J. Frazier

I'm a Heinlein fan and have loved all of his other books. And the reviews indicate that this one will be worthwhile too. But this one, at least in audio form, is a turn off. They really should have gotten a woman to read this book since most of the relevant characters are female. The narrator doesn't have enough vocal variation to help you differentiate between characters and his voicing of women characters comes off really fake.

I plan to "read" this book. I think I'll be able to handle the dialogue. For example, in the last five minutes, before I gave up (almost all the way through part 1), the words "pretty" "sweet" and "dear" were used too many times. If I'm reading, I can tune out those awful word choices. But the way Heald performs, it is just too annoying.

Now to download another Heinlein book that I haven't read yet. Audible doesn't have many more.

At one point, the plot got pretty circular so I fast-forwarded. Amazing but I didn't miss a thing. I enjoy these books because of the south Florida setting. There was almost none of it in this book...it all happens in NY.

This is the author's first book, and it shows. Instead of developing characters, he simply has another character think, "gosh, he's deep." And the heroes (and villains too) keep doing really stupid stuff. Repeatedly! This isn't a spoiler, but if you want a preview of what's happening as the story goes along, just think about the dumbest thing the character can do. That will be what they do! Just unbelievable. What a complete waste of time.

The person doing the narration is fine, but the sound quality was pretty bad. It sounds like they held a microphone up to 8 track tape player to make the downloadable file.

I would have gotten more from buying the paperback.

Good book and great story. The narrator was good and the audio quality was good. Only one problem - the narrator REALLY overacted the women's parts. In fact, he carried on so much, I fast forwarded through a couple of sections because it got so nerve-rattling.

I read this book years ago when I was in college and enjoyed it then. And I've reread it at least once since then. But now that I'm older, I got a lot more out of the book and really enjoyed it as an audio. I probably will listen to it again in a few years.

Don't buy this! Unless you like to listen to someone reading the dictionary, then avoid this one. I vary rarely write a review, but this one cries out for a warning. There are lots of dates, and the reader reads EVERY date. Every time a person or event occurs, the reader reads the date. And there is no cohesiveness. Characters are described in alphabetical sequence. And the reader refers to photographs and other images that obviously we don't get to see. This actually sounds like a book I'd like to read, but listening to it was a waste of a credit.

This is my first experience with the author and I am looking forward to reading some of his other books. Not only was the book enjoyable, I enjoyed the reader too, who did a great job on the characters and didn't simply slip into phony falsettos when doing the females. Good job.