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Embassytown
- Narrated by: Susan Duerden
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
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Publisher's summary
China Miéville doesn’t follow trends, he sets them. Relentlessly pushing his own boundaries as a writer - and in the process expanding the boundaries of the entire field - with Embassytown, Miéville has crafted an extraordinary novel that is not only a moving personal drama but a gripping adventure of alien contact and war.
In the far future, humans have colonized a distant planet, home to the enigmatic Ariekei, sentient beings famed for a language unique in the universe, one that only a few altered human ambassadors can speak. Avice Benner Cho, a human colonist, has returned to Embassytown after years of deep-space adventure. She cannot speak the Ariekei tongue, but she is an indelible part of it, having long ago been made a figure of speech, a living simile in their language.
When distant political machinations deliver a new ambassador to Arieka, the fragile equilibrium between humans and aliens is violently upset. Catastrophe looms, and Avice is torn between competing loyalties - to a husband she no longer loves, to a system she no longer trusts, and to her place in a language she cannot speak yet speaks through her.
Critic reviews
“A breakneck tale of suspense...disturbing and beautiful by turns. I cannot emphasize enough how terrific this novel is. It's definitely one of the best books I've read in the past year, perfectly balanced between escapism and otherworldly philosophizing.” (io9)
“Embassytown is a fully achieved work of art…Works on every level, providing compulsive narrative, splendid intellectual rigour and risk, moral sophistication, fine verbal fireworks and sideshows, and even the old-fashioned satisfaction of watching a protagonist become more of a person than she gave promise of being.” (Ursula K. Le Guin)
“Brilliant storytelling... The result is a world masterfully wrecked and rebuilt.” (Publishers Weekly [starred review])
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- By hopalong on 12-17-06
By: Orson Scott Card
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Variable Star
- By: Robert A. Heinlein, Spider Robinson
- Narrated by: Spider Robinson
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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At his death in 1988, Robert A. Heinlein left a legacy that almost single-handedly defined modern science fiction. But one of Heinlein's masterpieces was never finished. In 1955, he began work on Variable Star, a powerful and passionate tale of two young lovers driven apart by pride, power, and the vastness of interstellar time and space. Now, the Heinlein estate has authorized award-winning author Spider Robinson to expand his outline into a full-length novel. And the result is vintage Heinlein.
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Spider WHO
- By Randall on 04-25-09
By: Robert A. Heinlein, and others
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The City & The City
- By: China Mieville
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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When a murdered woman is found in the city of Beszel, somewhere at the edge of Europe, it looks to be a routine case for Inspector Tyador Borl ú of the Extreme Crime Squad. But as he investigates, the evidence points to conspiracies far stranger and more deadly than anything he could have imagined. Borl must travel from the decaying Beszel to the only metropolis on Earth as strange as his own.
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Reviews, Dishonesty and The Emperor's New Clothes
- By Robert on 01-27-13
By: China Mieville
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Eon
- By: Greg Bear
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 17 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Perhaps it wasn't from our time, perhaps it wasn't even from our universe, but the arrival of the 300-kilometer long stone was the answer to humanity's desperate plea to end the threat of nuclear war. Inside the deep recesses of the stone lies Thistledown: the remnants of a human society, versed in English, Russian and Chinese. The artifacts of this familiar people foretell a great Death caused by the ravages of war, but the government and scientists are unable to decide how to use this knowledge.
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Am Epic Original SciFi Read Worth Your Time...
- By Michael on 07-01-12
By: Greg Bear
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The Just City
- Thessaly, Book 1
- By: Jo Walton
- Narrated by: Noah Michael Levine
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Created as an experiment by the time-traveling goddess Pallas Athene, the Just City is a planned community populated by over 10,000 children and a few hundred adult teachers from all eras of history, along with some handy robots from the far human future - all set down together on a Mediterranean island in the distant past.
