Star Flight

By: Andre Norton

Narrated by: Ryan Burke

Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's summary

Unknown worlds - unknown dangers

The Stars Are Ours: Dard Nordis is a hunted man. His brother was murdered for covert activities as a scientist in a world in which scientists and engineers are blamed for the global war that smashed civilization. The global dictatorship of Pax has ordered their execution. Now he is on the run, trying to find the secret stronghold of his brother's friends and colleagues - a hidden place where the few remaining scientists are desperately building a spaceship to escape to the stars.

Star Born: Centuries after the desperate flight from Earth, Pax has been overthrown and humanity again reaches for the stars. Rof Kurbi's spaceship reaches the planet Astra, but he and the crew do not know that the planet already has a colony established centuries ago by the fugitive humans from Earth. Nor do they know that the apparently friendly natives of the planet are actually the malevolent remnants of a corrupt civilization that all but destroyed itself millennia ago - and that they are plotting to eliminate all humans from Astra, both the recent arrivals and the star born colonists.

©1954 The World Publishing Company (The Stars Are Ours); copyright 1957 by The World Publishing Company (Star Born) (P)2021 Tantor

Good 50s SF

This story is clearly the result of the 50s fear of both nuclear war and autocratic regimes. Both humans and the ETs have had a bad history in this regard. A small band of scientists takes off to the stars to find a different life but find the same old problems on a new world.

Nice voice and character distinction, but…

Why does no one spend time with the narrators of audio books to discuss pronunciation?

It’s not a Visa screen, like the credit card, it’s a visa screen like vision.

The job title is not “Mě dí co” it’s Medico like Medic.

I don’t blame the narrator totally, some research or confirmation would help though, but I place most of the blame on whomever is behind the book being recorded.

This gentleman has a pleasant expressive voice and does a good job of distinguishing between characters. And because of that I just went back and changed my 3 to a 4 for performance.

And I know part of my frustration is that Andre Norton is one of my favorite authors.

With that being said, it’s nice to hear these books read together since they are a series. Having grown up in the 1950’s, the first book was printed in 1954, she brings out all of the fear of that time period. In her story, the problem is Pax, the ruling body. At the time it was doing bomb drills in elementary school because the fear of the atom bomb was so great.

So the thought of escaping in desperation and starting a new life on another planet was appealing. A simpler life. Even today with all of the stress and complications in our world, it’s appealing to think of escaping to a simpler life.

I hope you enjoy this even half as much as I did.

A Great Classic

Norton was my 1st experience in Science Fiction.
This was stand out story on the 1950s so it take a bit of intelligence and experience to weave through the lingua of the time.
A good story.

Tedious

Narrator was competent, story plot was slow and simplistic, but the English was awful. Her scanty use of contractions made both the narration and dialogue seem unnatural. But for some reason, she had no problem using uncommon or archaic contractions like ‘daren’t’ (which she used twice before I couldn’t take any more and gave up)