Ray Price

I didn't do my research when I selected this book. I thought it was a new Peter Hamilton and jumped into it right away. It didn't take long for the dated buzz words and clumsy writing to convince me this must be an ancient book. A little research and yes, this book is more than 15 years old.

Peter F. Hamilton has certainly grown as a writer. But knowing the proper frame of reference for this work I able was to sit back and enjoy this young work. If you listen real close you'll be able to hear the beginnings of characters, situations, and technologies that would be showcased in the Commonwealth Sagas and in the Void books.

I downloaded this book on the day Audible made it available and there were a few technical issues with the recording (especially, part 2 of the download). Audible may find these and fix these but if they don't you'll be able to hear the narrator turn pages and hear the narrator mock the writing (don't remember the exact quote but the narrator disapproved of the author's describing a character's hair as "manes"). Unfortunate, as the reading by the narrator was excellent - he did a great jump picking "voices" that match the persona the writer had wanted each character to project.

After partaking of this throughly enjoyable performance, I feel it is incumbent upon me to pen this critique, inadequate as my humble words shall be. I began neither as an admirer of the illustrious Miss Austen nor an aficionado of the dreadful awful culture which has so recently occupied the thoughts and conversations of the erudite. I shall admit to being a reader of Mr. Grahame-Smith's most wonderful volume on the Great Emancipator which I found exceedingly engrossing and was hardly even able to put down despite arriving at that most unwanted of all pages, the final one. The quality of the writing in this volume is most astoundingly different from the previous tome I have just, in this review celebrated. This is, no doubt, due to the most proper and prestigious influence of Miss Austen. Doubtless modern readers may find such prose as dreadful as Satan's Army munching on a field of cauliflower. However, when spoken by an extra ordinary narrator such as Ms. Kellgren the rhythm and beauty of these antique words shines out as a pleasant change from the more taciturn humdrum of modern day prose. Full of humor and intrigue I was totally engrossed in the story as if I had been put upon by a party of twenty and five ninjas. In the end, I found myself hoping for a most satisfactory outcome for my new friends Elizabeth, Jane and Mr. Darcy. My only regret was that the book was concluded and I was forced to leave this most excellent world.

I usually listen to audible while driving. Occasionally, I will have a passenger. At these times, I feel bad having them drop in to the middle of whatever book I'm listening to at the time so I put on music. This book would be an excellent alternative for such situations. The whole thing is many short bits with few callbacks. If you don't like the narrator you're hearing now - wait a few minutes. It would be a great way to convince someone that audible ain't your grand mother's books on tape....if only it could have been funnier...

The audio book equivalent of an old man shaking his fist and yelling, "You kids get off my lawn". The author ignores the modern evidence that competition is the gateway drug to societal violence and longs for schools to return to a time when boys were real boys, girls were real girls, and ugly scary pedophile gym teachers were real ugly scary pedophile gym teachers.

The author would have kids abandon their modern video devices and return to the good old days of throwing rocks at each other. (Though maybe even the rocks would be a bad idea, lest the kids start banging them together and discover the Douglas Adam secret to becoming intelligent life.)

Unless you're looking for a read(listen) that will remind you why Luddites are getting increasingly hard to find in this modern world, don't waste your time.

Scalzi's re-imagining was awesome. I had never read the original and was tempted to listen to it before Scalzi's - DON'T DO IT. Having listened to the very enjoyable, very easy to listen to Scalzi version made the transition to the original very jarring. Granted, by the time I reached the end of the original, I was well into the stories and characters. But the whole "Grizzly Adams" in space attitude of the original did take some time to get use to.

Wil Wheaton did a stellar narration job, and not to take away from the narrator of the originall , I wish he narrated both stories.

Space Opera with modern themes. The 2 main characters thrash out the ethics of wiki-leaks while doing battle with an amoral corporation.

The only frustration was that 1 of the main characters is clearly schizophrenic. I kept waiting for the psychotic break that never came.

I didn't see that coming.

My only complaint - the narrator constantly said 'Zee' when I think he was supposed to be saying 'Zed'.

A quick listen.I was hoping for a little more science, but overall the book was a great story with interesting characters. When looked at sideways, the story may appear to be a retelling of Shakespeare's Tempest, or perhaps more appropriately, a re-imagining of a certain 1956 movie that was a re-imagining of the Tempest. The narration was great, very easy on the ears for this American listener. I look forward to the next book in the series.

I was slightly disappointed by this release from Neal Stephenson. I've been a fan of Stephenson's work since someone implored me to read "Snow Crash" back in 1993. But this novel appears to be Stephenson's attempt to go main stream, complete with pages and pages of scenes laboorious as printed words but well suited to be rendered as cinema.

Still, overall, the book was a real page turner - what do you call an audio book so spell binding you find yourself listening every chance you get?

Malcolm Hilgartner narration was on target and very listenable.

Even several glaring factual errors (both in Star Trek Mythos and in Science) were not able to derail this fun, fun, listen. Even the chapter titles would put a smile on my face. If you enjoyed the movie Free Enterprise, you'll enjoy this book