Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
The Salvage Crew cover art

The Salvage Crew

By: Yudhanjaya Wijeratne
Narrated by: Nathan Fillion
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £20.99

Buy Now for £20.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

Firefly: Big Damn Hero cover art
Slayers: A Buffyverse Story cover art
Planetary Anthology Series: Pluto cover art
Last Man Standing cover art
Wayward Galaxy cover art
All Systems Red (Dramatized Adaptation) cover art
Outland cover art
The Martian cover art
Convergence cover art
Third Eye cover art
Roadkill cover art
Children of Time cover art
Red Dwarf cover art
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) cover art
Columbus Day cover art
Infinite cover art

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)

More from the same

Narrator

What listeners say about The Salvage Crew

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    145
  • 4 Stars
    62
  • 3 Stars
    31
  • 2 Stars
    11
  • 1 Stars
    3
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    176
  • 4 Stars
    32
  • 3 Stars
    13
  • 2 Stars
    7
  • 1 Stars
    3
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    115
  • 4 Stars
    63
  • 3 Stars
    36
  • 2 Stars
    11
  • 1 Stars
    6

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Fantastic, really enjoyed it.

Can't wait for more from this author and Nathan Fillion did a great job narrating it.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

good sci fi, nice take on first contact

good book, gets fairly predictable in the mid to end. performance was great, a tad quite for driving but awesome other than that

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Nothing like the blurb.

It's plodding, at times aimless, and despite the blurb, neither hilarious nor exciting.
It's, at heart, a story of a depressed AI (ish) Overseer, continuously disappointed and frustrated by the humans it oversees.

The characters are two-dimensional at best, and the entire thing reads like it was made up as the book was written.

Fillion's narration is somewhat jarring, as he tends to start a sentence clearly, then rattles off the rest in a quick and mumbled manner. He does this a lot.

This is not hard Sci fi, and it does not deal with overcoming technical difficulties with ingenuity, like The Martian. It lacks the humor and charm om the Bobiverse books.
Mostly stuff just sort of happens, and culminates in an unsatisfying, predictable manner.

I've listened to the book from start to finish, just to see if it goes anywhere, and the truth is: it barely goes anywhere.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Refreshing.

Really enjoyed this book, Sci fi can sometimes veer into the life stories and personal challenges of its characters making it more about life in general than the escape I personally was looking for. This book delivered on escapism whilst keeping the struggle at the core. The narration is good once you get used to it as it can be a little mumbled at first, the central character held my interest. Happy with this one.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Strong overall, but a little confusing.

An excellent performance from Nathan Fillion in a story that had me constantly wondering what was going to happen next. There are a few shock moments, and generally, the plot is quite strong.

Admittedly, I found some of the universe/AI talk very difficult to follow, and some conversations between them I end up losing who is speaking at what time. I did find the final moments slightly underwhelming, but equally, it has left the story somewhat open for your own conclusions/thoughts or a hefty sequel.

Overall, I would say I found the beginning-mid section quite strong, but it fell off slightly as it came to a close. Despite this, it is certainly worth a listen.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Dire

Bloody awful. Waste of a credit. Bloody awful, a waste of a credit. Avoid and watch some paint dry instead.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A refreshing, at times comical, survival story.

Other than the sultry tones of Nathan Fillion, I wasn't sure what to expect from this story. The blurb suggests a comedy on par with Red Dwarf and Hitchikers Guide, and I guess there are elements, but it surprised me with something much deeper. It's philosophy. It's sometimes poetry. It's often funny but, it is not a comedy.

Nathan Fillion clearly loves this story and he demonstrates flawless understanding of authorial intent in his narration. Compelling and entertaining, comical and thoughtful, this story was such a break from the norm.

At only one point did I feel the story stagnated but it was brief. The narration is interdispersed with occasional complex poetry so, be prepared but don't fixate on understanding the prose, it isn't essential to the story. Enjoy it or let it flow over you, there's action and drama aplenty!

Plot: Following the trials and triumphs of a mismatched, underfunded crew on what appears to be a simple salvage op, the crew and their sentient, once-human AI, called an overseer, stumble on something that has much wider consequences, for them, the company and humanity as a species.
The sarcastic and esoteric AI must try his best to keep the crew alive while they work together (occasionally) to make sense of the situation and make the best of what grim existence can be had out here amongst the alien flora and baffling fauna.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Interesting ideas

I like how it is told, the central characters perspective is unique. What they find on the planet is disturbing, and speaks to some old uncomfortable questions.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Predictable and only really saved by Fillion

As other reviewers have said the story is predictable, slow, meandering and badly paced. Without Fillion's performance there would be little to recommend it.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

performance

Loved the twist in the story, totally unpredictable. also the first person narrative of an AI was really novel

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!