On the Steel Breeze

Poseidon's Children, Book 2

By: Alastair Reynolds

Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh

Length: 23 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's summary

The award-winning author of Blue Remembered Earth continues his saga as the next generation of the Akinya family crosses interstellar space seeking humanity' s future...

Chiku Akinya, great granddaughter of the legendary space explorer Eunice and heir to the family empire, is just one among millions on a long one way journey towards a planet they hope to call their new home. For Chiku, the journey is a personal one, undertaken to ensure that the Akinya family achieves its destiny among the stars.

The passengers travel in huge self-contained artificial worlds - holoships - putting their faith in a physics they barely understand. Chiku' s ship is called Zanzibar - and over time, she will discover it contains an awesome secret - one which will lead her to question almost every certainty about her voyage, and its ultimate destiny.

©2013 Alastair Reynolds (P)2013 Hachette Audio

Biased Reynolds fan

Would you consider the audio edition of On the Steel Breeze to be better than the print version?

The written version is better in this instance. African Flute music after a dramatic scene bringing up the next chapter is a little contrived.

What was one of the most memorable moments of On the Steel Breeze?

The Saturn tragedy was interesting.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Charlie Chan Chinese accent. Slavic (Russian?) accent that sounds like Kate Mulgrew on "Orange is the new Black". Disparate California Hispanic Cholo accent. Tom Brokaw flat American accent. Broken Australasian. Pleasant, emotive, soft RP English. South African accent while thick seems authentic compared to native speakers I've heard. So many different accents - while admirably attempted - were just overwhelmingly distracting. I'd rather have heard an emotive soft RP English accent with conviction than a mangled, harsh, Charlie Chan Chinese screech.

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

Not possible - Reynolds is a long-haul operatic proposition.

Any additional comments?

When a companion character died - I was glad. Only because that broken Cholo accent would never have to be heard again.

Not bad but Reynolds weakest work.

If you could sum up On the Steel Breeze in three words, what would they be?

It was Ok. I speak of the entire story as whole, both books up to this point.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

The whole 'hunting for clues' part of the book was fun, reminded me of Jack McDevitt

Which scene was your favorite?

Can't pin one down.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Not really.

Any additional comments?

While an okay read the books up to this point are not what we've come to expect from Reynolds and were a bit on the dull side when compared to his other work.. I knew that getting into them, based on previous reviews.

Wonderful story

Typically wonderful story, prose, suspense and hard science from Alastair Reynolds. Although not the best narrator, it did not detract from the story. I highly recommend.

Not bad (Updated)

The book is good. It's Alastair Reynolds. But most of the character voices are ridiculously overdone. Especially the voice of the council member in chapter 8 that sounds like he's slurping a mouthful of spit every time he breathes. Almost too disgusting to listen to. Oddly, the natural voice of the 3rd party narration is GREAT. I'll keep listening.

(Seriously, some of the character portrayals are so terrible that I was relieved when they were killed off. Half of them sound like some kind of Bella Lugosi/vampire satire. The rolling the R's for the Portuguese and Spanish characters borders on being offensive stereotype.) (That doesn't change the fact that its a good book. It's still worth the trip into auditory Hell. But seriously, WTF?)

Great Re-read

I had read this paperback and picked up the audio book to prep for the 3rd in the trilogy. It is just as interesting as Blue Remembered Earth.

Vie Tried to Venjoy Vhe Story

Like many others Vie had a hard time vith the extremely thick accents, but Travertine just about made me quit. Maybe Vie spaced out during the part where they explain what's going on here but Ve seems to be some sort of asexual being that gets random made-up pronouns thrown at ver, both male & female. It has no function in the story other than being jarring and making ve concentrate on vhe strange vronouns rather than what's going on. Vhy bother including this?

Exceptional narration!

The accents. Not just one, but dialects of several I believe. I admit, I made good use of my headset reverse function to understand some of the characters.
I do not think this book would be nearly as enjoyable without having read the previous book. in other words, don't start here. Do the series in order. It provides a foundation which to me was absolutely crucial for understanding nuances of the story.

Good enuf, but performance lacking

The story is an intriguing enough continuation of the first book. the narrator is honestly very talented and has a nice voice. however, some of her accents and voices we're extremely annoying. the African accents were generally fine, the Asian accents were bad, and the mer creatures were distractingly abysmal and story killingly annoying. And if I had to listen to a single chapter more of arachnids child voice, I literally might have quit the book, as it was in all reality, only decent at best.
As always, the imagination of the stories complexities and the usual surprising inclusion of nature / elephants was creative.
It's reluctantly recommended if you can tolerate the annoyance of bad to really bad accents and love the drawn out, highly extended length and vivid descriptors his books usually entail.

Story much better than book 1

The story is VERY good (on a scale of 1-10, 8.5). It's not often you listen to a 20+ hour novel, and are engaged the whole time. The narrator is just okay (5.5 out fo 10), and admittedly she had a tough novel to narrate convincingly. By comparison, I thought book 1 (this is book 2 of the series) had a better narrator (7 out of 10), but the story was not as strong (6 out of 10). I think you could listen to the 2 books independently, except that if you started with book 2, you would want to listen to book 1 immediately, and much of the suspense of book 1 would be ruined by book 2. On the whole, both books are a good use of your entertainment dollar, and I am pleased with the money and time I invested in both. I think you will be too.

Arithuza sounds different

I enjoyed the first book by the initial Narrator, and I’m a huge fan of Adjoa Andoh! I was a a bit disappointed when the voice for Lin Wei’s transformed self, Arithuza was changed. In the first book, the actor made her sound as what we may think a speaking Whale could possibly sound like. In this book, the voice was chosen to make her sound like a young girl even from the Whale body. Although the actors were changed, I would think there would be a semblance of consistency with accents, pitch, and modulation.