METAtropolis: Green Space

By: Jay Lake, Elizabeth Bear, Karl Schroeder, Seanan McGuire, Tobias S. Buckell, Mary Robinette Kowal, Ken Scholes

Narrated by: Dion Graham, Robin Miles, Mark Boyett, Scott Brick, Allyson Johnson, Sanjiv Jhaveri, Jennifer Van Dyck, Jonathan Davis

Length: 14 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's summary

Audie Award Finalist, Original Work, 2014

Audible’s Audie Award-winning and Hugo Award-nominated vision of the not-too-distant future returns!

As METAtropolis: Green Space moves into the 22nd Century, human social evolution is heading in new directions after the Green Crash and the subsequent Green Renaissance. Nearly everyone who cares to participate in the wired world has become part of the "Internet of things", a virtual environment mapped across all aspects of the natural experience. At the same time, the serious back-to-the-land types have embraced a full-on paleo lifestyle, including genetically engineering themselves and their offspring. At the same time, a back-to-space movement is seeking the moon, a green Mars, and even the stars, with the eventual goal of leaving a pristine and undisturbed Earth behind. METAtropolis: Green Space is the creation of Hugo and World Fantasy Award nominee Jay Lake; Hugo Award winning writers Seanan McGuire, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Elizabeth Bear; New York Times best-selling author Tobias S. Buckell; Aurora Award winner Karl Schroeder; and critically-acclaimed author Ken Scholes.

©2013 Joseph E. Lake, Jr., Elizabeth Bear, Karl Schroeder, Seanan McGuire, Tobias S. Buckell, Mary Robinette Kowal, Ken Scholes (P)2013 Audible Inc.

Good anthology but audiobook is not organized well

I wish the chapters were labeled so it's clear which chapter corresponds to which story. I'm not done listening yet so I won't say anything about the stories themselves yet

Enjoyable Third Book On The Theme

I'd highly suggest listening to the first two of the Metatropolis compilations before tackling this one as theres follow thru in some of the stories.

I had varied opinions on the varied stories as well as ability of narrators but basically this is a strong followup to the initial Metatropolis and Cascadia books. If you enjoyed the theme and the previous stories, most likely you'll like this one. I did miss previous narrators, Kate Mulgrew was especially great in Cascadia. I also liked the Bashier follow thru, it gave a good idea of the time that had passed.

Worth my credit.

A Worthy Addition

The first story in this collection of short stories started slow, became absurd then turned around for an epic conclusion. The rest of the stories pick up from there, even though some are far better than others. There's a couple of stories I wish didn't make it there, because they seriously hurt the quality of the overall package. Still, it's a good addition.

Hit or miss

Not as engaging as the first book. The good stories are really good. The other stories are rather boring. one narrator was exceptionally drab.

Oops!

What a great series!

This last book falls apart on the first story though. The audio production value here is so bad that it remains a debilitating distraction to most of the story. Power through this immediate failure and the series gets back to the usual greatness.

Wonderful web

All the sections were enjoyable. I liked the innovations envisioned here .
I especially liked the continuance of characters from previous tales in this series.
the readers were all quite good at bringing the book to life.

not as good as book 2

The stories that connected to previous ones were decent, but in general these felt more disconnected.

The first and last stories are the only worth listening to

Unlike the previous installments of METAtropolis I did not enjoy all of the stories this time. There were notable exceptions to the normally high quality of writing and even performances. The only 2 worthwhile stories in this book were the stories of Bashar and his family the bookended the audiobook. They almost make up for the suffering endured through the others. Let's hope they raise the quality bar for the next installment.

Chapter titles, please!

These vary--a lot. Some are extraordinarily well narrated and made me care about characters I couldn't be bothered with in the first Metatropolis. Some are narrated in a monotone. Some are well written and to my taste, some are not.

And, if this were separated and named by story and author, I could skip the boring ones and/or the ones by authors I already don't like and continue on through the anthology. For some reason, there are no titles and no author names in the table of contents

As far as shared world goes: Like the first collection, this is a collection of stories set in the same time and general area. Sometimes they reference events in other stories, sometimes not. I'm on the fence about how effective this is; I'm used to shared worlds like Bordertown or Liavek where there is a real sense that the authors built off of each others work and all contributed to the richness of the world lived in. Here, it seems like they all agreed on a general outline and some thematic elements and then all wandered off in their own directions--nothing here feels like it *has* to be in the collection to work and they give each other very little boost.

On the other hand, it is in the Plus catalog which I am enjoying immensely, which means I'm not hurt by the occasional "meh." I can enjoy what I like and shrug about what I don't. I wouldn't be happy if I had bought it, though.

continues the world of Cascadia

I may have a new favorite reader - the one who read MRK's story.