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Traitor
Military Science Fiction Adventure - One man. Two worlds. Last Chance. On the edge of a far frontier rests a place of gentle manners and common civility--Last Chance. Threats of war change all of that. A hero is needed. A Savior. Meet Aaron Turner, the unassuming man who runs the Last Chance General Store. He may not be all that they hoped for.The Turner Chronicles Military Science Fiction Adventure Series- Traitor - Betrayed - Pawn - Crusade From the "...I would recommend this series to anyone who just likes a good long story to use to relax at the end of a hard day. It provides a welcome escape to a different place..." "...This book is one of my favorite books I've read over the last year. It was detailed, captivating, and emotive..." "...I'll surely be reading the next few books..." "...People and emotion. Good vs evil. Superb character development. Would do great on the big screen..." "...Being a fan of both sci-fi and fantasy, I was intrigued how Eller used 'talent'..." "...Mr Eller has a considerable talent as a storyteller. I found this novel very engaging, and was drawn into it very thoroughly..."
352 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 3, 2009
127 people are currently reading
195 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
June 8, 2020
“Being suspected of being a spy was the last thing Aaron wanted, since he was one.”
Gave up. Interesting concept: “talented” people able to jump between planets. Certain materials amplify talents. Decent voice for protagonist.
"The milk orders are increasing. We need to buy another forty gallons a day."
But grossly violent. Illogical social and cultural patterns. Sophomoric sexual issues. Clearly no understanding of even rudimentary economics. Having all the money in the world does not produce another forty gallons of milk or forty wagons and teams in a near-subsistence economy.
“Aaron had Jorrin pull the sword free and throw it into the lake, figuring that anyone who was willing to swim through the slimy water to search for it had to be a pretty desperate fellow indeed.” Even Aaron isn’t that stupid.
Gave up. Interesting concept: “talented” people able to jump between planets. Certain materials amplify talents. Decent voice for protagonist.
"The milk orders are increasing. We need to buy another forty gallons a day."
But grossly violent. Illogical social and cultural patterns. Sophomoric sexual issues. Clearly no understanding of even rudimentary economics. Having all the money in the world does not produce another forty gallons of milk or forty wagons and teams in a near-subsistence economy.
“Aaron had Jorrin pull the sword free and throw it into the lake, figuring that anyone who was willing to swim through the slimy water to search for it had to be a pretty desperate fellow indeed.” Even Aaron isn’t that stupid.
February 22, 2021
I liked some things about this, but not others. The story was good - a mercenary from an advanced civilisation can "jump" into others, and ends up in a "Wild West" type scenario, with the intention of feeding information back to his base. Turns out he like it there, and he finds himself torn between two homes. It doesn't help that he meets the woman of his dreams to muddy his thoughts even more. The action scenes were pretty good, and the narration by Jake Bible was solid.
However, I felt like parts of the story were a jumping-off point for the author's own personal philosophies - which most authors do and is okay in itself - but it seems like he's just throwing the basic tenets out there without letting us dig deeper. In addition, the romance and love scenes seem clumsy, at least to me, and I am the antithesis of romantic. I can definitely see people enjoying the heck out of this, but for me, it was just okay.
However, I felt like parts of the story were a jumping-off point for the author's own personal philosophies - which most authors do and is okay in itself - but it seems like he's just throwing the basic tenets out there without letting us dig deeper. In addition, the romance and love scenes seem clumsy, at least to me, and I am the antithesis of romantic. I can definitely see people enjoying the heck out of this, but for me, it was just okay.
February 19, 2019
So funny story. I write books. I'm not going to plug it here because that isn't the point. The point is I've met Mark Eller. He's a friend of my dad and a pretty cool guy. He gave me some tips for both writing and dealing with the many publishers across the US, many of which are not reputable. Tips I wish I would have had before trying to publish a book.
On to the book. It's been two or so years, so forgive me if all the details aren't fantastic.
