Idlewild

By: Nick Sagan

Narrated by: Clayton Barclay Jones

Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's summary

He wakes alone, nameless, in a strangely bucolic day-after-tomorrow world. His amnesia is near-total; he cannot remember his name and doesn't recognize anything around him, but he knows with absolute certainty that someone has tried to kill him and will surely try again.

Not knowing who, if anyone, he can trust, he reacquaints himself with eight companions, all of whom are being trained (for what?) at an esoteric academy run by a cryptic superintendent named Maestro. As he tries to discover the identity of the person who wants him dead, he quickly begins to unravel a series of sinister truths, which make it clear that the ramifications of his search are far greater than he could ever have imagined. Much more than his own life is at stake.

Idlewild takes the best of its genre and transcends it, creating a story that will appeal to readers far beyond the traditional science fiction fan base.

©2003 Damned If I Don't Productions (P)2003 HighBridge Company

Critic reviews

"Sagan may have more imagination than he knows what to do with a wonderful thing in a new author." (Kirkus Reviews)

Mixed Feelings - Some Good and Some Boring

I have very mixed feelings about my enjoyment of this listen. The story line was very imaginitive and I liked being surprised as the author slowly unveiled the mystery of the story. There were very interesting parts. But my problem is that in between the key plot points, there was a lot of very boring parts. It's almost as if the author stretched a very good short story into a novel by adding a lot of filler. I am not sure whether I will try the sequel.

An okay virtual reality story

This book follows the life of a teenage boy -- the archetypal bright, world-weary loner with authority issues -- who is being educated at a special virtual reality-based boarding school along with several other teenagers, while the world outside progresses towards apocalypse. Of course, nothing is exactly what it seems, and a conspiracy reminiscent of The Matrix and other cyberpunk-ish works begins to come to light.

The story has some flaws besides its familiarity: a few of the characters feel inadequately fleshed out, the beginning is a bit confusing, and I found myself questioning the logic of Sagan's world in a few places. (And, please, sf writers, no more comparisons between virtual reality and Plato's cave ??? we friggin' get it!!) On the other hand, there was nothing as dumb as humans in suspended animation being used for power cells (as in the Matrix), the story picks up momentum, and the characters become more involving. Not a mind-blowing read, but still a thumbs up.

Wonderful! This is a must!

Of the many many Audible books that I've listened to, this is only the second time that I've ever been moved to write a review.

This is one of those books that is so well written, and draws you in so completely, that for days afterward you see the world in a slightly different way. That, to me, is always the sign of an amazingly good story.

I remember seeing this book in the book store when it was first released. It looked like a fascinating premise, but for some reason I walked out of the store without it. I'm glad that I decided to listen to it on Audible! Now I've spent the past 8 months waiting for the release of the sequel, "Edenborn". I sure hope that Audible carries it!

Download this one. Listen to it. You can't go wrong.

Best Audio Book I've Ever Heard

Starts off wierd. You'll be a little confused at first. Stick with it. If you've seen The Matrix, you'll be able to follow the scifi aspects and everything well. 60 year old Grandmothers won't get it, (unless they're into scifi). The author writes Extremely intelligently and the book is a poetic and philosophical masterpiece. Better than Prey, better than the matrix.

the sequel is better

I enjoyed this book until the end! Didn't like the ending! But the narrator was perfect, and the overall plot was right up my sci fi alley. I was so bummed about the ending, I wasn't sure I wanted to read anything more by this author...but I gave Edenborn a try and ...WOW. I'm going to that book to review it now. So read this one and then IMMEDIATELY read Edenborn - you'll be glad you read both.

Not as interesting as I thought...

I read the previous reviews and thought this book sounded pretty good. I'm afraid to say I was very disappointed. It was... boring. REALLY boring...

I did like the reader, I'm just surprised he could get as much inflection into the narration as he did without, well, falling asleep.

It may be that I listen to these audiobooks while doing other things, and so my attention is somewhat divided at times, but I've listened to many other books under precisely the same circumstances. With this book, I was over 2 hours into it and still couldn't figure out what was going on, and frankly, didn't really care to make the effort to try.

Beautiful concept, plot development, and meaning

I absolutely loved this novel. It's beautifully dark and makes the reader question life's meaning.

The main character is a lot like me.

This book is well writen and fun to listen to. It is a little too much like the Matrix to be original. I recomend it none the less.

Loved it

tremendous book, highest recommendation

Not as good as the sequel

I listened to edenborn the sequel to this book, when I was a member of a much inferior audio book club. They did not have Idlewild and I did not even know this book existed. I enjoyed the sequel and so thought this would be good. This was terrible. I could not take more then 2 hours of it. It is all a dream sequence. Slowly you learn that these kids are in suspended animation and are learning to graduate to the real world when they will be able to survive in it. They are the last ten people of the world. It sounds like a great story and it could have been, but Carl's son is too busy trying to be Fedor Dostoevsky to write a good story. May I suggest you go right to the sequel, as NS must have gotten the good advice to make the story more interesting to the reader.