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The Prefect
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 19 hrs and 41 mins
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Story
Six million years ago, at the very dawn of the starfaring era, Abigail Gentian fractured herself into a thousand male and female clones: the shatterlings. Sent out into the galaxy, these shatterlings have stood aloof as they document the rise and fall of countless human empires. They meet every 200,000 years to exchange news and memories of their travels with their siblings.
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Science fiction in Deep time
- By A reader on 05-12-10
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Pushing Ice
- By: Alastair Reynolds
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 19 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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2057. Humanity has raised exploiting the solar system to an art form. Bella Lind and the crew of her nuclear-powered ship, the Rockhopper, push ice. They mine comets. And they're good at it. The Rockhopper is nearing the end of its current mission cycle, and everyone is desperate for some much-needed R & R, when startling news arrives from Saturn: Janus, one of Saturn's ice moons, has inexplicably left its natural orbit and is now heading out of the solar system at high speed.
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Proof that a good story doesn't require a trilogy
- By Jesse on 01-14-12
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Eversion
- By: Alastair Reynolds
- Narrated by: Harry Myers
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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In the 1800s, a sailing ship crashes off the coast of Norway. In the 1900s, a Zepellin explores an icy canyon in Antarctica. In the far future, a spaceship sets out for an alien artifact. Each excursion goes horribly wrong. And on every journey, Dr. Silas Coade is the physician, but only Silas seems to realize that these events keep repeating themselves. And it's up to him to figure out why and how. And how to stop it all from happening again.
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An entirely new level of science fiction
- By Possum Bean on 01-08-23
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Revelation Space
- By: Alastair Reynolds
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 22 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Nine hundred thousand years ago, something annihilated the Amarantin civilization just as it was on the verge of discovering space flight. Now one scientist, Dan Sylveste, will stop at nothing to solve the Amarantin riddle before ancient history repeats itself. With no other resources at his disposal, Sylveste forges a dangerous alliance with the cyborg crew of the starship Nostalgia for Infinity. But as he closes in on the secret, a killer closes in on him because the Amarantin were destroyed for a reason.
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Defeated
- By Eoin on 07-15-12
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Century Rain
- By: Alastair Reynolds
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 19 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Three hundred years from now, Earth has been rendered uninhabitable due to the technological catastrophe known as the Nanocaust. Archaeologist Verity Auger specializes in the exploration of its surviving landscape. Now, her expertise is required for a far greater purpose. Something astonishing has been discovered at the far end of a wormhole: mid-twentieth-century Earth, preserved like a fly in amber.
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One of John Lee's best performances
- By DAVID on 07-24-10
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Terminal World
- By: Alastair Reynolds
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 19 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Spearpoint, the last human city, is an atmosphere-piercing spire of vast size. Clinging to its skin are the zones, a series of semi-autonomous city-states, each of which enjoys a different---and rigidly enforced---level of technology. Following an infiltration mission that went tragically wrong, Quillon has been living incognito, working as a pathologist in the district morgue.
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This ain't your fathers Alastair Reynolds
- By DAVID on 09-10-10
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House of Suns
- By: Alastair Reynolds
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 18 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Six million years ago, at the very dawn of the starfaring era, Abigail Gentian fractured herself into a thousand male and female clones: the shatterlings. Sent out into the galaxy, these shatterlings have stood aloof as they document the rise and fall of countless human empires. They meet every 200,000 years to exchange news and memories of their travels with their siblings.
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Science fiction in Deep time
- By A reader on 05-12-10
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Pushing Ice
- By: Alastair Reynolds
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 19 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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2057. Humanity has raised exploiting the solar system to an art form. Bella Lind and the crew of her nuclear-powered ship, the Rockhopper, push ice. They mine comets. And they're good at it. The Rockhopper is nearing the end of its current mission cycle, and everyone is desperate for some much-needed R & R, when startling news arrives from Saturn: Janus, one of Saturn's ice moons, has inexplicably left its natural orbit and is now heading out of the solar system at high speed.
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Proof that a good story doesn't require a trilogy
- By Jesse on 01-14-12
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Eversion
- By: Alastair Reynolds
- Narrated by: Harry Myers
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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In the 1800s, a sailing ship crashes off the coast of Norway. In the 1900s, a Zepellin explores an icy canyon in Antarctica. In the far future, a spaceship sets out for an alien artifact. Each excursion goes horribly wrong. And on every journey, Dr. Silas Coade is the physician, but only Silas seems to realize that these events keep repeating themselves. And it's up to him to figure out why and how. And how to stop it all from happening again.