Characters: There's a pretty generous handful of them and they run the gambit in terms of personality and moral character. Basically all of them are flawed in one way or another, no Gary Stus or Mary Sues here.
For instance, main protagonist Aaron Turner is a very good shot but is awful at close-combat with melee weapons. Another important part of his character is that he has a curious lack of self-awareness. He has been noted on many occasions to be getting visibly angry whenever someone is trying to push him around. Aaron thinks he's being timid and submissive whenever these things happen.
One issue I have is the main antagonist, Talent Master Beech. Beech is intelligent, but he's also a Dean Koontz villain: "I like to murder people. And when I'm not murdering people, I like telling them what to do." We really aren't given much more than that.
Plot: How about two of them? The first deals with a growing war in the rural fantasy world, known as Isabella, as Beech brings savages onto his side to start conquering the world. The cool thing about Isabella is that many people have special abilities called Talents, but in the context of the world, most of them are weak. Kitty can track where people are, Aaron can teleport, and Aaron's wife Sarah has super speed.
The second deals with the Turner's homeworld, an urban dystopia where a private militia plans to go to the Talent World, Isabella...in order to conquer it. It's more or less stated that, here, there are few people with Talents but the power of them is stronger.
Here, is a PRETTY strong starting hook for the book, where a private is executed by a douche of a sergeant for insubordination and for "being weak." The sergeant makes it clear to the witnessing privates, that they WILL be going to the Talent World and they WILL be killing women.
We learn that Aaron is a spy from the militia, sent to Isabella. But his loyalties are tested because the militia members are mostly complete assholes and lunatics, while he grows more and more attached to the people of Isabella. He eventually defects from the militia. Insurgency rules!
The action rises when Aaron is forced to teleport some of Beech's gang to the dystopian world. Something about being there amplifies the powers that most of Isabella's humans have. And the gang goes on a massive rampage. How does Aaron stop them? Read and find out!
Climax: Pretty good final boss fight. Long and difficult and painful. That's how you do it. Way to go Mark!
Now, to some things I wasn't overly fond off.
In Isabella, the women outnumber the men 4 to 1, so men are encouraged to have multiple partners and wives. Granted, the women here are treated MUCH better than in a crap novel like Klavan's Empire of Lies. Granted, this is for a practical reason rather than lying about a revelation from God saying He said you get to have multiple wives. The women here aren't objects. This whole thing doesn't read like some harem anime and it doesn't read like wish fulfillment. Aaron likes his second-wife, Kitty, but doesn't feel much in the way of love for her and knows she feels the exact same. His marriage with her is more of a task.
None of this changes the fact that I just don't like polygamy. Either the relationship is completely open or it's completely closed.
The urban world, Aaron's homeworld, is simply not as interesting as Isabella. On one side, we get a cool fantasy setting with people and their cool abilities and their gradual mastery of their use. And then we go to the home world, and the only interesting thing going for it is the militia.
The tone is also somewhat off. It's a dark fantasy story along with sci-fi and detailed violence. But it just doesn't jive well with the Isabellans referring to each other as Mr., Ms. or Mrs. or almost never saying foul language AND thinking that "damn" and "hell" counts as foul language. So the experience is much like an MA rated TV show like The Walking Dead, where you see a person get split in half with an axe or their faces eaten by zombies but nobody says the f-bomb because of "it's on TV and we have to censor it."
And some of the Isabellans don't follow that rule either, criticizing one person for saying "damn" because "there are children in the house" and then shrieking the f-bomb a second later. What?
Minor issues, but noticeable ones.
Conclusion: Star Ocean 2: The Novel, is pretty good. Except this main character can't use swords. =D
I'm hoping in the sequels, the we get to see an open war between the militia and Isabella.
On to the book. It's been two or so years, so forgive me if all the details aren't fantastic.
Characters: There's a pretty generous handful of them and they run the gambit in terms of personality and moral character. Basically all of them are flawed in one way or another, no Gary Stus or Mary Sues here.
