Kirill

It has been a while since I took iPod out of my car into home to listen to a book. Chasm City was the book which gripped me so much that I did that.

This was my first "read" of Reynolds and quite a pleasant one! I am great fan of darker, atmospheric and realistic (as far as we can imagine it today) science fiction which covers not only science and technology but also human aspect of future. This book has it all! Story is very atmospheric and surrounding, settings and tech are not completely whacked out like in some sf fantasy books and there is a lot of human aspect and emotions, unlike some dry classics like Rama or Ringworld.

The Narrator is very adequate. In Revelation Space - which I listen to now - John Lee has the annoying habit to start a sentence with much intonation and trail out from there, becoming silenter and silenter - this was complained about by some in reviews to RS. Well, it is not present here! John Lee is really much better in this one IMHO.

I listened to this book shortly after finishing 11-22-63 by Stephen King.

Compared to 11-22-63, Time and Again has less "color" and dramatic scenes but compensates it by style and softness.

At least 1/4 of the book are descriptions of streets and buildings in NY which are "There" or "Not There", as someone who has never been to NY I could not associate anything with those parts and found it rather boring. 11-22-63 is better in this sense, it really submerges you into the world of 1950'es without need of knowing street names, numbers and buildings.

Positive things first: Anton Lesser is a wonderful narrator, he is one of my absolute favorites on Audible and would be reason alone to get this book.

I am not very impressed with plot though, somehow it has less thrill, less color and mood then first and second books, it is very predictable and it gets to the point of being really annoying to hear about a "Mystery" which is really none for hours and hours. Secondly, it is really heavy on socialism. This is a bit personal but I grew up in country with "advanced socialism" and I know how it looks and feels, how the system punishes any kind of initiative and forces everyone to be "equal" if they like it or not. While I understand how it arose among injustice of 19th century, it still represents a red flag to me because I know what it leads to.