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An entirely new level of science fiction
- By Possum Bean on 01-08-23
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The Medusa Chronicles
- By: Stephen Baxter, Alastair Reynolds
- Narrated by: Peter Kenny
- Length: 12 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Howard Falcon almost lost his life in an accident as the first human astronaut to explore the atmosphere of Jupiter - and a combination of human ingenuity and technical expertise brought him back. But he is no longer himself. Instead he has been changed into an augmented human: part man, part machine, and exceptionally capable.
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Almost stopped listening. Glad I didn't.
- By cek on 08-21-16
By: Stephen Baxter, and others
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The Quantum Magician
- By: Derek Kunsken
- Narrated by: T. Ryder Smith
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Belisarius is a quantum man, an engineered Homo quantus who fled the powerful insight of dangerously addictive quantum senses. He found a precarious balance as a con man, but when a client offers him untold wealth to move a squadron of warships across an enemy wormhole, he must embrace his birthright to even try. In fact, the job is so big that he'll need a crew built from all the new sub-branches of humanity. If he succeeds, he might trigger an interstellar war, but success might also point the way to the next step of Homo quantus evolution.
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Just when I had given up.... jack pot!
- By Zach on 11-08-18
By: Derek Kunsken
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Slow Bullets
- By: Alastair Reynolds
- Narrated by: Susan Duerden
- Length: 4 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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A vast conflict, one that has encompassed hundreds of worlds and solar systems, appears to be finally at an end. A conscripted soldier is beginning to consider her life after the war and the family she has left behind. But for Scur - and for humanity - peace is not to be.
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A great story ruined by narration.
- By Andrew Linke on 06-11-15
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Revenger
- By: Alastair Reynolds
- Narrated by: Clare Corbett
- Length: 14 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Revenger is a rocket-fueled tale of space pirates, buried treasure, and phantom weapons, of unspeakable hazards and single-minded heroism...and of vengeance...Adrana and Fura Ness are the newest crew members of the legendary Captain Rackamore's ship, using their mysterious powers as Bone Readers to find clues about their next score. But there might be more waiting for them in space than adventure and fortune: The fabled and feared Bosa Sennen, in particular. The galaxy is filled with treasures...if you have the courage to find them.
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Great story, crap Mastering/Post work
- By C.Dale on 03-23-17
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Beyond the Aquila Rift
- By: Alastair Reynolds
- Narrated by: Tom Dheere
- Length: 1 hr and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Beyond the Aquila Rift: It's shorthand for the trip no one ever hopes to make by accident. The one that will screw up the rest of your life, the one that creates the ghosts you see haunting the shadows of company bars across the whole Bubble. Men and women ripped out of time, cut adrift from families and lovers by an accident of an alien technology we use but rarely comprehend.
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Great story, mediocre audio book.
- By Amazon Customer on 04-17-12
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The Quantum Series, Books 1 - 3
- By: Douglas Phillips
- Narrated by: Graham Halstead, Kirby Heyborne, Traci Odom
- Length: 33 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Daniel Rice is a government science investigator whose specialty is solving seemingly intractable problems through scientific inquiry. But Daniel's intellectual strength is sorely tested by the bizarre realities he finds in the quantum world. Extra dimensions of space trap the unwary, probability replaces cause and effect, and time isn't what anyone imagined. The other side of the mirror is a place full of dangers, but it's also somewhere a dedicated scientist can uncover secrets that connect humans with something greater.
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Yes, there was a reason why this was on sale.
- By James Borders on 11-23-20
By: Douglas Phillips
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Permafrost
- By: Alastair Reynolds
- Narrated by: Natasha Soudek
- Length: 4 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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2080: At a remote site on the edge of the Arctic Circle, a group of scientists, engineers, and physicians gather to gamble humanity’s future on one last-ditch experiment. Their goal: to make a tiny alteration to the past, averting a global catastrophe while at the same time leaving recorded history intact. To make the experiment work, they just need one last recruit: an ageing schoolteacher whose late mother was the foremost expert on the mathematics of paradox. 2028: A young woman goes into surgery for routine brain surgery.
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Not your father's SciFi!
- By Charles M. on 08-23-19
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Salvation
- Salvation Sequence, Book 1
- By: Peter F. Hamilton
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 19 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2204, humanity is expanding into the wider galaxy in leaps and bounds. Cutting-edge technology of linked jump gates has rendered most forms of transportation - including starships - virtually obsolete. Every place on Earth, every distant planet humankind has settled, is now a step away from any other. And all seems wonderful - until a crashed alien spaceship of unknown origin is found on a newly located world 89 light-years from Earth, carrying a cargo as strange as it is horrifying. To assess the potential of the threat a high-powered team is dispatched to investigate. But one of them may not be all they seem....
