Marilyn

I have read this book ... in print ... many times over the years and have owned many copies of it, passed along to friends and acquaintances who presumably passed it along to yet others.

I think what is MOST wonderful about the book is not, as I have heard some reviewers comment, that it is the "the original disaster story," but rather that it is a book of enormous hope.

Civilization may come and go, but Earth Abides. It's in the title.

I was listening to Connie Willis' introduction to the book and realized that she had missed something because, well, she doesn't read or speak Hebrew. I do, if badly, speak and understand Hebrew so I knew that "Ish" (pro: eesh) means, in Hebrew "Man, and in some contexts, "husband" while Emma (in Hebrew, pro: eema) means "Mother." Is it a bizarre coincidence the the two characters who begin the rebuilding are thus named?

I think not.

So in this book, though all the things of mankind perish when most humans are rather tidily eliminated, Earth does indeed abide and humankind reinvents civilization as it has before and quite probably will again.

It is a disaster (certainly for all those who died), but it is the beginning of everything too.

It is a wonderful book and despite the lack of computers and other electronic gadgets, the book is not particularly dated. How long, after all, would the internet function without people to fix downed servers, electronic glitches etc. How fast would our cell phones cease having service?

As science fiction goes, this is one of the greatest. As philosophy goes, it's not bad either! Also, incidentally, very well written and rather poetic.

This is a typical book by an author whose books all have essentially the same plot, with a couple of notable exceptions. It's not the kind of book you will remember very long after you read it, but it's enjoyable. It's sexy. It's pure fun. Don't over-think the story or the characters and you will have a fine time.

Don't expect great literature. This is a great beach read or time filler on a rainy day. Narration is good, and the story moves along at a nice pace. Definitely a "chick" book.

Okay, I found this the most interesting of this series to date and Acheron was certainly the most ambitious of Sherrilyn Kenyon's books.

The story of Acheron's dreadful, abused childhood is indeed painful. The story is well told, the pace never slows. It tense, full of action, passion and as riveting as one could want, albeit I can understand why some people found the first half of it difficult to listen to. It is also very well narrated.

Here's MY problem: Acheron is 11,000 years old. He watches TV. He reads books. He uses computers. He had a hideously abusive childhood and in 11,000 years, he's never gotten past it? Really? I was an abused child and I know an awful lot of other adults who were abused children. Most of us HAVE gotten past it, with or without psychological help. You do work your way through this stuff and it didn't take me 11,000 years. So my question is ... seriously, did he never watch Law and Order: SVU? Read the newspapers and the scandals about abuse, or notice the enormous amount of talk from and about survivors of childhood abuse ... and the many ways to teach yourself to realize that being a victim was not YOUR fault but the fault of your abusers?

If you can accept that anyone with that many centuries of life has never dealt with the shame and guilt, then you won't have a problem with this otherwise cracking good story.

Maybe if I had hadn't been an abused child, it wouldn't bother me as much, but as it is, I had a problem with it ... and it was the central theme, the major issue of the main character and the entire book.

I simply couldn't believe it. If I can work my way through these issues in less than a human lifespan, surely so could he given so many millennium in which to accomplish it. Gods, shmods, go visit old Dr. Freud! Read a self help book, do something. Don't just sit around feeling victimized. Geez loueez.

For all that, it's a great page turner and as is typical of all her books, sexy with lots of action. Just ... well ... that little problem ... that totally unrealistic unresolved emotional baggage ... it just kept nagging at my brain all the way through.

Maybe it won't bother you. It did bother me, but I still enjoyed the read ... I just had to keep putting my rational mind to sleep so I could.

James Lee Burke is a great writer and I am admittedly a fan. I have read all of his books ... and collect signed first editions, too. This one is as well written, taut, exciting, and gripping as any of his best books. Will Patton reads the work so well that it's hard for me to imagine someone else as narrator.

Hackberry Holland is a gray man in a gray world. He has history. He's got a lot of baggage, some ugly history, and serious personality flaws. He's also courageous, tenacious, and on the right side.

The murky, sometimes bizarre world of southern politics, crime and corruption are so real you can reach out and touch it. A great read.

The combination of James Lee Burke and Will Patton is unbeatable. This is my favorite of Burke's recent books. Billy Bob Holland has grown and added a lot of depth to his character. He inhabits a world that is not black and white, but solidly comprised of shades of gray ... as is the real world.

