Audiobook Review: The Flight of the Silvers by Daniel Price

The Flight of the Silvers by Daniel Price

Read by Rich Orlow

Recorded Books

Length: 21Hrs 27 Min

Genre: Science Fiction

Grade: A

OK, so this may get weird.

The other day, I was finishing up a particularly disappointing listen. I had been in a strange cycle of awesome followed by awful in my audiobook listening, and needed to balance out the latest heartbreaking letdown with some new brain-busting goodness. Scanning through my pile of yet to be listened to audiobooks, my brain was screaming “NO NO NO!” at each one I perused. So, as normal people are known to do, I started to scan my extremely packed Audible Wishlist for something, anything that may tickle my malleus. Then, I saw this:

THE FLIGHT OF THE SILVER

“What the fuck is this?” I asked myself in my typically profane way. I had no recollection of adding this title to my Wishlist. While I have been known to add some weird stuff to Wishlist, this book didn’t seem to be some strange hedgehog porn title, or an Apocalyptic Robot Unicorn Spatterpunk Anthology, and I had no clue how it got onto my Wishlist. Immediately I went to my list of go to possibilities.

Drunk Wishlisting: This is of course, the cousin to Drunk Texting for the more socially awkward.

Hacker Pitches: Maybe some Author/Hacker gave up pitching their novels to me through email, and used the Heartbleed Bug to access my Audible Passwords to add their book to my wishlist.

The Pets: I know these bastards use my computer when I’m not home to fuck with me.

But, being curious I read the Publisher Summary. This book seemed really good. Like, something I would really like. Then it hit me.

Maybe, future Bob went back in time and added this book to my Wishlist, because it was so damn good.

But then, this creates a weird Paradox. How exactly would future Bob know this books was so good if it was never on his Wishlist and yet how was it added to my Wishlist unless future Bob knew it was good? Maybe, it wasn’t actually future Bob. Maybe, one night I faced a choice, embrace my extroverted side and go out and engage in some social activity like a normal person, or give in to my introverted half and spend the night researching audiobooks like some hermit auditory entertainment addict. Now, in the past, I tended to feed the introverted side, and stay home, but lately I have been more social. So, what if when I made this latest decision, the choice created an alternate timeline, where alt-Bob stayed home and discovered THE FLIGHT OF THE SILVERS, read it, became fascinated by temporal paradoxes, created a dimensional spanning time machine, traveled to the timeline where I actually engaged in social activities, and accessed my Audible Wishlist, adding THE FLIGHT OF THE SILVERS to it, knowing at some point I will be looking for an alternative to my latest disappointing listen.

I know, right! Makes sense.

So, I did listen to THE FLIGHT OF THE SILVERS and goddammit, Future Alt-Bob was on to something here. When a book starts with the utter annihilation on one existence, and get weirder from there, well, I’m in for the ride. THE FLIGHT OF THE SILVERS is tale of regular, everyday people, who just happen to be cross dimensional temporal superheroes who must come together to prevent the destruction of the multiverse. It’s like Markus Sakey’s Brilliance meets Fringe, with a touch of the Superfriends. You have all the typical superhero cliches, the tragic beginnings, the broken heroes, the discovery of their powers, the struggle with the ethical issues of power, silver glowing force field ball things, over the top action sequences and awkward romantic tension, yet added into it is some bizarre physics/timey wimey meta-mystical weirdness. Oh, and an isolationist alt-America that is rife with Xenophobia because WHY NOT!. To make it better, Daniel Price has the writing chops to pull what could be an incoherent mess, into a fast paced, exciting chase story. His characters are lovingly constructed, and come alive in your brain. His action sequences are so well put together, and detailed that at times they seem to go on a bit too long, but still keep you utterly enthralled. My only real complaint is that as part of a series, my brain wanted a bit more resolution. Sure, the story had a lot of strong reveals at the end, and it was pretty well contained, but Price utilized his temporal plotting to create lots of foreshadowing of potential things to come and I wanted to know NOW! THE FLIGHT OF THE SILVERS grabbed me from the apocalyptic beginning, and held onto me with it’s giant white fist through all the multidimensional time weirdness, to the exciting finale. It was pretty damn good.

There is a scene early in this book, where Amanda, a nurse and one of the future SILVERS, is trapped in her protective bubble as the world is being destroyed around her. It’s a brilliant and poignant scene between her and her somewhat estranged husband that has emotional resonance throughout the rest of the book. Listening to this scene, I felt like I was there, witnessing a conversation between two distinct people. It literally gave me chills. This is when I said to myself, “Rich Orlow is a pretty badass narrator.” And, really, he is. There are performances to remember, and Rich Orlow gives one here. His handling of the many characters was wonderful. From the sociopathic creeper Evan to the strange otherly beings that seem to be directing each step the Silver take, Orlow nails them all. His pacing is spot on, allowing each sequence to move at just the right speed. While we are only a few months in, this is definitely one of my favorite performances of the year. Dammit, the man even sings a bit. If you like science fiction, time travel, shiny awesome things, or have a soul trapped somewhere in your flesh cocoon, give THE FLIGHT OF THE SILVERS a listen.