The Last Sword Maker
The Course of Empire Series, Book 1
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The Last Sword Maker
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Narrated by:
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Bradford Hastings
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Written by:
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Brian Nelson
About this listen
A taut, fast-paced thriller about the coming high-tech arms race between the United States and China
In the high mountains of Tibet, rumors are spreading. People whisper of an outbreak, of thousands of dead, of bodies pushed into mass graves. It is some strange new disease … a disease, they say, that can kill in minutes.
The Chinese government says the rumors aren’t true, but no one is allowed in or out of Tibet.
At the Pentagon, Admiral James Curtiss is called to an emergency meeting. Satellite images prove that a massive genocide is underway, and an American spy has made a startling discovery. This is no disease. It’s a weapons test. Chinese scientists have developed a way to kill based on a person’s genetic traits. But that is only the tip of the iceberg. The success of their new weapon proves that the Chinese are nearing “Replication”—a revolutionary breakthrough that will tip the global balance of power and change the way wars are waged.
Now the US must scramble to catch up before it is too late. Admiral Curtiss gathers the nation’s top scientists, including a promising young graduate student named Eric Hill who just might hold the missing piece to the replication puzzle. Soon Hill and his colleague Jane Hunter are caught up in a deadly game of sabotage as the two nations strive to be the first to reach the coveted goal. But in their headlong race, they create something unexpected … something the world has never seen and something more powerful than they had ever imagined.
The Last Sword Maker is an exciting globe-trotting thriller with unforgettable characters that depicts a haunting vision of the future of warfare.
©2018 Brian Nelson (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.What listeners say about The Last Sword Maker
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Langer MD
- 2024-12-19
Interesting
Brian Nelson's story about a team of scientists competing with ruthless Chinese forces to develop world-changing military/biomedical technology is well-planned and thought-provoking. The concept is out-of-the-headlines relevant, the vocabulary/prose is creditable, the plotting is twisty-turny, and the action is a little bit tech-heavy but well-scripted.
Unfortunately, the story & characters just didn't captivate me (e.g. Nelson's examination of romantic entanglements among the characters is well-conducted.. but annoyingly irrelevant to the overall plot).
As to presentation: Blackstone Audio Inc. did well to cast Bradford Hastings to read the book. His performance is imperfect (his refusal to even attempt Chinese accents isn't a great decision, for example), but this is a well above-average narration.
Altogether, I enjoyed 'The Last Sword Maker' - it merits 6.5 stars out of 10 - but it's not worth a Credit when it leaves the 'Plus' catalog, given your other options.
[Note: The description of the torture-murder of a Chinese spy by his government is so realistic that it's actually nauseating]
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Joel G.
- 2022-08-02
Holy sh!t
man. best book I've listened to in a long time. all around great, not just a book for military fiction lovers.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Andrew Z. Sieminski
- 2022-08-16
Worst book in a long time
The story is loosely put together and so scattered that it is hard to figure out where the author is trying to go. It feels like a high school story assignment that was written by several people without knowing what everyone else was writing about except a loosely common theme. There were a couple chapters that could have been removed and wouldn’t have changed the story. This book was free and even then it wasn’t worth listening to.
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1 person found this helpful