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Wait For Book 2
- By StrikitRich on 09-26-18
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Pandora's Star
- By: Peter F. Hamilton
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 37 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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The year is 2380. The Intersolar Commonwealth, a sphere of stars some 400 light-years in diameter, contains more than 600 worlds, interconnected by a web of transport "tunnels" known as wormholes. At the farthest edge of the Commonwealth, astronomer Dudley Bose observes the impossible: Over 1,000 light-years away, a star...vanishes. It does not go supernova. It does not collapse into a black hole. It simply disappears.
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Great Epic Scifi
- By Devin on 10-17-09
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The Reality Dysfunction
- Night's Dawn Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Peter F. Hamilton
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 41 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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In AD 2600, the human race is finally beginning to realize its full potential. Hundreds of colonized planets scattered across the galaxy host a multitude of prosperous and wildly diverse cultures. Genetic engineering has pushed evolution far beyond nature's boundaries, defeating disease and producing extraordinary spaceborn creatures. Huge fleets of sentient trader starships thrive on the wealth created by the industrialization of entire star systems, and throughout inhabited space the Confederation Navy keeps the peace.
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Finally on Audible!! My favorite Hamilton series!
- By Patrick on 04-05-16
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Great North Road
- By: Peter F. Hamilton
- Narrated by: Toby Longworth
- Length: 36 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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A century from now, thanks to a technology allowing instantaneous travel across light-years, humanity has solved its energy shortages, cleaned up the environment, and created far-flung colony worlds. The keys to this empire belong to the powerful North family - composed of successive generations of clones. Yet these clones are not identical. For one thing, genetic errors have crept in with each generation. For another, the original three clone "brothers" have gone their separate ways, and the branches of the family are now friendly rivals more than allies. Or maybe not so friendly....
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Get the Timeline and Cast of Characters
- By Don M on 02-03-13
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Galaxias
- By: Stephen Baxter
- Narrated by: Remmie Milner
- Length: 16 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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By the middle of the 21st century, humanity has managed to overcome a series of catastrophic events and maintain some sense of stability. Space exploration has begun again. Science has led the way. But then one day, the sun goes out. Solar panels are useless, and the world begins to freeze. Earth begins to fall out of its orbit. The end is nigh. Someone has sent us a sign.
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Not a bad idea for a story.
- By CJ in Colorado on 10-26-21
By: Stephen Baxter
What listeners say about The Prefect
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Michael G Kurilla
- 04-03-11
Best yet of the Revelation Space series
Reynolds again demonstrates why he is among the top of contemporary sci-fi writers. Readers familiar with the Revelation Space series will recall Chasm City which was centered on the Yellowstone system. In that tale, surrounding the planet was a mass of space detritus known as the Rust Belt. Its state was the result of an undefined prior event known as the melding plague that destroyed nearly all nanotech. In Prefect, Reynolds sets the story prior to Chasm City when the Rust Belt was at its pinnacle and known as the Glitter Band. Encompassing 10,000 discreet and sovereign habitats, Reynolds explores the diversity and evolution of human societal organization (from voluntary tyranny to demoncratic anarchy). The conjoiners as well as Silveste remnants and the shrouders also play a small role.
Holding the hodge-podge together is our hero, Tom Dreyfus, a prefect who enforces the minimal rules for orderly interaction among the habitats. From what begins as a routine investigation, Dreyfus gradually peels back the onion of an ever expanding conspiracy that threatens the entire Glitter Band. Along the way, he must face, the corrupt, the gullible, the naive, and the idiotic, but he always manages to remain focused on his ultimate objective: seeing that justice is served.
As is typical of Reynolds, the sci-fi is first rate. He also has a knack for instinctively recognizing that unique interaction of science and society and the likely results. At the heart, the tale is an exploration of the human struggle to evolve beyond mere biology with all the potential pitfalls clearly displayed. Finally, as usual John Lee performs outstandlingly; his range of voices are superb and he sets the right tenor to allow the tension to develop.
