The Incrementalists

By: Skyler White, Steven Brust

Narrated by: Ray Porter, Mary Robinette Kowal

Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's summary

The Incrementalists - a secret society of 200 people with an unbroken lineage reaching back 40,000 years. They cheat death, share lives and memories, and communicate with one another across nations, races, and time. They have an epic history, an almost magical memory, and a very modest mission: to make the world better, just a little bit at a time. Their ongoing argument about how to do this is older than most of their individual memories. Phil, whose personality has stayed stable through more incarnations than anyone else’s, has loved Celeste - and argued with her - for most of the last 400 years. But now Celeste, recently dead, embittered, and very unstable, has changed the rules - not incrementally, and not for the better. Now the heart of the group must gather in Las Vegas to save the Incrementalists, and maybe the world.

Editors Select, September 2013 - There are two reasons I’m excited about The Incrementalists. The first is that it’s about a secret, ancient organization that manipulates individuals in order to make the world just a little bit better. The second is that it’s co-narrated by Ray Porter, whose performance made Peter Cline’s 14 the insta-classic it turned out to be. Splitting the narration duties with Mary Robinette Kowal makes perfect sense, as the book’s perspective shifts between Phil, a member of the organization, and Renee, a new recruit. This is just the kind of quirky, contemporary sci-fi I look forward to. —Chris, Audible Editor

©2013 Steven Brust and Skyler White (P)2013 Audible Inc.

Critic reviews

"Secret societies, immortality, murder mysteries, and Las Vegas all in one book? Shut up and take my money." (John Scalzi)

"Watch Steven Brust. He's good. He moves fast. He surprises you. Watching him untangle the diverse threads of intrigue, honor, character, and mayhem from amid the gears of a world as intricately constructed as a Swiss watch is a rare pleasure." (Roger Zelazny)

Wow. I couldn't put this book down.

Ok, I couldn't stop listening. lol. You understand my point. I was very surprised that the premise in this book could be taken so far. I was taken aback at first, at the idea that the protagonists in this story were so long-lived and almost immortal and the fact that having the power they do, most people I know would abuse the heck out of it. As the story developed I just couldn't stop listening. I'd stay up late an hour or two just to get farther into the story.The imagination of this author amazes me and his talent in writing kept me interested throughout.
I was also amazed at how richly the author developed the world and the Incrementalist's power or magic, however you look at it. Some authors have trouble detailing such things in a series but this author handled it quite marvelously in just this one book.

I'm not familiar with this author but I think that very soon I will be.

I highly recommend this book, even if you aren't often interested in fantasy or sci-fi stories. I think almost anyone can enjoy this story. It was well worth the time spent.

Good story, Some reader issues

I like the story. Brust and White created a very vivid and engaging world with extremely dynamic characters and mysterious circumstances. We're thrown headlong into the conflict earlier than perhaps we're strictly comfortable, but trust me, it's entirely in keeping with the plot to do just that. The basic concept of the story is fascinating, and makes me want to know these characters more and more as the book goes on.

But there is a single overarching issue that simply jars during the performance: It's done as a paired male/female team of readers, Ray Porter and Mary Koval are both excellent readers, but Koval's reading seemed oddly divergent from Porters in multiple, repeatedly-frustrating ways. It's clear that the two readers never talked to one another and each did their own "thing" in assembling the character voices and even in pronouncing the names.

Porter manages to characterize Rin adequately, which is hard for a man with a deep voice to do. Her flippant tone comes across very well. Koval's Rin was almost TOO flippant, almost whiny, and so glibly sarcastic at times it made me want to spank her. But Koval's Phil was delivered in a very odd vocal style that made it sound like everything Phil said was a laconic sneer. It didn't fit the character, and seemed that Koval was struggling with making him sound MALE enough or something. But that's only the beginning of how the vocal choices rankled over time.

Porter's characterization of Irena was as a Russian, or at least Eastern European accent. Koval's voice for Irena was elderly British. Either would have been okay for the character, but flip-flopping between the two was annoying and made it hard to follow some of the dialogue. Ditto the two different voices for EACH of the characters -- Porter portrayed Jimmy with a tenor American accent, Koval with a gruff French accent, Porter's Oscar had a Germanic voice while Koval's was a deep vaguely-English.