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Could Not Get Past Mispronunciations
- By Martha K. on 04-22-17
By: Jo Walton
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Distress
- By: Greg Egan
- Narrated by: Adam Epstein
- Length: 14 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Investigative reporter Andrew Worth turns down a documentary on a mysterious new mental illness - "Distress," or acute clinical anxiety syndrome, for another assignment. He's on his way to the artificial island of Stateless, where the world's top physicists are gathering to decide on a new TOE, or Theory of Everything, to replace Einstein's outmoded legacy.
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A good book ruined by a poor (and strange) reading
- By David on 12-06-13
By: Greg Egan
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The LonTobyn Chronicle, Books 1-3
- By: David B. Coe
- Narrated by: Pete Cross
- Length: 64 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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This bundle includes Children of Amarid, The Outlanders, and Eagle-Sage.
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The complete characters, made you think !
- By Darla Renn on 06-27-24
By: David B. Coe
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Ghost of a Chance
- By: Simon R. Green
- Narrated by: Toby Leonard Moore
- Length: 7 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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New York Times best-selling author Simon R. Green has crafted numerous acclaimed science-fiction and fantasy novels, including Blue Moon Rising, Blood and Honor, and Shadows Fall. In this first installment of the Ghost Finders series, JC Chance, Melody Chambers, and Happy Jack Palmer are agents of the Carnacki Institute - a place where the sole purpose is to “do something” about ghosts. But what exactly?
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I LOVE Simon R Green. But....
- By A. Lund on 02-09-13
By: Simon R. Green
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Fear the Sky
- The Fear Saga, Book 1
- By: Stephen Moss
- Narrated by: R.C. Bray
- Length: 20 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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From the Audie-nominated narrator of The Martian. In eleven years' time, a million members of an alien race will arrive at Earth. Years before they enter orbit, their approach will be announced by the flare of a thousand flames in the sky, their ships' huge engines burning hard to slow them from the vast speeds needed to cross interstellar space. These foreboding lights will shine in our night sky like new stars, getting ever brighter until they outshine even the sun, casting ominous shadows and banishing the night until they suddenly blink out.
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Audible Where Are The Rest?!
- By ByEqualMeasure - julie on 09-14-15
By: Stephen Moss
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Conquest
- The Chronicles of the Invaders: Book 1
- By: John Connolly, Jennifer Ridyard
- Narrated by: Nicola Barber
- Length: 14 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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The Earth has been invaded by the Illyri, a beautiful, civilized, yet ruthless alien race. Humanity has been conquered, but still it fights the invaders. The Resistance grows stronger, for it is the young people of Earth who battle the Illyri.
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Spoiled Teenager or Sci-fi?
- By Bob H. on 04-24-16
By: John Connolly, and others
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Bright of the Sky
- The Entire and the Rose, Book 1
- By: Kay Kenyon
- Narrated by: Christian Rummel
- Length: 17 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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In a landlocked galaxy that tunnels through our own, the Entire is a bizarre and seductive mix of long-lied quasi-human and alien beings gathered under a sky of fire, called the "bright". A land of wonders, the Entire is sustained by monumental storm walls and an exotic, never-ending river. Over all, the elegant and cruel Tarig rule supreme. Into this rich milieu is thrust Titus Quinn, former star pilot.
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8 hours in, and going no further
- By A reader on 10-02-08
By: Kay Kenyon
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When a murdered woman is found in the city of Beszel, somewhere at the edge of Europe, it looks to be a routine case for Inspector Tyador Borl ú of the Extreme Crime Squad. But as he investigates, the evidence points to conspiracies far stranger and more deadly than anything he could have imagined. Borl must travel from the decaying Beszel to the only metropolis on Earth as strange as his own.
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Great read for all ages
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Reading Miéville is both Delicious AND Disturbing
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What William Gibson did for science fiction, China Miéville has done for fantasy, shattering old paradigms with fiercely imaginative works of startling, often shocking, intensity. Now from this brilliant writer comes a groundbreaking collection of stories, many of them previously unavailable in the United States, and including four never-before-published tales - one set in Miéville’s signature fantasy world of New Crobuzon.