For instance, main protagonist Aaron Turner is a very good shot but is awful at close-combat with melee weapons. Another important part of his character is that he has a curious lack of self-awareness. He has been noted on many occasions to be getting visibly angry whenever someone is trying to push him around. Aaron thinks he's being timid and submissive whenever these things happen.
One issue I have is the main antagonist, Talent Master Beech. Beech is intelligent, but he's also a Dean Koontz villain: "I like to murder people. And when I'm not murdering people, I like telling them what to do." We really aren't given much more than that.
Plot: How about two of them? The first deals with a growing war in the rural fantasy world, known as Isabella, as Beech brings savages onto his side to start conquering the world. The cool thing about Isabella is that many people have special abilities called Talents, but in the context of the world, most of them are weak. Kitty can track where people are, Aaron can teleport, and Aaron's wife Sarah has super speed.
The second deals with the Turner's homeworld, an urban dystopia where a private militia plans to go to the Talent World, Isabella...in order to conquer it. It's more or less stated that, here, there are few people with Talents but the power of them is stronger.
Here, is a PRETTY strong starting hook for the book, where a private is executed by a douche of a sergeant for insubordination and for "being weak." The sergeant makes it clear to the witnessing privates, that they WILL be going to the Talent World and they WILL be killing women.
We learn that Aaron is a spy from the militia, sent to Isabella. But his loyalties are tested because the militia members are mostly complete assholes and lunatics, while he grows more and more attached to the people of Isabella. He eventually defects from the militia. Insurgency rules!
The action rises when Aaron is forced to teleport some of Beech's gang to the dystopian world. Something about being there amplifies the powers that most of Isabella's humans have. And the gang goes on a massive rampage. How does Aaron stop them? Read and find out!
Climax: Pretty good final boss fight. Long and difficult and painful. That's how you do it. Way to go Mark!
Now, to some things I wasn't overly fond off.
In Isabella, the women outnumber the men 4 to 1, so men are encouraged to have multiple partners and wives. Granted, the women here are treated MUCH better than in a crap novel like Klavan's Empire of Lies. Granted, this is for a practical reason rather than lying about a revelation from God saying He said you get to have multiple wives. The women here aren't objects. This whole thing doesn't read like some harem anime and it doesn't read like wish fulfillment. Aaron likes his second-wife, Kitty, but doesn't feel much in the way of love for her and knows she feels the exact same. His marriage with her is more of a task.
None of this changes the fact that I just don't like polygamy. Either the relationship is completely open or it's completely closed.
The urban world, Aaron's homeworld, is simply not as interesting as Isabella. On one side, we get a cool fantasy setting with people and their cool abilities and their gradual mastery of their use. And then we go to the home world, and the only interesting thing going for it is the militia.
The tone is also somewhat off. It's a dark fantasy story along with sci-fi and detailed violence. But it just doesn't jive well with the Isabellans referring to each other as Mr., Ms. or Mrs. or almost never saying foul language AND thinking that "damn" and "hell" counts as foul language. So the experience is much like an MA rated TV show like The Walking Dead, where you see a person get split in half with an axe or their faces eaten by zombies but nobody says the f-bomb because of "it's on TV and we have to censor it."
And some of the Isabellans don't follow that rule either, criticizing one person for saying "damn" because "there are children in the house" and then shrieking the f-bomb a second later. What?
Minor issues, but noticeable ones.
Conclusion: Star Ocean 2: The Novel, is pretty good. Except this main character can't use swords. =D
I'm hoping in the sequels, the we get to see an open war between the militia and Isabella.
March 7, 2020
Worth the read
I struggled for the first four chapters or so, and then I was hooked.
People and emotion good vs evil.
Superb character development. Would do great on the big screen
I struggled for the first four chapters or so, and then I was hooked.
People and emotion good vs evil.
Superb character development. Would do great on the big screen
May 6, 2023
Future to the Past.
This is quite a unique take on human society and social mores. This is well written, with only a few grammatical errors. I find that this story was anything but predictable. Good job, and keep killing it.
