City of Ruins

Diving Series, Book 2

By: Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Narrated by: Jennifer Van Dyck

Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

Boss, a loner, loved to dive derelict spacecraft adrift in the blackness of space.... But one day, she found a ship that would change everything - an ancient Dignity Vessel - and aboard the ship, the mysterious and dangerous Stealth Tech. Now, years after discovering that first ship, Boss has put together a large company that finds Dignity Vessels and "loose" stealth technology.

Following a hunch, Boss and her team come to investigate the city of Vaycehn, where 14 archeologists have died exploring the endless caves below the city. Mysterious "death holes" explode into the city itself for no apparent reason, and Boss believes stealth tech is involved. As Boss searches for the answer to the mystery of the death holes, she will uncover the answer to her Dignity Vessel quest as well - and one more thing, something so important that it will change her life and the universe forever.

©2011 Kristine Kathryn Rusch (P)2011 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"City of Ruins is a solid mystery (with a dash of adventure) whose ending teases even greater things in the next novel, Boneyards. Sign me up." (SF Signal)

great continuance!

I love seeing the growth of boss and her crew and the way she reacts to the new situations that evolve. it goes hand-in-hand with but if so completely different from the first book. it had many twists and turns and a satisfying ending I already have the Nextbook

Decent follow-up to the first, but doesn't go far.

This sequel to "Diving Into the Wreck" takes us for an interesting ride through an underground ruin, and many of the themes from the first book return - the mysterious "stealth tech", the care and caution the team takes while diving, etc. The latter issue does get a bit boring, when you just want to know what happens next and are sick of hearing the members try to see who can be safest while diving!

The story is interesting, but kind of ends on an unfulfilling note, and I'm not sure it makes me care enough to read any more of the story.

Amazing Listen

This was an amazing listen, though it was a little slow in the beginning compared to the first book. You really won't get into the story unless you've also read or listened to the previous book, but I absolutely loved it and couldn't stop listening. I was also a little disappointed that the story ended in somewhat of a cliffhanger, but that just means I'll have another amazing story to look forward to. 5 stars.

A city of the shaken people

What did you love best about City of Ruins?

As a whole Mrs Rusch wrote a rock solid story. This is my favorite series of books When they get to the planet and so a little (no pun intended). digging. They find out about the earth quakes and cave ins. When the ship appeared on the pad.

What did you like best about this story?

How both sides were careful. Doing exactly what the other would do.

Which character – as performed by Jennifer Van Dyck – was your favorite?

She does very good accents for the different people in the book.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

if you think it is safe on the panet. Think again

Outstanding

Starts a little slow - builds artfully. Much suspense & creativity. Leaves the reader craving for the next book in the series.

Fascinating continuation of the first book

Where does City of Ruins rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

In itself it's nothing - but as part of the series: Among the top 5%

Who was your favorite character and why?

Am not sure, the main character was strong and a clear favorite - but isn't the main character supposed to be a favorite?

Which scene was your favorite?

The quality of all scenes was so high that nobody did rank itself higher or lower than the others. Its simply a well written book

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The only moving moment was the one between the beginning and the end..

Any additional comments?

It is a wery well written storyline, and read fast and fascinating. You got to listen carefully to get all bita and pices with you, or you'll loose the story and have to go back a bit to catch up. Not a book for "completely relaxed listening"

Last 3 hours are very good

This book would have been so much better if it didn't have hours of unnesscery info...What I call Page fillers...But as a hole not bad. The last 3 hours were good with good drama.
I hope book 3 has more Action-Drama

Great twist on the space empire trope

my favorite part of science fiction is the science aspect. I love that this book keeps adding in builds for the sci-fi technology. Each new "stealth tech" discovery leads me down my own fun "how would that actually work?!" path. The characters are realistic and relatable. I'll definitely end up re-reading this series.

good sci-fi

nice book, entertaining, its about 5000 years into the future, so its hard core.
I want a sequel !

I am warming up to this series

I had some serious issues with the first volume in this series, Diving into the Wreck. I am happy to report that this book is worth reading. The story line of a space vessel lost in in time is interesting and there's plenty of suspense and action. But even better, now we have a second viewpoint from another character, which is done in the third person.

As I said in my previous review, I find the first-person narration for the major character off-putting -- it's difficult to write in this mode successfully. The entire first book was done in first person, and I'm sorry to report that it's still not effective here in the second volume. But now, we have another viewpoint, so the book was saved for me.

Like many classic science fiction tales, this book ended in a rush. I wanted more, which perhaps is a good sign.