• Moving Mars

  • By: Greg Bear
  • Narrated by: Sharon Williams
  • Length: 15 hrs and 26 mins
  • 3.8 out of 5 stars (145 ratings)

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Moving Mars  By  cover art

Moving Mars

By: Greg Bear
Narrated by: Sharon Williams
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Publisher's summary

Greg Bear is "a writer who is rapidly redefining the shape of the modern hard science-fiction novel" (Keith Ferrell, Omni magazine), and in Moving Mars he explores one very plausible scenario for the future of Earth's neighboring planet.

Mars is a colonial world governed by corporate interests on Earth. The citizens of Mars are hardworking, brave, and intelligent, but held back by their lack of access to the best education, and the desire of Earthly powers to keep the best inventions for themselves.

The young Martians - the second and third generation born on Mars - have little loyalty to Earth and a strong belief that their planet can be independent. The revolution begins slowly, but matures to its inevitable conclusion.

©2008 Greg Bear (P)2008 Brilliance Audio

Critic reviews

  • Hugo Award Winner, Best Novel, 1996

"It all adds up to a blowout of a book, perhaps the best of the recent Mars novels, and certainly one of the best sf novels of the year." (Publishers Weekly)
"Moving Mars is an accomplished, thoroughly mature novel that should be placed at the top of anyone's `to be read' stack." (Science Fiction Age)
"Stunning and remarkable invention and extrapolation." (Kirkus Reviews)

What listeners say about Moving Mars

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Terrible quality audio recording

I read the book 20 years ago and enjoyed it. This audiobook is terrible quality, heavy bass, inconsistent volume levels, cut off sentences. Very low bit rate. Audible seriously needs to put up a quality version of this book. I'm asking for a refund.

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8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

One of my favorites

This has always been one of my favorite books and I was very happy that Audible added it to it's library (the original tapes were dual track and had terrible sound quality). Greg Bear is one of those hard science authors that can write compelling believable characters and not bury you under a high tech facade. The science itself is amazing and high concept. Bear tends to write more contemporary, near future Scifi these days and I love his books, but Moving Mars is top form traditional Scifi.

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Amazing book scuttled by terrible audio recording

This book is one of my all time favorites. Such a shame that the audio quality was so terrible. Everything sounded muffled and incredibly difficult to make out even at high volumes. Especially the effects added onto the character's voices during spacewalks made it so hard to understand.

That being said, it's one of my favorite stories from my favorite writer of science fiction, Greg Bear. Just read the book on the Kindle and skip this audio recording! Unless Audible can replace it with a version that has higher fidelity.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

adolescent

the mindset is so adolescent. The voice of narration kind of unpleasant.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Boring!

Completely failed to hold my interest. Pretty well no action at all--just endless discussion of Martian politics and sappy romance. I like most science fiction, but not this one. Total waste of a credit.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Good Bear

This is a good Greg Bear story, although it takes most of the book before getting into the more mindbending hard SF elements that I like most in his work. I found the narrator's voice a touch shrill, and the recording wasn't the best, but I acclimated to it after a bit, allowing me to enjoy the story. My main gripe with Greg Bear audiobooks is that my favorites aren't available, namely the EON series and the Queen of Angels series. THESE were the books that really blew me away. Oh, and also Forge of God and Anvil of Stars were excellent as well. So, as the title says, it's just good Bear, but not the best, in this listeners' humble opinion.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Good book, terrible audible

Good book, prolific but insightful and when you think about it. The audio, however, is quite muffled and frustrating to listen to.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Good book, odd recording

The story is interesting. As usual in a hard science fiction book, there's a fair amount of discussion of technicalities, but it's very interesting. Bear's writing style is a bit mechanical, he is in no way a prose stylist and his characters are a bit on the stiff side, but both are used well to drive the story. My only complaint is the recording itself. It sounds like it's been compressed to within an inch of its life, it occasionally sounds like its being read by a computer. It's also muffled sounding like it was first recorded on cassette. It's not horrible but its annoying, particularly if you listen on headphones.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Despite...

...the poor sound quality I have to recommend Moving Mars. I'd read the book 2 - 3 times before so I was looking forward to the audio version. The reader sounded pretty muffled, but once you get past that it's an enjoyable listen.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

When you just can't get along with the neighbors

Greg Bear's Moving Mars is a tale of maturing colonization. Seen through the eyes of a woman, beginning during her radical college years, we follow the politics of a young colony growing up from a disparate group of special interests to a full-fledged geopolitical force as Earth gradually becomes fearful of a potential equal. Through her family and various romances, the woman finds herself at the center of the forces driving the development of Mars as a credible planetary player in the diplomatic and economic activities of the 'triple' (Earth, the moon, and Mars). With scientific advancement that frightens Earth, she finally makes the decision to 'move' Mars away from the conflict.

Bear focuses on many themes common in planetary colonization with plenty of backstabbing and double dealing. In particular, variable distances between Mars and Earth plays a pivotal role in shaping the action. Earth is focused on maintaining hegemony while Mars is split among the status quo, Mars first, and an integrated triple. Although science plays a pivotal role, the sci-fi elements do not overwhelm the tale.

The narration is superb with excellent character distinction and overall smooth pacing.

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