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Graze Into It
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It's 1941. In the chaos of wartime Marseille, American engineer - and occult disciple - Jack Parsons stumbles onto a clandestine anti-Nazi group, including surrealist theorist André Breton. In the strange games of the dissident diplomats, exiled revolutionaries, and avant-garde artists, Parsons finds and channels hope. But what he unwittingly unleashes is the power of dreams and nightmares, changing the war and the world forever.
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Can living artwork die?
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In 1848, The Communist Manifesto was published by two émigrés from Germany. Marx and Engels' apocalyptic vision of an insatiable system that penetrates every corner of the world reduces every relationship to that of profit, and burst asunder the old forms of production and of politics. It is still a recognisable picture of our world—the vampiric energy of the system being once again highly contentious. This is a strikingly imaginative take on Marx and what his most haunting book has to say to us today.
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A great follow up to October
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Remnant Population
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For 40 years, Colony 3245.12 has been Ofelia’s home. On this planet far away in space and time from the world of her youth, she has lived and loved, weathered the death of her husband, raised her one surviving child, lovingly tended her garden, and grown placidly old. And it is here that she fully expects to finish out her days - until the shifting corporate fortunes of the Sims Bancorp Company dictates that Colony 3245.12 is to be disbanded, its residents shipped off, deep in cryo-sleep, to somewhere new and strange and not of their choosing.
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In 1848, THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO was published by two émigrés from Germany. Marx and Engels' apocalyptic vision of an insatiable system that penetrates every corner of the world reduces every relationship to that of profit, and burst asunder the old forms of production and of politics. It is still a recognisable picture of our world–the vampiric energy of the system being once again highly contentious.
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Brilliant analysis
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Semiosis
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Only mutual communication can forge an alliance with the planet's sentient species and prove that mammals are more than tools. Forced to land on a planet they aren't prepared for, human colonists rely on their limited resources to survive. The planet provides a lush but inexplicable landscape—trees offer edible, addictive fruit one day and poison the next, while the ruins of an alien race are found entwined in the roots of a strange plant. Conflicts between generations arise as they struggle to understand one another and grapple with an unknowable alien intellect.
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Weird. But good. But weird.
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This Census-Taker
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In a remote house on a hilltop, a lonely boy witnesses a profoundly traumatic event. He tries - and fails - to flee. Left alone with his increasingly deranged parent, he dreams of safety, of joining the other children in the town below, of escape. When at last a stranger knocks at his door, the boy senses that his days of isolation might be over. But by what authority does this man keep the meticulous records he carries? What is the purpose behind his questions? Is he friend? Enemy? Or something else altogether?
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Only Feeding the Darkness
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The Thing Itself
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Two men while away the days in an Antarctic research station. Tensions between them build as they argue over a love letter one of them has received. One is practical and open. The other surly, superior and obsessed with reading one book - by the philosopher Kant. As a storm brews and they lose contact with the outside world, they debate Kant, reality and the emptiness of the universe. The come to hate each other, and they learn that they are not alone.
By: Adam Roberts
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Out of the Ruins
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A fresh post-apocalyptic anthology: the end of the world seen through the salvage and ruins, featuring Emily St. John Mandel, Carmen Maria Machado, and more.
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More misses than hits.
- By Jimmyjoejangles on 04-30-22
By: Preston Grassmann, and others
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The Book of Elsewhere
- A Novel
- By: Keanu Reeves, China Miéville
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There have always been whispers. Legends. The warrior who cannot be killed. Who’s seen a thousand civilizations rise and fall. He has had many names: Unute, Child of Lightning, Death himself. These days, he’s known simply as “B.” And he wants to be able to die. In the present day, a U.S. black-ops group has promised him they can help with that. And all he needs to do is help them in return. But when an all-too-mortal soldier comes back to life, the impossible event ultimately points toward a force even more mysterious than B himself. One at least as strong. And one with a plan all its own.
