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Spin
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 17 hrs and 28 mins
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Publisher's summary
The "sun" is now a featureless disk - a heat source, rather than an astronomical object. The moon is gone, but tides remain. The world's artificial satellites have fallen out of orbit. Eventually, space probes reveal that the barrier is artificial, generated by huge alien artifacts. Time passes faster outside the barrier - more than a hundred million years per day on Earth. At this rate, the death of the sun is only about forty years away.
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Critic reviews
- Hugo Award, Best Novel, 2006
"Wilson continues to surprise and delight. I can't think of another science fiction writer who understands the strengths of the genre so well and who works with such confidence within its elastic boundaries." (The New York Times)
"The best science fiction novel so far this year." (Rocky Mountain News)
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Niblock House is a rising executive at General Technics, one of a few all-powerful corporations. His work is leading General Technics to the forefront of global domination, both in the marketplace and politically - it's about to take over a country in Africa. Donald Hogan is his roommate, a seemingly sheepish bookworm. But Hogan is a spy, and he's about to discover a breakthrough in genetic engineering that will change the world...and kill him. Society is squeezed into hive-living madness by god-like mega computers and mass-marketed psychedelic drugs.
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perfect audio experience
- By Darryl on 03-24-14
By: John Brunner, and others
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Void Star
- By: Zachary Mason
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Tristan Morris, Sean Pratt, and others
- Length: 15 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Not far in the future, the seas have risen, and the central latitudes are emptying. But it's still a good time to be rich in San Francisco, where weapons drones patrol the skies to keep out the multitudinous poor.
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if you're That Guy
- By Zachary on 06-18-17
By: Zachary Mason
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Cold Fire
- By: Dean Koontz
- Narrated by: Carol Cowan, Michael Hanson
- Length: 14 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Reporter Holly Thorne is intrigued by Jim Ironheart, who has saved 12 lives in the past three months. Holly wants to know what kind of power drives him, why terrifying visions of a churning windmill haunt his dreams, and just what he means when he whispers in his sleep that an enemy who will kill everyone is coming.
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Above average Koontz
- By Michael on 07-18-08
By: Dean Koontz
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How to Find Your Way in the Dark
- The Sheldon Horowitz Series, Book 1
- By: Derek B. Miller
- Narrated by: Michael Crouch
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Twelve-year old Sheldon Horowitz is still recovering from the tragic loss of his mother only a year ago when a suspicious traffic accident steals the life of his father near their home in rural Massachusetts. It is 1938, and Sheldon, who was in the truck, emerges from the crash an orphan hell-bent on revenge. He takes that fire with him to Hartford, where he embarks on a new life under the roof of his buttoned-up Uncle Nate.
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Absolutely wonderful story.
- By George Thomas on 12-11-21
By: Derek B. Miller
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Shadow Show
- All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury
- By: Sam Weller - editor, Mort Castle - editor
- Narrated by: George Takei, Edward Herrmann, Kate Mulgrew, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Ray Bradbury - peerless storyteller, poet of the impossible, and one of America's most beloved authors - is a literary giant whose remarkable career spanned seven decades. Now 26 of today's most diverse and celebrated authors offer new short works in honor of the master; stories of heart, intelligence, and dark wonder from a remarkable range of creative artists.
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THE MAN WHO FORGOT RAY BRADBURY
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 05-27-17
By: Sam Weller - editor, and others
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Marsbound
- By: Joe Haldeman
- Narrated by: Liza Kaplan
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Young Carmen Dula and her family are about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime - they're going to Mars. Once on the Red Planet, however, Carmen realizes things are not so different from Earth. There are chores to do, lessons to learn, and oppressive authority figures to rebel against.
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Meh.
- By Wes Parker on 03-19-09
By: Joe Haldeman
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Footfall
- By: Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle
- Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews
- Length: 24 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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They first appear as a series of dots on astronomical plates, heading from Saturn directly toward Earth. Since the ringed planet carries no life, scientists deduce the mysterious ship to be a visitor from another star. The world's frantic efforts to signal the aliens go unanswered. The first contact is hostile: the invaders blast a Soviet space station, seize the survivors, and then destroy every dam and installation on Earth with a hail of asteriods.
