METAtropolis

By: Jay Lake, Tobias Buckell, Elizabeth Bear, John Scalzi, Karl Schroeder

Narrated by: Michael Hogan, Scott Brick, Kandyse McClure, Alessandro Juliani, Stefan Rudnicki, John Scalzi

Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's summary

Welcome to a world where big cities are dying, dead - or transformed into technological megastructures. Where once-thriving suburbs are now treacherous Wilds. Where those who live for technology battle those who would die rather than embrace it. It is a world of zero-footprint cities, virtual nations, and armed camps of eco-survivalists.

Welcome to the dawn of uncivilization.

METAtropolis is an intelligent and stunning creation of five of today's cutting-edge science-fiction writers: 2008 Hugo Award winners John Scalzi and Elizabeth Bear; Campbell Award winner Jay Lake; plus fan favorites Tobias Buckell and Karl Schroeder. Together they set the ground rules and developed the parameters of this "shared universe", then wrote five original novellas - all linked, but each a separate tale.

Bringing this audiobook to life is a dream team of performers: Battlestar Galactica's Michael Hogan ("Saul Tigh"); Alessandro Juliani ("Felix Gaeta"); and Kandyse McClure ("Anastasia 'Dee' Dualla"); plus legendary audiobook narrators Scott Brick (Dune) and Stefan Rudnicki (Ender's Game).

John Scalzi, who served as Project Editor, introduces each story, offering insight into how the METAtropolis team created this unique project exclusively for digital audio.

©2008 Joseph E. Lake, Jr., Tobias S. Buckell, Elizabeth Bear, John Scalzi, Karl Schroeder (P)2008 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

• 2009 Hugo Award nominee, Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form

• 2009 Audie Award nominee, Original Work

“Each story shines on its own; as a group they reinforce one another, building a multifaceted view of a realistic and hopeful urban future.” (Publishers Weekly)
“Scalzi and his contributors/collaborators have created a fascinating shared urban future that each of them evokes with his or her particular strengths.... This stellar collection is a fascinating example of shared world-building.” (Booklist)
"This impressive group of writers imagines what happens when the world moves beyond cities as a locus of human civilization. The range of narrators...brings a unique narrative style to the production. Of the five narrators, all well chosen for the stories, Allessandro Juliani proves to be the best with his rendering of Scalzi's piece." (AudioFile)

Thought provoking and hopeful futurism

I found METAtropilis to push the conceptual limit of science fiction; at least according to my experience. The future it depicts is extremely plausible, while also not being anything I’ve considered before. The performance was compelling and enjoyable.

Places I see, soon…

These stories built and interlocked quite well in a future reality. The last so echoed a lot of my current Virtual Worlds activities, I was drawn in and along in their virtual travels.

Not as original as I hoped

When I read about this project and listened to the editors preface I thought I was in for a very imaginative and creative work. While this isn't a terrible book, it's not that creative.

I prefer Science Fiction that is a metaphor for a insight into the human condition. Here I felt was science fiction as a metaphor for the collective authors' current day political view points. It got a bit tiresome and was repetitive. Because this book makes statements on so many current day events, it will probably not be as interesting in say, two or three years.

The brightest point of the book are the readers. All your favorites are here and they do not disappoint. As for the stories themselves, they are of varying quality, but on the whole B- in average.

If your choice of books is between this one and one that you're very excited about, choose the other. If you are just looking for something that might be a solid base hit, this book will meet your expectations.

Average at best

The stories were ok, but nothing special. The shared world gimmick really did not play a major role--these stories would have had the same impact as stand-alone stories (George R. R. Martin's Wild Cards shared world series is an example of how the shared world concept can be used to wonderful effect). John Scalzi's lighthearted tale of a pig farmer was the best of the bunch, probably because it was the least preachy and easiest to follow the plot. All of the stories seemed to follow the same basic format, i.e., outsiders trying to usurp the technological progress of the city-states. The biggest problem with this audio book is the varying quality of the readers. Michael Hogan snarls his way through Jay Lake's opening novella and Stefan Rudnicki growls through the final story by Karl Schroeder. Kandyse McClure and Scott Brick do good jobs, with Alessandro Juliani doing the best (or perhaps he was blessed with reading Scalzi's fun story). This audio book is nominated for the Best Dramatic Presentation Hugo Award for some inexplicable reason. It's ratings on Audible.com and LibraryThing.com are so-so at best, and it did not appear on any Best of the Year lists that I saw. My guess is that people voted for it based on name recognition without actually listening to it.

worth while

While some of the stories were better than others, as a collective they were all entertaining and worth the listen. You don't need to be a tree hugger, wear a pony tail, nor do you have to enjoy the taste of granola to enjoy this audio book. Frankly, I don't like any of those myself, nor do I like the feel of Birkenstocks.

I'd also like to note that Alessandro Juliani's performance was absolutely amazing.

Fantastic Sci-Fi

The Authors didn't get too carried away with advances in tech, it was easy to believe that we could be seeing this in a few decades. It was fantastic listening to the familiar voices from Battlestar Galactica tell these stories.

Great at times/not so great at others

The five stories as a whole really painted a great picture of this future world. The first story may have been a bit better if Colonel Tigh, read consistantly. At times he was whispering like he was out of breath at others he was animated where it didnt work.

The second story was the my personal favorite of the five, solid story and a very entertaining narrative.

The 3rd story was pretty horrible, not really sure how it fit in or for that matter what is was about, the narration also wasnt that great, I guess the BSG crew needs to stick to acting.

The 4th story would have been a lot better if the narrator left out half of the "he said, she saids" we could have easily followed along with out that bit of distraction and annoyance. Overall though a good listen

The fifth and final story was also outstanding with great narration. It was a good listen.

I will most likely purchase the sequel next.

Awesome sci-fi

So I actually listened to the 3rd in the series (green spaces) first which is set more into the future but I love how this, the first in the series sets up what is going to be used to even greater extents in later books in the series. I'm looking forward to reading the 2nd book now!

The world you know - sort of

METAtropolis is an interesting take on the future - financial collapse causes social reform among other changes. It makes one think about the future and our part in it. Be aware that this is an anthology of short stories - if you like one, you may not like the others. That having been said, the only bad thing I have to say about this book is that there isn't more of it. Its that good. I suggest you listen to it - if for no other reason than it will make you think. Oh, if you did like it - check out METAtropolis Cascadia - its as well written and arguably better performed.

Great set of short stories

Every story except the first was fantastic. Perhaps the first story just needed a different narrator because it was very hard to keep track of what was going on. Otherwise really cool! The last story reminded me of The Diamond Age by Neil Stephenson. On to the next in this series!