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Confusing at first but quite amazing
- By Brett on 07-27-24
By: Keanu Reeves, and others
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Luna
- New Moon
- By: Ian McDonald
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As the leader of the moon's newest "dragon", Adriana has wrested control of the moon's helium-3 industry from the Mackenzie Metal Corporation and fought to earn her family's new status. Now, at the twilight of her life, Adriana finds her corporation, Corta Helio, surrounded by the many enemies she made during her meteoric rise. If the Corta family is to survive, Adriana's five children must defend their mother's empire from her many enemies - and each other.
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Disappointed.
- By Eugene R. White on 10-28-15
By: Ian McDonald
What listeners say about Embassytown
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Laura H. Lynch
- 04-02-18
Science fiction for nerdy linguists.
I was skeptical walking into this, but then it turned out to be linguistic science fiction, which is my favorite kind. Full points for playing with semantics and writing an interesting story to boot.
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- Benjamin Larson
- 08-01-16
Good Sci-fi, but lacking ... that something.
Great sci-fi, but it lacks some thing that pulls you in. This book felt like a slow roll into a conclusion. There was none of the bang and zip, that I expect from the AAA titles out there.
Narration was crisp and good, and the dual voices gave place and meaning in ways that a paper book might have stumbled though.
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- Kevin
- 06-26-14
Not a fan - but not entirely disappointed
I am glad I listened to this as an audiobook. I would never have survived the paperback. This story takes a long time to get going and requires you to learn a new set of coloquialisms including a double speech ability. The story does become more interesting, but it hard to get into it at the beginning.
There are some interesting ideas - the houses, vehicles, weapons are all organic plants/animals that are taught to form certain objects. The idea that the native creatures can never lie is also intriguing. I was never sold on the "addiction" to a particular human pair of speakers - humans that communicate with the natives must talk at the same time which requires special brain communication.
But overall, this was work. The performance is great and made the book bareable.
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- Ken
- 06-21-11
Definitely worth a listen, but...
I love the themes of this book -- the problem of communication, the nature of language, the relationships among language, thought, and reality -- and the story is vividly written and quite compelling throughout. The timeline of the first part of the book is challenging (especially in audio format) but brilliant. However, there are deep conceptual problems at the heart of the very issues the book tackles. The fiction definitely trumps the science in this one. It is, however, a great book to argue about with others who have read it. The narration is also excellent for the most part, although it does become a bit melodramatic toward the end (although perhaps the prose demands that).
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Velouria
- 05-20-11
Just amazing.
I have listened to this book, rapt, within 48 hours. Wonderful, flourished descriptions and practically made for an audiobook experience. Such gorgeous language, narration, and narrative...
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3 people found this helpful
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- sly
- 01-19-16
Fantastic
I got lost in the world created by China Mireille.
So beautiful and vividly described. And the narrator gave an outstanding performance.
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- jared rogerson
- 03-06-18
mind bending
great read. hard to wrap your brain around. heart pounding. intense and suspenseful. joy to listen to.
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- Cosmikk
- 01-16-18
Narrator is awesome
I thought the narrator's tone was perfect for the alien story. Best scifi I've read in a while.
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- Samuel
- 02-22-15
Fantastic
I can really only say that this was done ingeniously. I had thought this was a premise that would be hard to pull off in audio book, with so many unpronounceable words and difficult ideas you have to go back with, but if anything that all adds to this books accessibility. Having listened to this I feel like I know so much more about how Language worked than I did just reading the book.
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Ecohippie
- 10-28-13
A moving, thought-provoking, unique tale
What did you love best about Embassytown?
This is a big ideas story. Sometimes I had to pause the book so I could just spend a while with all the thoughts it had provoked. This, to me, is the best measure of a book: if it changes the way you see the world.
Who was your favorite character and why?
Spanish Dancer! That's one of the Ariekei, the aliens in this book. I really liked the narrator, Avice, but in the end I admired Spanish Dancer the most, because ultimately it had to show the most courage.
What does Susan Duerden bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
This is a book you really must experience as an audiobook. She and the production team really bring to life the strange jargon and alien linguistics of the world of Embassytown.
If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?
Only lies can set you free.
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