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75 people found this helpful
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- Tango
- 11-30-13
The Prefect is Perfect
Just coincidentally, I have recently listened to three sci-fi novels that all begin as police procedurals with law-enforcement agents investigating a localized crime that expands into a much more cosmic, universal mystery - The Prefect, The Great North Road, and Leviathan Wakes. The Prefect was by far the best of the three. Not only does The Prefect benefit from Reynold's elegant, evocative writing which is a cut above most other sci-fi writers, these are some of Reynold's best characters (primary protagonists and antagonists fleshed out with great back stories), the tightly woven plot is riveting with multiple twists, and the setting, The Glitter Band, is one of the coolest concepts from Revelation Space. Jon Lee does a bang-up job on this book - this is one where the Reynolds-Lee combo makes for a terrific audiobook. The Prefect will be an enjoyable listen for anyone who loves hard sci-fi even if you haven't read any of the Revelation Space trilogy, but if you have read the trilogy, the new stories of Philip Lascaille and Dan Sylveste in The Prefect will be extra fun.
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35 people found this helpful
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- Troy
- 05-04-12
OMG! Glad I gave it another try.
I had previously lemmed this book twice. I kept wanting to read it out of order; being a stand-alone book I thought that would not be a problem. I would get a few chapters in and I would give up because the character strings were too complicated for me to follow. When I picked it up this time, after having read all the previous books in his Revelation Space universe, I fell into it like a fish in water. This is my favorite of all his books. This is the first of his books I am rating with 5 stars. The writing is crisp, suspenseful and as always imaginative. What an incredible ride this book was. I loved it.
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31 people found this helpful
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Overall
- David Morgenstern
- 03-30-11
Excellent hard science crime fiction
This is a fun hard sci-fi story that is also an excellent crime novel. Yes, I admit that I am a fan of sci-fi/fantasy crossover crime stories. A sucker some might say. But this story offers way more than the usual fare. I really was sorry to come to the end of the story.
The Prefect presents plenty of terrific sci-fi society and sci-fi justice ideas, along with plot twists and cliff-hangers. Instead of a private eye, Reynolds presents a futuristic police procedural. The story isn't set on Earth but in a loose alliance of space habitats called the Glitter Belt.
Still, the main character is hard boiled and his backstory is revealed over the course of the novel. Artificial intelligences bad.
Narrator John Lee may be an acquired taste to some, bringing an astonishing range of British and European accents. The Glitter Belt in the far far future isn't speaking with an American accent.
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31 people found this helpful
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- wendy
- 08-30-11
Gripping and delightful
This is one of my favorite stories, and the audiobook version is fantastic. What a great trip to a new universe, to a totally new world that is so beautifully brought to life!
And the story can really stand up to the crazy environment it unfolds in... I found it gripping and was drawn in. I was really sad when it ended!
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18 people found this helpful
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- Jim "The Impatient"
- 04-28-12
Not to hard to follow
Some will rightly describe this as hard sci-fi, but if by hard you think that means hard to follow, don't worry. I am not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I was able to keep up with the story. There is a lot of tech in the story as it takes place way in the future, but it is all explained well and usually twice.
In the future there will be 10,000 man-made habitats orbiting a planet. In these habitats will be whatever a society wants. In one habitat over a million people live, but to save resources they are mostly heads living in a suitcase size box. In one state everyone is extremely wealthy, but too stay that way they have a lottery, in which the one chosen is slowly tortured. Movies of the torture are sold to other habitats. Some habitats want a totalitarian state. Most though live in some sort of virtual reality living out there fantasies. The habitats reminded me of an updated Philip Jose Farmer Terra Worlds (on steroids).
The Prefect's job is to keep any one habitat from interfering with any other habitats right to do there own thing. Even in a universe where you can chose from 10.000 different worlds to live in, someone always thinks they have better way to live and that their ways should be imposed on others.
The story kept my interest and there was certainly some interesting tech, but I was never really wowed and I thought 20 hours was too long. I have Revelation Space already in my queue, but after that I will probably not seek out this author.
John Lee has a very unique voice which always takes me a couple of hours to get used to. It distracts from the story. He has few voices. He gave the main character and the main bad guy the exact same voice and he does this with a few of the female characters, so at times there was a hesitation in my head on who was speaking, another distraction.
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16 people found this helpful
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- David
- 02-01-12
Nice blending of genres
This was my first Reynolds book; I'm sure it will not be my last. I was impressed by his ability to combine a well realized science fiction setting with the elements of a contemporary thriller while also incorporating some of the character building associated with our better mystery writers. The result was that, after a somewhat plodding opening, I was fairly riveted for the remainder of the twenty hours. I cared about the characters, even some of the minor ones; I was fascinated by the milieu, and I could relate to the impending catastrophe in a way which compelled my attention.
Along the way, the author also manages to raise questions about the nature of evil and the trade offs between liberty, security and well being, and he does it with a light touch, never resorting to tiresome polemics. Happily he also never provides easy answers.