The portrayal of Ramon was the most annoying. Neither reader's accent matched the other, and Koval clearly thought his name was just "Raymond" without the "d" at the end, it coming out "Raymin" when she pronounced it, his voice not having much of a regional accent at all. Whereas Porter pronounced it as if it were Spanish, "RahMON", the accent on the SECOND syllable, and gave him a slightly put-upon Spanish flavor.

If either reader had done the entire book him or herself, the performance would have been fine and equally-acceptable. Swapping back and forth, however, implies that the readers should have been put in touch with one another so they could at LEAST come to an agreement on accents and pronunciations. Multiple readers NEED to collaborate, or the result is a mishmash that makes it clear that they did NOT, which detracts from the performance as a whole.

It's a good book, made a bit tedious by the lack of communication between the readers. The listener has to work too hard to associate two different vocal styles with each character and differences in how their names are pronounced in some cases.

This was an excellent, surprising read for me

Excellent futuristic scifi, this book delivers. Interesting premise, I enjoyed the characters, want to retread this one. Will look for other books by these authors.

Fantastic

I'm gonna need to listen again but I'm officially hooked on this world. bravo!

Enjoyable/creative. Not a grand historical vista.

Different and enjoyable.

Not particularly complex. I.e. this is more about the idea, and the people executing it than any grand historical perspective on a group of people tweaking history.

Wait. What?

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

This book was really confusing. I read a lot of sci-fi stories but I could not make heads or tails of this. I think it could be an interesting story, maybe with a reread and making some notes along the way but there were so many intricate ideas that were explained so quickly I couldn't understand why things worked out the way they did.

What aspect of Ray Porter and Mary Robinette Kowal ’s performance would you have changed?

They performed the same characters in different ways and sometimes with different accents which made it tricky to figure out who was speaking. Ray has a way of throwing away the ends of his lines, it makes the dialogue sound very casual and Mary doesn't do that so the characters seemed to have different attitudes each time the narration switched.

Do you think The Incrementalists needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

It needs a guide!

Great story made confusing by different readers

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

I'd recommend this book to friends who have an interest in sci-fantasy, but I don't think this is a book for everyone.

How could the performance have been better?

The readers were fantastic (I love their voices and their tones), but they became confusing at points as the story is dual-perspective and as it flicks from male to female, the readers play the roles of the other characters, as well as their own. The accents were conflicting from one reader to another, and that took some time to acclimatise to. It would have been much nicer if the readers had read all dialogue as a script, keeping the roles gender specific.

Was The Incrementalists worth the listening time?

This one probably would have been better for me to read, as it was quite descriptive and visual, and I struggle with visualisations from audio descriptions. But that's just me.

why why why

would you need two narrators when you’ve got Ray Porter? Ms Kowal’s male voices grate and switching back forth is distracting … i am sure she’s good on her own but in this book it was a distraction ..

Excellent Performance of an Excellent Book

What a double pairing with both the writers and the performers. Let's start with the writers. Brust and White play off each other like they'd been writing together for years. I haven't read any of Skyler's other works yet but I will. I've been listening to Steven's Vlad series for a couple of months now so just a few minutes into TI I was thinking "this is really different". I find myself looking at current events and wondering if a group similar to the Incrementalists had a meddle in it.

We've all listened to audio books where the reader is sadly only that. Ray Porter and Mary Robinette Kowal PERFORM this book. The delivery is wonderful and consistent.

There are so many layers to what's going on I know I'm going to listen to this book again.

Great concept, not enough action

Is there anything you would change about this book?

The authors set up a great backstory/concept about a secretive group that tries to make the world better over long spans of time. But then these cool characters in their interesting group never actually get around to do any of the beneficial work that underpins their stated reason to continue existing and continue being a group. All they did was bicker and have dramatic battles of words. The same exact general plot could have just as easily been applied to a bookclub of catty country club wives. It was disappointing to have a great setup with a grand purpose, and then all I got was petty bickering.

Would you be willing to try another one of Ray Porter and Mary Robinette Kowal ’s performances?

Perhaps. Both of them have very nice voices (easy to listen to, expressive, etc). Ray was definitely the better of the two. Mary's portrayal of male characters was very odd and done in a way that almost sounded intentionally campy.

The big problem I had, however, was that both actors had to voice all the characters...but they didn't use similar accents for the same characters. For example, the character Irina is voiced by Ray as speaking English with a Slavic accent, but the same character voiced by Mary just sounded like an old lady with a standard American accent. It got very confusing at certain points.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

I can't imagine this being a movie. Maybe a Seinfeld-like "movie about nothing".