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Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle at Their Best
- By Flatlander on 06-24-10
By: Larry Niven, and others
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Compelling Concepts
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Timely, beautiful, terrible and haunting
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DIMINISHED EXPECTATIONS
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In the near future of Robert Charles Wilson's Last Year, the technology exists to open doorways into the past - but not our past, not exactly. Each "past" is effectively an alternate world, identical to ours but only up to the date on which we access it. And a given "past" can be reached only once. After a passageway is open, it's the only road to that particular past; once closed, it can't be reopened.
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I RCW keeps writing for years to come
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A haunting, beautiful work...
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Cassie Klyne, 19 years old, lives in the United States in the year 2015 - but it's not our United States, and it's not our 2015. Cassies world has been at peace since the Great Armistice of 1918. There was no World War II, no Great Depression. Poverty is declining, prosperity is increasing everywhere; social instability is rare. But Cassie knows the world isn't what it seems. Her parents were part of a group who gradually discovered the awful truth: That for decades - back to the dawn of radio communications - human progress has been interfered with, made more peaceful and benign, by an extraterrestrial entity.
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Annoyingly Bad
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Compelling Concepts
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Timely, beautiful, terrible and haunting
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Robert Charles Wilson, says The New York Times, "writes superior science fiction thrillers." His Darwinia won Canada's Aurora Award; his most recent novel, The Chronoliths, won the prestigious John W. Campbell Memorial Award. Now he tells a gripping tale of alien contact and human love in a mysterious but hopeful universe.
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DIMINISHED EXPECTATIONS
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In the reign of President Deklan Comstock, a reborn United States is struggling back to prosperity. Over a century after the Efflorescence of Oil, after the Fall of the Cities, after the Plague of Infertility, after the False Tribulation, after the days of the Pious Presidents, the sixty stars and thirteen stripes wave from the plains of Athabaska to the national capital in New York City. In Colorado Springs, the Dominion sees to the nation's spiritual needs.
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Excellent tragedy with very good narration
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Startling, unusual, and yet irresistably readable, Among Others is at once the compelling story of a young woman struggling to escape a troubled childhood, a brilliant diary of first encounters with the great novels of modern fantasy and SF, and a spellbinding tale of escape from ancient enchantment.
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Not much about Darwinia.
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Great Discovery
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What a wild, wacky, awesome book!
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Behold the orphan. Born into a world that is not a world. A digital being grown from a mind seed, a genderless cybernetic citizen in a vast network of probes, satellites, and servers knitting the Solar System into one scape, from the outer planets to the fiery surface of the Sun. Since the Introdus in the 21st century, humanity has reconfigured itself drastically. Most chose immortality, joining the polises to become conscious software.
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Fabulous Story, Disappointing Performance
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Science fiction in Deep time
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Owning the Unknown
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Although humankind today can peer far deeper into the universe than ever before, we still find ourselves surrounded by the unknown and perhaps the unknowable. All great science fiction has used the human imagination to explore that realm beyond the known, just as theistic religions have done since long before the genre existed. As Hugo Award-winning author Robert Charles Wilson argues, the genre’s freewheeling speculation and systematic world-building make it a unique lens for understanding, examining, and assessing the truth claims of religions in general and Christianity in particular.
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A refreshing look at the lack of theism
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A very special novel that will inspire you.
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On a cold spring night in 1952, a huge meteorite fell to earth and obliterated much of the East Coast of the US, including Washington, DC. The ensuing climate cataclysm will soon render the Earth inhospitable for humanity, as the last such meteorite did for the dinosaurs. This looming threat calls for a radically accelerated effort to colonize space and requires a much-larger share of humanity to take part in the process. Elma York’s drive to become the first lady astronaut is so strong that even the most dearly held conventions of society may not stand a chance against her.
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Never achieves lift off
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Anderson Lake is a company man, AgriGen's Calorie Man in Thailand. Under cover as a factory manager, Anderson combs Bangkok's street markets in search of foodstuffs thought to be extinct, hoping to reap the bounty of history's lost calories. There, he encounters Emiko...Emiko is the Windup Girl, a strange and beautiful creature. One of the New People, Emiko is not human; instead, she is an engineered being, creche-grown and programmed to satisfy the decadent whims of a Kyoto businessman.
