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)

Skip the first story!!!!

The first story is a dreary, pointless slog. There are no interesting characters. There's no interesting scenery. There's not real point. There's no payoff. It is boring as hell. Just skip it! If that is typical of the author, I hope he finds something else to do with his life--maybe something he's actually good at.
After that, the next two stories are OK, but not great. There are some good bits and entertaining moments, but most of the characters are pretty flat and unmemorable.
Then we get Scalzi's story, which is clearly the prize. It is the only one that is truly memorable in any way.
Finally, we get a generic but at least entertaining cyberpunk story.
As an exercise at shared world building, I would rank it as an utter failure.
As entertainment, minus the first piece, I would rank is a moderate.

great although maybe missing something

I enjoyed this. if your fiddling with the cli fi trend, jump on it its great. I did however not feel very connected with any of the protagonists. I wasn't excited to see them succeed or fail, just kind of enjoyed being walked through this verse as interesting things happened all around. still it was a pretty fun listen.

Blew My Mind

The narrations and the stories are top-notch. never losing a single step of momentum. there is somehow a seamless transition from Eco Punk to gritty shadow running, jumping nose first into clever hilarity and then using that same nose, diving straight into reality-bending meta science fiction. I Can't Get Enough and I really hope there are many more books of this vein.

Too much narritive

I enjoyed all of the stories but did not see the need to introduce each author and story before each new author. That had been covered by the books introduction.

Just OK

I would have been satisfied if I has found one really enjoyable story but that was not the case

Mostly Great

I personally was not in love with the first story, just not my thing, which was too bad as the narration was amazingly good. All the other stories were very engaging for me and have given me some authors whose work I will be exploring more in the near term.

META-tabulous

I was skeptical about the concept of collaborative writing after that Chopin Manuscript thing, but the BSG actors as narrators was too strong of a marketing ploy for me to resist.

I was pleasantly surprised. Especially by Alessandro Juliani. WOW! What an incredible performance.

Gaeta may have lost a leg, but Alessandro has gained a fan. No...seriously... He brings the author's world to life as richly as did Paul Giamatti in "A Scanner Darkly."

The tales are engaging, and there is enough overlap between them for you to see a coherent whole.

The other narrators do a fine job (though I'm admittedly not a big Brick fan), but Alessandro really stands out in this audio book. Which is doubly impressive when you consider he's down to one leg.

If you likes you some Sci-Fi, this book will provide hours of entertainment. So bring a towel, 'cause at METAtropolis, it's laid out like 'dat.

It was so excellent I was sad it ended

I started it not really understanding what I was getting myself into. But after I focused on the actual storyline and how all the stories are connected I became lost in the worlds that were designed by the writers.
I download a lot of audio books because I work from home and I can say that this was the best one this year. I've listened to it twice because it was so detailed that I wanted come back to what I might has missed.
Wonderful read.

Breathtaking

What did you love best about METAtropolis?

METAtropolis is a compilation of five different stories by five distinguished authors taking place in the same shared universe, which keeps things fresh and enjoyable. I didn't think I would have enjoyed it as much as I had. I found myself sad every time each story comes to an end, and quickly excited again for what comes next.

Any additional comments?

Get METAtropolis: Cascadia as soon as you're done with this. Worth it.

Eh, Interesting Concept But...

In the fifth story, The Human Division, the author desperately needs a thesaurus to help him use words other than “said.” The monotonous repetition of “How are you?” Bob said. “Fine.” Mary said. “Do you want to get a drink?” Bob said. “Fuck off.” Mary said... was unbelievably distracting and I don’t know how it made it past an editor.

Otherwise, interesting concept and well read.