All of James Lee Burke's characters have history, baggage and flaws. Some are purely evil. Others manage to overcome their flaws to display extraordinary courage.

A great story, beautifully narrated, I loved it from start to finish.

Robert Sawyer, the avowed and usually stridently atheistic author, reverses his previous position and writes a book proving that a theory of "intelligent creation" is not incompatible with a belief in evolution and science ... a position I have always held. I know that today's political climate demands that you take one side or the other, but I have never felt that the two positions were inherently antithetical. And so, reversing his position 180 degrees, Sawyer puts forth a fine case for intelligent creation.

I would have given it five stars, but the end of the book seemed a bit out of left field to me ... and didn't feel like it "fit" with the rest of the story. But I'm picky and maybe it won't bother you.

Regardless, I really enjoyed this a lot. It's much more of a personal essay as science fiction than any of his other books, but I loved his reasoning, his characters -- human and alien. Make sure to listen to the author's introduction.

No matter which side of the God-Versus-Science you are on, this is a thought-provoking and well-written book. Agree or disagree, it's definitely worth your time!

If you like the Daily Show, it's a pretty sure bet you'll like "Earth" too. It's ironic, frequently laugh-out-loud funny, and often on the mark true. You have to like word play and it doesn't hurt to actually know more than a little world history. The narration by the Daily Show cast and other celebrities is perfect. A funny book with a serious subtext ... I enjoyed it very much!

I read these all in print, then listened to them as abridged versions with Darrin McGavin narrating. Robert Petkoff is a fine narrator, but I miss McGavin. He caught the ironic quality of Travis McGee perfectly. However, he has passed away .... and Petkoff is good. Very good.

The story is classic MacDonald. There's lots of action, violence, sex, angst, and diatribes consisting of highly astute and unfortunately, very accurate observations of what we were then doing (and have now done!) to the ecology of the area. MacDonald was fanatical about ecology before it was fashionable.

Travis McGee is unique and most interesting: a violent man who abhors violence which sometime means that he hates himself, too. He kills, but he is ashamed of it and it brings him neither joy nor satisfaction. He cannot excuse his own guilt.

Travis McGee is complex and contradictory ... one of the great fictional "detectives" (he's not exactly a detective, by the way ... but it's as close as I can get to a one word descriptor).

You don't have to read them in order. However you read them, they are complete stories.

It's up there in the top ten ... and I read virtually all the time. I've recommended this and the second part, "All Clea"r to many people and no one has been disappointed.

There's no "moment" ... It is a continuity, an experience very much like really being dropped into another time and place and living in that time.

I read very fast, so audio books slow me down to the pace of human speech. The narrator is very good and brings the characters alive. It's like a very absorbing movie, but I am the casting director, the cinematographer, the costume designer ... and sometimes, one of the main players.

I would have if it were possible! I could barely bring myself to stop listening and get something to eat or remember that I had to sleep.

Wonderfully complete characters, richly drawn. Beautiful writing, superb research. And this was a period in which I had never had any particular interest before reading this book and its sequel (they are really one book divided into two pieces).

I read a great deal and in this genre, I can usually predict the story before I'm through the first chapter, but not when reading Mike Carey. This author is unique and unpredictable. And it's not just his story lines that are marvelous: the prose too is exceptional. He crafts every sentence and polishes it until it shines. The story shines too, from start to finish. It's filled with surprises, twists, and unique characters. I was surprised and delighted.

I'm sorry that Audible didn't see fit to record all of the Felix Castor series, but fortunately, the next two are available in print and I am reading them on my Kindle.

The narrator is, as Michael Kramer always is, excellent. The author gives him excellent material to work with, a combination of thriller, the supernatural, and a great mystery with some fascinating characters who have depth and intelligence. Very worth your time.

I'm not sure if I have read every book by Edward Rutherfurd, but if I haven't it's merely an oversight. This author has never written anything I didn't like, but this is one of his great ones. Not his ONLY great one, but one of them. It is the first one I read and I've been hooked since. It's the story of the Salisbury plain, but it is, in a way, the story of humankind. It is rich, it is a tapestry that is both broad and intimate. It is everything you could possibly want in this kind of fiction. I have read it in print, but listening to it may be even better.