This is quite a unique take on human society and social mores. This is well written, with only a few grammatical errors. I find that this story was anything but predictable. Good job, and keep killing it.
October 30, 2021
I really, really liked this book. Couldn't put it down.
April 4, 2024
Wow, Just an amazing story!!! I had so many emotions throughout the book; but man I laughed so much. There's so many layers to this story and I can appreciate that. The book allows one to question our perceptions, our norms, and out values. I love the character of Mr. Turner. His strengths are the ones that truly matter. He is not the most attractive person, the big strongest person, or perfect at all. But what he is, is a guy that has a big heart and a moral compass that he does his best to stay true to. He can be looked over if you are a shallow person but honestly you cannot deny his godly presence. I like how he is oblivious to what makes him a great man. I Am Hooked! Bring on book 2.
July 1, 2013
This book is one of my favorite books I've read over the last year. It was detailed, captivating, and emotive.
In many ways, I am surprised I liked the book so much. It had many aspects that I normally dislike. The protagonist was not only an anti-hero, but in many ways, a clueless one. Despite this, he had an ability to attract women that would put Cyrano to shame. His ability to gain position and power were largely attributed by a bottomless purse that had nothing to do with him as a person. There was the constant parade of naked female bodies, yet an inability to consummate anything. The chief antagonist was some sort of super-villain with amazing powers, and the other baddies were oh so bad. The protagonist's sense of guilt was overwhelming.
These are all things that typically raise flags with me when reading. So why the five stars? Because, with one exception (that I will mention below), the author makes it all work. His skill with the written word is prodigious. I was pulled into the story, truly captivated. All those points that usually bother me in other books didn't bother me at all in this one. I was along for the ride and enjoying every minute of it. Everything seem to fit.
When I write that this book is detailed, that is an understatement. This is a long book, but it doesn't falter or drag. The pace remains quick.
Editing was good. I was not pulled out of the flow my typos and poor grammar.
The one part that jarred me, though, was the naked women/no sex aspect. This was slightly juvenile, unbelievable, and dragged on too long. This is probably my only criticism, though. As a whole, I really loved the book.
SPOILER ALERT
One thing I hate is when a protagonist enters into deadly combat with a much more powerful antagonist in a book's climax, he usually prevails due to some unbelievable slip up by the baddie or by the good guy simply fighting better. Authors build up the tension by building up the odds against the good guy, but they don't adequately explain how he overcame those odds.
In Traitor, the author has a "scientific" reason for Aaron's success, one that makes perfect sense given the book's universe. I didn't just have to accept his triumph as a literary sleight of hand, I could accept the logic and "rightness" of it.
END SPOILER ALERT
I should complain to the author, though. I read the book until 4 in the morning on two consecutive nights, wiping me out for work at 9. I just could not put it down.
This is a very good book, and I look forward to reading more of Aaron's story.
In many ways, I am surprised I liked the book so much. It had many aspects that I normally dislike. The protagonist was not only an anti-hero, but in many ways, a clueless one. Despite this, he had an ability to attract women that would put Cyrano to shame. His ability to gain position and power were largely attributed by a bottomless purse that had nothing to do with him as a person. There was the constant parade of naked female bodies, yet an inability to consummate anything. The chief antagonist was some sort of super-villain with amazing powers, and the other baddies were oh so bad. The protagonist's sense of guilt was overwhelming.
These are all things that typically raise flags with me when reading. So why the five stars? Because, with one exception (that I will mention below), the author makes it all work. His skill with the written word is prodigious. I was pulled into the story, truly captivated. All those points that usually bother me in other books didn't bother me at all in this one. I was along for the ride and enjoying every minute of it. Everything seem to fit.
When I write that this book is detailed, that is an understatement. This is a long book, but it doesn't falter or drag. The pace remains quick.
Editing was good. I was not pulled out of the flow my typos and poor grammar.
The one part that jarred me, though, was the naked women/no sex aspect. This was slightly juvenile, unbelievable, and dragged on too long. This is probably my only criticism, though. As a whole, I really loved the book.