Narrators are probably the aspect of Audible listening most captive to individual tastes. Many people loved John Lee's work on this book. I did not. For me, a five star narration is one which adds to the work the author has done, not only consistent with it but building upon it to add understanding and delight. Narration which is simply and artfully invisible, never drawing attention to itself but always offering clarity and accuracy, is worth four stars. Lee's flat, almost metallic tone occasionally irritated me, and I did sometimes have to wonder who was speaking--so three stars. Certainly not enough to keep me from listening to another Reynolds book even if he were the narrator.
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- Colin
- 09-24-11
A possible explanation for the melding plague?
Its Alastair Reynolds, and all his stuff is great for the most part, I like the way that Dreyfus has a Hyperpig as a partner or deputy Sparver is great and from listening to the other books he reminds me of Scorpio which is cool.
This is sorta a prequel to Chasm City because its before the Melding Plague, but this book was written after that book so if you like Reynolds stuff you probably already read that one - this is no problem because although this takes place before the Melding Plague its sorta a story of its own unlike the trilogy of Revelation Space, Redemption Ark, and Absolution Gap this book like Chasm City was a story that's just in the same universe as them, and Chasm City is the name of the city on the Planet or Moon named Yellowstone that the Glitter Band (latter re-named the rust belt) orbits a large gas giant with 10,000+ habitats.
The 10,000+ habitats are all self sufficient but all vote and that voting is policed by Panoply but they only insure fare voting, they dont care what else goes on inside the habitats - some are VT's or "Voluntarily Tyranny" where people actually want to be controlled, mostly this goes bad and there is nothing that can be done about it.
The good thing about this is that there are some technologies that are talked about in the other books but arent used anymore because of the Melding Plague, which is nice to see them used.
John Lee does a good job as usual but he really only has about 3-5 voices and mostly uses 2-3 of them at most - you have to get over this because its hard to follow because at times you can forget who is talking but thats OK because you figure it out pretty fast.
The end IMO hints at a possible explanation to the Melding Plague that is a large part of the other 4 books set in the universe, the Clockmaker and Aurora fighting it out, maybe after a time they combine forces and unwittingly create the Melding Plague?
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- Doug D. Eigsti
- 02-05-14
A Few Good Things
What is going on here? I don’t know if there is something wrong with me or that Alastair Reynolds is just a very inconsistent writer. I have truly enjoyed some parts of every one of his books, but, except for CHASM CITY, none has kept up the magic all the way through. His other works all seem to get bogged down with convoluted far-future concepts that are so far removed from actual human experience so as to be incomprehensible. You can listen to them just for those gems but there is a lot mush to slog through to get to those precious stones. I began listening to Alastair Reynolds based on the recommendation of several fellow listeners who had touted him as the modern-day master of Space Opera Science Fiction. They recommended the novel CHASM CITY as the best introduction to his Revelation Space series. And they were right. CHASM CITY is fantastic. It is the most accessible of all the novels in the series. It is the best written, has the best characters and the most fantastic “sense of wonder” technology of them all. I have now listened to, REVELATION SPACE, REDEMPTION ARK, ABSOLUTION GAP, and now THE PREFECT.. This novel THE PREFECT does have some nice blending of detective fiction with SF but is misses on so many levels. One of the prime characteristics of the Detective Fiction genre are the gritty hard-edged characters. Listening to this book actually affected my mood. My expectations were so high going in that I really needed this one to be great. After the wonderful introduction to Alastair Reynolds that I had with CHASM CITY; I hung in there through the three central novels of the series, and THE PREFECT, thinking that surely there would be a big, big payoff after so much SF world building background. I mean I hung in there for over 100 hours of John Lee whispering in my ear about indoctrinal viruses, Inhibitor genocide machines, processing Cathedrals, inertial inhibitors, Alternate Universes, longevity treatments, baseline humans, Conjoiner Ultras, Time Travel, Cryo-arithmetic engines, and talking pigs, and I wanted some reward. I got bupkis. I believe I can safely say that the best way to enjoy the Revelation Space series is to start by listening to CHASM CITY and then…stop.
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Overall
- Colin
- 08-28-11
Almost good but too predictable and small
While the story has the potential to be good, the writing is too "small." A story like this needs multiple storylines and the characters need to be adapted to their technology, The Prefect fell massively short it terms of breadth and depth of characters. It was almost like the characters were dropped from 1950's level of technological understanding into their space-faring society. We are supposed to believe that the technology to travel almost at the speed of light exists in this story but basic understanding of computing capabilities and AI's doesn't exist? Seems odd to me. Combined with a "To Be Continued" type ending, I can't recommend The Prefect.
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