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)

I cannot say enough good things about this work!!!

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

Honestly the top, at least right now. This was the second book I downloaded after the freebie 1st credit. I downloaded this book and listened to the whole thing in one shot! It made a 10 hour road trip melt away like nothing!!!

Who was your favorite character and why?

Ba'shar (sp?). As a recurrent character, he brings his talents/strengths into many different types of situations and just crushes it!

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

When I realized I was listening to the final story in the anthology, I almost did cry. This was before I realized there where two more METAtropolis collections available.

Any additional comments?

Listen to this series!!! It is amazing, and I'm going to let a few more months pass and then probably pound through the METAtropolis series again!

Many perspectives so we imagine a fictional future

I've enjoyed listening to the stories because they are written from so many different perspectives; we can imagine a global view of this fictional time and place. I say this experiment in cooperative writing is an absolute success. The first story is layered, descriptive so we glimpse the past that created such a future. ("In the Forest of the Night" is nothing like "Wind Up Girl", not a useful comparison.) The rest of the stories fill in the picture or I could say fit the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle of this imagined world into a whole. Each story stands well on its own, but I enjoyed listening to one right after the other. I will be listening again, too. My mood affects my perceptions and I'll build a new Metatropolis each time.
This is very obviously a piece of fiction tied together delicately with common elements. Fiction is not the same as social planning nor the same as corporate propaganda. So relax, read and fantasize . . . forget the television so you can use the building blocks the characters offer you . . . to build new communities in your head.
(p.s. "polis" means "city" in Greek; perhaps the title means a city in metamorphosis?)

Better than the sum of its larts

The concepts and realistic possibilities are rad. Definitely appreciate intriguing and less hardcore dystopian futuristic styles.

A troubled beginning...

I really enjoyed this book by the end, and I almost didn't hear it. My issue was the first story. This book is based in the fictional future, a future where the US (and world) has fractured to include city states that are outside of the normal governments. The premise was great. The execution was well done (especially Scalzi's story, I loved it!). My issue was the required acceptance of homosexuality as normal and required in the first story. None of the others pushed me to accept anything that violated my beliefs or views, but this one did. I'm not sure who wrote this story, but I would point out, it hurt the collaboration by removing it's accessability to a large portion of the possible readers.

Beyond this one failure, I recommend this collection (just skip the first chapter!)

3 out of the 5 stories

There are 5 stories in this anthology. I remember the first one didn’t do it for me. Just wanted to listen and see if anything sparked. No idea what either the second or the third one was. One of them I liked just don’t remember in which order. And the last two were awesome. 3 out of five isn’t bad. I have it a 4 overall cause it’s more of a taste then quality.

Hard to get into

The story is set in futuristic cities. The stories are difficult to follow. If you make through the first 3 or 4 stories it does start to make sense. There are one or two stories that are intriguing. These stories could be developed. I especially liked the one with the pig farmer. I can see there overall message the future will promote more closed self sustaining cities. The struggles the people on the outside will endure to survive. I would have liked to develop this more as well. Overall I was not overly impressed with the stories but may read more to see if it develops.

uneven

as much as the authors tried to make these stories interrelated, the writing styles are different. some stories are easier to get into, and I liked those more. I like the idea of what the authors tried (and mostly succeeded) to do and would listen to more.

Good stories, poor presentation

I'm a huge fan of John Scalzi's work. I'm pretty sure I own them all and have listened to many several times. After this book, I think I like him a little less. The writing was good, the narration was great, but the introductions with Scalzi going on basically all about him had me rolling my eyes at what felt like serious arrogance. He'd inevitably throw the other authors a bone, or more like a pat on the head by saying what amazingly talented writers they were, but coming immediately after his chest beating and self aggrandizement, I had the distinct feeling that he thought very little of these other authors. If you can get through the introductions to each without getting turned off by them, there are some good stories here.

Great project

I don't know if I understand all of it but some atleast. I will skip the sequel and jump to the last one as I would have to pay for second, (the others are available through premium plus (just pay for 12 credits upfront and you will have problems using them since so much cool books are free. (they will disappear if you stop. Being a member but why would you. In 3 days I scrutinised science fiction and fantasy and especially series. I have 150 books i want to listen too. And there are more categories i will check when i am tired (lol) of science fiction!!

It's OK

Each story is pretty ok, but overall METAtropolis fall short of being truly exepcional. Worth your time if you get it free with plus.