The Salvage Crew

By: Yudhanjaya Wijeratne

Narrated by: Nathan Fillion

Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins

Publisher's summary

Award-winning actor Nathan Fillion (Firefly, Castle, The Rookie) brings to life a snarky artificial intelligence you won't soon forget. Don't miss his hilarious performance in a story perfectly crafted for sci-fi fans of The Martian, Red Dwarf, and We Are Legion (We Are Bob).

They thought this was just another salvage job. They thought wrong.

An AI overseer and a human crew arrive on a distant planet to salvage an ancient UN starship. The overseer is unhappy. The crew, well, they're certainly no A-team. Not even a C-team on the best of days. And worse? Urmahon Beta, the planet, is at the ass-end of nowhere. Everybody expects this to be a long, ugly, and thankless job.

Then it all goes disastrously wrong. What they thought was an uninhabited backwater turns out to be anything but empty. Megafauna roam the land, a rival crew with some terrifyingly high-powered gear haunts the dig site, and a secret that will change humanity forever is waiting in the darkness.

Stuck on this unmapped, hostile planet, lacking resources, and with tech built by the cheapest bidder, the salvage crew must engineer their way to payday...and beat Urmahon Beta before it kills them all.

©2020 Yudhanjaya Wijeratne (P)2020 Podium Audio

Critic reviews

"Yudhanjaya Wijeratne's ingeniously crafted The Salvage Crew starts with a comforting science-fictional familiarity, before using its A.I.-co-authored idiosyncrasies to hurtle headlong into the gravity well of its considerable ambition. A novel of meteoric energy, flaring brighter and brighter as it falls further into its world." (Indrapamit Das, Lambda Award-winning author of The Devourers)

"A classic sci-fi adventure wrapped around a deeply philosophical core. With skillful plotting, interesting details, and a motley crew of humans and A.I., it's a story that embraces its meta-origins...with an ending worth waiting for." (S.B. Divya, Hugo and Nebula Award-nominated author of Runtime and Machinehood)

"With animation and wry humor, Fillion introduces listeners to OC, an artificially intelligent yet poetic overseer...with tenderness and sorrow [he] conveys OC's dawning realization that their mission has turned into a nightmare. Fillion's talents are undeniable...." (Audiofile Magazine)

Starts At The Top Of A Hill And Only Goes Down

I was quickly engaged in the story, finding it funny and interesting, but it started slowing down about a quarter of the way in and by the last quarter of the book, I was ready for it to be over. Fillion does a great job and should consider doing more books, but I found the story just sort of wandered off into the distance and never found its way back.

Nathan Fillion, Sci-Fi, Humor, Poetry...LOVE

Nathan Fillion, the combo of story and Nathan's narration was amazing! I couldn't stop listening. A nice mix of sci-fi, humor, gritty action and the poetry, I love that! This story would make a great movie! But Nathan Fillion has to be in it!

I love this book and narrator!!

I got this book because I am a big fan of Mr. Fillion. I am also a big fan of science fiction. I am also a Brown Coat. So I figured this would be a good match. OMG This book is so good I finished it in 2 sittings and I am starting it all over again. Makes you think, scares you, excites you and it makes you sad. It is one great book I highly recommend it.

mixed feelings

I liked the start and the first half of this one and the narration by Nathan Fillion was fun but the last half just kinda felt meh. and the end was kinda depressing.

Fantastic!

Its definitely worth a read if you love sci-fi, plays out like smooth jazz with a kick!

Exceptional

The most difficult part of the story was not to listen straight through to the end.

Wanted to like this…

I love Nathan Fillion and his voice works well for this story. Problem is that he talks too fast in places, meaning I often missed the end of sentences as they were swallowed away. I think this book would work better in print as I also found it difficult to separate poem from story at times. It was also a bit too depressing for me (until the very very end). I much prefer spunky space opera to claustrophobic Alien-type narrative.

I absolutely loved this

A well told story that kept me adhered like universal bonding agent. AI and salvagers and monsters, oh my!

Wasn’t sure what this was gonna be, but pleasantly surprised

I thought this was going to be a normal Sci-Fi story. Instead, it became a story questioning the nature of humanity, religion and what we think.

An unusual book that I was completely wrong about but has me thinking pretty hard

wonderful story!

What a fantastic voyage! The narration was so phenomenal, I could hardly break away from Audible for more than a couple hours at a time, even took to listening to it in my car, instead of music on the radio. Nathan Fillion does a fantastic job putting life into the reading, and the writing was outstanding .