on.”—Dayton Ward, bestselling author


“A scary edge-of-reality setup, cool martial-arts tattoos, interesting time anomalies, and OMG! The Universe is contracting!? Clear your schedule, because once you've gotten on this roller coaster, you're not going to want to get off until you've ridden it to the end.”—Emily Devenport, author of Medusa Uploaded

“The Last Watch has it all! Risky orbital maneuvers! Knife fights with grotesque aliens! Mysterious ancient artifacts! Secret royalty! Tragic backstories! It's classic military space opera with a touch of the cosmic.”—David Levine, winner of the Andre Norton Award for Arabella of Mars
All stars
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Too much romance for my taste. Also too much focus on describing every breath, sigh, nod etc.

Space Action Soap Opera

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Great story, but confusing at first but worth it. Fantastic performance. Recommend if you like dead silence

Epic

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3.5 out of 5 - I liked it! It was an original idea, and the whole 'Nights Watch in Space' thing is definitely apt. The story takes some interesting turns, the setting is interesting and the stakes are well established and, frankly, couldn't be higher! Everything unfolded at the right pace to keep me interested and while there wasn't really any one 'stand out' feature, it was just an enjoyable story.

I felt the performances were great, although it did amuse me how the two different narrators both performed the character of Griffith. Zanzarella voiced him as a silky smooth Irishman, where Eiden voiced Griffith as a gruff soldier who at certain moments ALMOST sounded a little Irish, but at other times sounded Native American.

One thing that prevented the story from really excelling was the prose, which was heavily bloated by the POV characters' ruminations on what is currently happening, sometimes inexplicably detouring into their past in ways that felt very 'tell' rather than 'show'. And someone really should have picked up on some of Dewes' writing tics, such as the 'quirked eyebrow' (I think I noticed close to two dozen of them) and frequent usage of an action, expression or noise which "was equal parts X and Y". Diaglogue was also clunky in parts.

The characters had plausibility issues as well. Adequin continually flagellates herself for things which she patently had not control or foresight about. Towards the end, another character calls this out as one of her faults, so I guess it was intentional on the author's part, but it had still irritated me for most of the book. Much is made of Cavalon's multiple university degrees, yet whenever these are called into use it ends up being for a task which seems disappointingly basic. Like in the final sequence when his expertise is required to, apparently, fill up a tank of hydrogren and press a clearly marked button.

Even though these niggled persisted throughout, I did finish the book, was glad I had done so, and might even consider reading the next one.

Enjoyable and original deep-space adventure

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a good sort of coming of age story in space . I found the ending a bit meh but all n all an enjoyable start to a series.

enoyed

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Superb from start to finish and the sequel is downloading as I type this

Sci-Fi at its best!

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