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)

Hit and miss.

This is an anthology and some of the stories are pretty good and some just seem to fall flat. In average the stories were pretty good but personally my least favorite was the first tale so you may want to keep that in mind if you pick this one up.

Incredible world building, narration combined

I can’t believe I just discovered this in 2014. Produced by Audible in 2008, it’s an anthology based on a future world built by five of today’s best scifi authors. When I realized one of the world-builders was Karl Schroeder I knew I had to get this immediately. This anthology did not disappoint, and the audio version features several well-known scifi television actors whose voices, if not their names, will be immediately recognizable to any scifi fans.

The audio begins with John Scalzi giving a general overview of the project, and Scalzi also introduces each story. The first story is by Jay Lake and read by Michael Hogan. I must admit that I didn’t recognize the name, but as soon as the voice started coming out of my phone, I knew it was Colonel Tigh from the Battlestar Galactica reboot. He has a really recognizable, earthy cadence that suited this story perfectly. I would love to hear him read more audio books. Oh, and the story was fantastic, too. It did a great job of setting the scene for all the stories that follow (particularly all the stories in the follow-up volume, METAtropolis: Cascadia). Both the setting—the rainforests of the American/Canadian Northwest—and the characters—a group of ecology fanatics living in secrecy—were completely different from anything I have ever read before. I definitely want more of this!!

The second story is by Tobias Buckell and narrated by the always fabulous Scott Brick. This story is set in a future Detroit that is a model for the reclamation of all the other cities in North America, all of which have been decimated by a “slow apocalypse.” This is another term I have never heard before, but as the concept is rolled out in each story, it becomes clearer. The basic idea is that capitalism went into a slow decline, and now in the latter half of the 21st century, civilization has broken down into autonomous city-states, each one with a different mechanism for survival. Detroit is being reclaimed through re-use, such as urban farming inside skyscrapers, that allows the residents to produce more food than they need. The story also introduced me to the concept of “turking,” which was like crowdsourcing combined with Craig’s List and extrapolated. Many functions that were formerly taken care of by government, including mail delivery, are randomly distributed to regular citizens, who pick up small jobs to earn small change, and thus the city continues to function. Detroit is a shining beacon of hope for humanity, a sentiment which I found refreshingly positive.

The third story is by Elizabeth Bear and is read by Kandyse McClure is also set in Detroit. Like the previous story, most people get around on bicycles, and people share resources, equipment and living space. Collective living, including child rearing and food production, is now the norm, enabling local communities to produce what they need now that the global marketplace and distribution system has failed.

The fourth story, by John Scalzi, was funny and inventive, describing in more detail how localized food production works in this brave new world. Alessandro Juliani, who played Lt. Gaeta on the new Battlestar Galactica, gave it a great reading. Wil Wheaton, who has performed most if not all of Scalzi’s audiobooks, may have lost his gig.

The last story, by Karl Schroeder, was the best of all. The reader, Stefan Rudnicki, sounds just like Michael Ansara, his deep bass perfectly portraying the Russian protagonist’s phlegmatic reaction to the James Bond-like situations in which he finds himself in this thriller of a tale. In between the harrowing escapes and dangerous dilemnas, Schroeder introduces more new future city concepts than all the previous authors combined. Much of the action takes place in a virtual world, where people use avatars to produce real wealth. This was somewhat reminiscent of the plot of Reamde, but with much more detail about the virtual world and how it works. The concepts put forth by Schroeder are so new and interesting, I think I have to listen to this story again to fully grasp what he is describing.
This collection was so great that I immediately downloaded the next two books in the series: METAtropolis: Cacadia and METAtropolis: Green Space.

Fascinating take on our future.

Gather together half a dozen writers of speculative fiction, set a general format and time frame, some agreed on names and policies and pair them up with narrators (some better than others) and you could get a winner or loser. In my opinion it's a 85% winner. I think what ticked me off is the mispronunciation of names in Oregon-names are important so instead of making up the pronunciation, just ask someone from the Pacific Northwest.
It's Wil-aahh-met, not willa-met. It's Estacada not Esta - caw-da. Stuff like that gets to me. But for the most, Tygre, Tygre was good.

My favorite was the story of the bike messenger woman who gets caught up with a vertical farming group who has turned an office building into apartments for families. Imagine living in your cubicle space?

The stories jump from place to place, from the Cascades to Detroit to New St. Louis. But the future they predict, while not crazy dystopian are different and are all to easy to see as our future if the banks and lawyers continue to draw down on the middle class, if medical care gets more expensive if we don't decide to make changes in our life.

Be prepared to get the secnd volume Metatropolis:Cascadia

Pretty good

The first and last stories are not the best, but I really liked the three in the middle.

first audiobook and the most memorable

If you could sum up METAtropolis in three words, what would they be?

"buy" "this" and "book".

Who was your favorite character and why?

I liked them all.

What about the narrators’s performance did you like?

The different narrators really fleshed out the characters, gave them each their own personality.

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

Something along the lines of "Tomorrowland". I know that's already a movie title, but I think it's very appropriate given the plot of the story.

Fascinating

Any additional comments?

Terrific set of short stories about the near future and new ways of sustainable living in a world where the current system has collapsed.

An entertaining story of a possible future.

Where does METAtropolis rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

METAtropolis ranks in the upper percent of the audio books that I've purchased from Audible.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Although many of the characters were well written and filled out, I believe my favorite amongst them was Reggie Stratton. Reggie was near to giving up on the state of the world and was awakened to a new purpose and a new fight in a world he thought was beyond him really caring about.

Would you listen to another book narrated by the narrators?

Many of the narrators were very good in their performance although the first narrator was very difficult to listen to due to his gravelly voice.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Due to the limitations on my time, I cannot listen to any book in one sitting. Hence my turning to audio books. They allow me to still immerse myself in a story yet not be held in one place and limited to one activity while I'm experiencing the story.

Any additional comments?

I liked METAtroplis and if you did, try METAtroplis: Cascadia.

Stick to the middle three.

What did you love best about METAtropolis?

The three stories in the middle were captivating and well-narrated.

Any additional comments?

It was difficult for me to get into the first story and the last story. My advice is to power through the first one and skip the last story.

Awesomely entertaining!

Omg. I’m glad I subscribe to the audible plus catalog! This was included. I woulda paid for this book. It’s 5 stories into one like Epic futuristic possibility.. great authors. Thank you audible.

Missing story section

Fifteen minutes of Elizabeth Bears’s story was missing. This made the story very unsatisfactory. I’m quite disappointed.