• The Annals of the Heechee

  • By: Frederik Pohl
  • Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
  • Length: 13 hrs and 26 mins
  • 4.1 out of 5 stars (462 ratings)

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The Annals of the Heechee  By  cover art

The Annals of the Heechee

By: Frederik Pohl
Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
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Publisher's summary

At last - the ultimate book in the renowned Heechee Saga!

Advanced Heechee technology had enabled Robinette Broadhead to live after death as a machine-stored personality, enjoying his life by flitting along the wires from party to party with a host of other machine-people. But suddenly his decadent existence ends when an all-powerful alien race intent on the utter destruction of all intelligent life reappears after eons of silence, and threatens the lives of all heechee and humans. Even Robin, virtually immortal and with unlimited access to millennia of accumulated data, cannot discover how to stop these aliens. It began to seem that only a face to face meeting could determine the future of the entire universe....

©1987 Frederik Pohl (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

What listeners say about The Annals of the Heechee

Average customer ratings
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  • 4 out of 5 stars
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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Disappointing after its predecessors

Ironically, The Annals of the Heechees is too true to its premise that it is told by an overly talkative and somewhat scatterbrained narrator. Most of the first half consists of tedious re-tellings of stories from earlier books, and even though some are more embellished, they lead to the same conclusions. A new story picks up eventually, but still felt drawn out and repetitive (someone should try to count how many times the narrator reminds us that machines can think faster than humans).

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3 people found this helpful

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

Okay but nearly as good as the previous books

Would you try another book from Frederik Pohl and/or Oliver Wyman?

Yes, I definitely would, one bad book from Pohl won't turn me off yet.

What was most disappointing about Frederik Pohl’s story?

Spoilers for previous book:


We are constantly reminded that the virtual people are living in a virtual world. "I could see space through the viewscreen, but off course I wasn't really seeing it because I don't actually have eyes nor was the viewscreen real either..." Over and over and over, I get it has some point in the story but my goodness I felt beaten over the head with it.

What does Oliver Wyman bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Nothing, his voice acting was superb.

Was The Annals of the Heechee worth the listening time?

I'm iffy on that, I wanted another book because I felt the last one ended abruptly but part of me feels like I should have stopped there.
I liked getting some closure (sort of) on Robin.

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3 people found this helpful

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

robinettes whining got old fast

the science fiction is intriguing and fun but the character robinette really got old in the fourth book with his incessant griping. I like the idea of making lead characters human and all but it was really too much.

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2 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

awesome series

loved every second of it! a new favorite! a must read/listen. just do it! now!

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1 person 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

Keeps getting better

I was underwhelmed by the first books, but all of the sequels have been great

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1 person 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

Excellent Narrator

Oliver Woman’s narration was in my opinion masterful. He made it seem as if different people were actually speaking the parts, not just one narrator. I enjoyed listening to him through the whole Heechee series of books.

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1 person found this helpful

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

The series has gotten boring at this point.

I struggled to finish this book. just boring and lame. I got so sick of the computer land folks and the writer refuses to bring the book back around to reality. I just couldn't take it anymore. I quit.

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

a good continuation of already good story

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

If you like scifi, the heeche series are a good bet. This is the 4th book in the series, and i enjoyed all of the book, i only wish 5th and 6th were available as audio books...

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

So hard to finish.

What happed to this series?!
The first 3 books were great. This 4th book was nothing more then selling the reader that the meat world was bad and the digital upload life was better. Over and over and over and over and over again…
It becomes very tedious, I found myself stopping it and doing other things and making myself go back to try and finish it. So boring..

If the rest of this series ever comes to audible, I will not be listening.

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

Good book, but a great deal of mansplaining

I enjoyed the story. the arthur mansplained the time difference between meat people and digital beings about a thousand times. it felt like he repeated the point 1/4 of the book. other than that it was great.

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