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Good and also Frustrating
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In the future, men and women have colonized the moon, and dazzling technological advances have created a better life for those on Earth. But the arrival of "the Wanderer" may change all that. A sphere of immense size, it appears suddenly one night during a lunar eclipse, causing crushing quakes on the Moon and catastrophes on Earth. Now, Lt. Don Merriam must find a way to reach the Wanderer and discover its purpose.
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dated scifi
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What listeners say about Spin
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- pems-integ-tests
- 03-28-08
Great Listen!
Having read some of Robert Charles Wilson in the past, I wasn't exactly sure what to expect with Spin. I had certainly heard good things, but Wilson has the tendency to start with a great idea and not do much else with it (see Darwinia).
I am happy to report that Spin delivers on all fronts. Not only is the spin a fantastic sci-fi concept, the subsequent focus on how humanity deals with it engrossing. Wilson drifts between scientific and social ideas with such grace, that the world he creates in Spin seems completely plausible.
Another beef I have with Wilson is that he doesn't always end his stories with a lot of closure (or even elementary explanation sometimes). I was working through Spin with a dreadful feeling that all of this tremendous tension and buildup was going to be a letdown. Again, I had nothing to worry about. The ending is left open for the sequel (Axis, coming out this year or next), but the Spin itself is fully explained.
All of the pieces of this book fit very nicely together and I can't recommend it highly enough. This was well deserving of the Hugo, and I look forward to more Robert Charles Wilson in the future!
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98 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Daniel
- 03-13-08
First Rate! A must read!
This was a great book! I finished it in a weekend, I couldn't stop listening. Solid story with complex relationships between characters.It will keep you listening, and don't read the summary if you really want to take the ride!
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53 people found this helpful
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- ChellyBelle
- 09-18-08
A good listen
A lot of other reviewers seem to have complained about not finding out what's going on until the end.
This confuses me - why would you bother reading the book if the ending was laid out for you neatly in the first two chapters?
The book is part SF, part mystery. It's written from the perspective of a character who isn't a scientist, but a doctor, so the SF stuff is dumbed down a bit, but not offensively so.
I enjoyed this audiobook very much, and I would have enjoyed seeing a direct sequel, rather than a spin-off novel with the same premise and a different lead character.
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47 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Robert
- 04-19-08
A Classic
Those of us who mourn the loss of Arthur C. Clarke and fondly remember the style and substance of his stories will enjoy Spin. It has great characters and an interesting story that evolves in stages. The many questions are all answered, but only in good time so the reader can enjoy the process as much as the revelations. This book is both fun and thought-provoking, and has enough realistic hard science to keep a scientist or engineer entertained. If you enjoy science fiction, this book is a must read. If you like an interesting mystery, this book is also an excellent choice. I was very sorry when it was over.
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36 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Ryan
- 09-20-10
thoughtful, Bradbury-esque SF
The premise of this book is straight out of the Twilight Zone: someone or something has encased the Earth in a mysterious, black field that causes time on the planet to slow down. For every day of Earth time, centuries pass in the rest of the universe. Stars and the moon disappear, and the sun is replaced by an artificial simulation. No one on Earth knows how or why, though many religious groups believe it to be the beginning of the end times.
Some writers would have launched a conventional whiz-bang action story from here, but Wilson takes a more contemplative, Bradbury-like approach, imagining the changes both large and small that "the Spin" brings to the lives of his main characters and to society at large over twenty years or so. Of course, one of the characters happens to be a brilliant scientist working to solve the mystery before the ever-expanding sun engulfs the solar system, which leads to some interesting plot choices involving the use of evolution as a tool within a sped-up universe.
However, the story is more focused on its characters as they come of age in this strange new reality, with much of the science fiction-y stuff happening offstage, and being recounted by the narrator. Wilson's in no hurry to show us who's ultimately behind the curtain (in fact, if you hadn't noticed, there's a sequel), but the speculation and human drama offer plenty to keep the reader absorbed (even if it does get more than a tad soap opera-ish here and there). I think that anyone who appreciates reflective science fiction in the tradition of Bradbury or Clarke will enjoy this book.
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33 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Steve
- 08-06-08
Interesting Science, Excruciating Fiction...
Scott Brick really stinks the place up with his overwrought narration. And it doesn't help that he's reading material that is absolute dreck.
Ten percent of this book is interesting science fiction, the other 15 hours is a tedious slog of bad dialogue, unsympathetic characters, and a plot that is excruciatingly slow. I found myself talking back in aggravation.
Did I mention the narration? Scott Brick has done good work other novels, and until this book I was a fan - but this time he's way off. Like a bad high school drama-club president who thinks he has his audience enthralled. Like a bad movie that is so bad it's entertaining to see how bad it can really get. Car accident bad. "Dream Girls" bad. "I want my money back" - bad.
All this begs questions. Why the Hugo award? Wile the science in the book is mildly interesting, is that the only criteria for a Hugo? Does quality writing matter? Apparently not. What does it say about me that I listened to the whole thing, am I now a lesser person? I think I am.
And last, who are these people giving this book 4 and 5 stars? Like other reviewers I am amazed - are these real people? Is something afoot here?
If you want an alternate novel with an apocalyptic theme, try "The Road" by Cormack McCarthy. You won't talk back to it in frustration.
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26 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Grant Loving
- 03-16-08
Great Listen
I really enjoyed listening to this book. It had really good character development, and a really good storyline. It was more focused on the characters then the sci-fi part, but the sci-fi part was awesome. The sci-fi part seemed almost plausible, which in turn brought up some interesting questions about the future of human beings, and our place in world/universe.
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26 people found this helpful
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- Joshua
- 05-30-12
Interesting premise... but that's all.
I loved the initial premise of the book. Unfortunately, that's all this novel had going for it.
The story progressed in a ridiculously slow fashion, and the characters just plain annoying.
We're constantly reminded that one of the characters is a genius, despite the fact that he never does anything remotely genius-like.
The main love interest is an idiot, who gets sucked into one cult after another and has no apparent redeeming qualities.
Our main character is boring.
The author seems more concerned about exploring uninteresting side plots than focusing on the parts of the story that the audience is actually sticking around for.
The author creates an entire world of super-advanced humans on Mars. We only ever get to meet one of them, and despite the fact that he should be 100,000 years more advanced than us, his technology seems to be only 100 years ahead of us- TOPS.
The author also seems to have missed the memo about Moore's Law and computer development. There is no way that a civilization 100,000 years more advanced than us wouldn't already have sentient computers many billions of times smarter than us.
Ultimately this novel had a satisfactory ending. Unfortunately, by the time I got there, I no longer really cared.
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18 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Josh
- 03-18-08
Highly Recommended
I found it completely engrossing with its character development a tightly knit narrative, and its insights into society's possible reactions to the end times.
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17 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Joseph
- 04-19-11
Scott Brick almost succeeds in ruining "Spin"
Spin is not only a great S-F novel, it's a rarity in that field, with vivid characters who are interesting in their own right, aside from the startling originality of the plot and events they are caught up in.
However, I find Scott Brick's narcissistic ham-act so insufferable that I almost didn't finish the audiobook, and (since there were no other narrators available) thought I'd trash it and buy the print version instead. But Wilson's book was so good that I somehow gritted my teeth and weathered Brick's narration, like getting used to a disagreeable odor. A narrator (or an actor) should always put their talent to the service of the text. Brick does the opposite: the text is a mere tool, serving his desire to display his talent. Another reviewer (Mary) finds him too sarcastic. It's true that he often sounds sarcastic, but the problem is much deeper than that: no matter what he's emoting, he's always in-your-face, a relentless, repeated injection of puerile, inappropriate melodrama into the text every chance he gets. He seems incapable of simply letting the text guide the feeling of his voice --- to the point that it's sometimes hard to even understand what the author is saying, because Brick is in the throes of his need to display some strong emotion or other. There's nothing wrong with a talented multi-dimensional narrative, and I'm not advocating dull neutrality, nor am I failing to see that Scott Brick does have considerable potential. But compare him with Simon Vance: a superb narrator who has an even greater range of voices and moods than Brick, yet NEVER allows it to get in the way of the text. Brick would do well to study this difference. His performance on Spin reminds me of nothing so much as the rantings of a Southern preacher, voice dripping with exaggerated softness at one moment, and searing with melodramatic ham-rage at another. Until I have evidence that he has fundamentally changed his approach to narration, I'll avoid his books.
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