SPOILER ALERT
One thing I hate is when a protagonist enters into deadly combat with a much more powerful antagonist in a book's climax, he usually prevails due to some unbelievable slip up by the baddie or by the good guy simply fighting better. Authors build up the tension by building up the odds against the good guy, but they don't adequately explain how he overcame those odds.
In Traitor, the author has a "scientific" reason for Aaron's success, one that makes perfect sense given the book's universe. I didn't just have to accept his triumph as a literary sleight of hand, I could accept the logic and "rightness" of it.
END SPOILER ALERT
I should complain to the author, though. I read the book until 4 in the morning on two consecutive nights, wiping me out for work at 9. I just could not put it down.
This is a very good book, and I look forward to reading more of Aaron's story.
April 9, 2013
I don't want to add any spoilers here, but the simple premise is Aaron Turner can transfer worlds with a thought. He goes from a 22nd century world to a 19th century one with slightly different rules.
I've got to say that the concept of someone being able to transfer between worlds just with a thought was interesting, but this story doesn't stop there. I loved hearing how the protagonist uses his knowledge from the "old world" in his new one. You get wrapped up in his wishes, dreams and even his foibles and faults. I enjoyed the story via podcast so I was able to listen to the author give voice to his characters. If you listen the first episode or three are a little rough, but you can tell that Mark gets the hang of reading and recording quickly and things smooth out.
Give it a read or a listen [...]
I've got to say that the concept of someone being able to transfer between worlds just with a thought was interesting, but this story doesn't stop there. I loved hearing how the protagonist uses his knowledge from the "old world" in his new one. You get wrapped up in his wishes, dreams and even his foibles and faults. I enjoyed the story via podcast so I was able to listen to the author give voice to his characters. If you listen the first episode or three are a little rough, but you can tell that Mark gets the hang of reading and recording quickly and things smooth out.
Give it a read or a listen [...]
June 30, 2021
1.0 out of 5 stars
Unreadable
September 8, 2013
I’ve tried to read Mark Eller’s “Traitor” twice now. I failed both times. It’s odd because technically, his writing is pretty good. My problems lie with the plot and the characters. First, the main character is far too weenie-ish for my taste. He’s a true anti-hero who, through a series of events and circumstances ends up saving the day every time he turns around. And then, the plot. There’s just too much convenient happenstance to tolerate. I just couldn’t take it and had to stop. I rate it at an Unreadable 1 star out of 5.
Unreadable
September 8, 2013
I’ve tried to read Mark Eller’s “Traitor” twice now. I failed both times. It’s odd because technically, his writing is pretty good. My problems lie with the plot and the characters. First, the main character is far too weenie-ish for my taste. He’s a true anti-hero who, through a series of events and circumstances ends up saving the day every time he turns around. And then, the plot. There’s just too much convenient happenstance to tolerate. I just couldn’t take it and had to stop. I rate it at an Unreadable 1 star out of 5.
Want to read
November 4, 2011*My copy was received about 2 years ago for BTR Interview; author came on Science Fiction showcase on Adrienna Turner Show with other authors. This is a copy edit version via ARC as gallery (eBook).
August 16, 2020
I am confused. I picked this story from GooglePlayBooks. My book is an audio version with the name Mark Eller (Rathbone??) Narrated by Jake Bible. (No version on GoodReads list of volumes)
Anyway. .. Great audio. Thanks to Jake Bible.
Anyway. .. Great audio. Thanks to Jake Bible.
March 6, 2012
Great story. The hero is respected because of his attitude, not his body. Good Sci Fi and believable. I would recommend this series...waiting for the next book...
September 3, 2012
This started off a little slow, then dragged me in and I became a fan. I love long stories and series that keep you engrossed. This qualifies:)
November 2, 2015
I read this in audiobook format. I truly enjoyed the story, as well as the reading. It is one of the best books I have read in this genre (dystopian sci-fi).
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews