Tau Zero

By: Poul Anderson

Narrated by: Neil Hellegers

Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins

Publisher's summary

This science fiction novel describes the epic voyage of the spacecraft Leonora Christine, which will take a 40-strong crew to a planet some 30 light years distant.

From practically the very first minute, Tau Zero sets scientific realities in dramatic tension with the very real emotional and psychological states of the travelers, exploring the effect of time contraction due to traveling at near-light speed on the human psyche. This tension is a dynamic that Anderson explores with great success over the course of the novel, as 50 crewmembers settle in for the long journey together. While they are a highly trained team of scientists and researchers and therefore professionals, they are also a community of individuals, each of them trying to create for him or herself a life in a whole new space - or, literally, in space.

It isn't long, however, before the voyage takes a turn for the worse. The ship passes through a small, uncharted nebula that makes it impossible to decelerate the ship. Their only hope is to do the opposite and speed up. But acceleration towards and within the speed of light means that time outside the spaceship passes even more rapidly, sending the crew deeper into space and further into an unknown future.

©2016 Poul Anderson (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Nice story, poor telling

The story was interesting, looking continuously at the effects of long-term high speed travel, from physics and psychology perspectives. However the readers method is so staccato and compressed, it is not relaxing and does not flow smoothly. The result is that sounds angry and ultraintense.

Brilliantly envisioned

Brilliant story. One of my favorite story of all time. I was sceptical about the narrator in the beginning, but as the story drew on I think he did a very good job. I cannot recommend enough.

A classic Sci-Fi

Story was very good, but the narrator was stilted, overly dramatoc, and ruined the flow of the story.

Mind blowing story

Had a hard time understanding narrator . Story was excellent, though. Made a difficult subject easy to understand.

Enjoyed book but not narrator

The narrator speaks in an odd tone, jumpy, and too fast to catch story details. While I somewhat became used to it, I found myself concentrating on understanding the narrators words instead of the underlying story.

Breathless, but not in a good way

I was actually referred to this book by a reference in Michio Kaku's Parallel Worlds. I love this story, but the narrator had a very distracting mannerism of ending every single sentence breathlessness. He reminded me of the way Orson Welles talked. The book as a whole is still worth 5 stars though, which says something about how interesting the concepts discussed were.

Once more with feeling

A unique plot based off relativity with interesting consequences. The cosmology is dated, of course (published 1970), but not terribly so. A Poul Anderson novel I’d never read and therefore read with great anticipation. Glad I stuck it out despite a disappointing performance - a rough baritone voice with little dynamic range in pitch or emotion, very off-putting.

Great story and Narration

What an amazing scifi story. The technical details were great. Narration was great for the tense parts.

I like the concept behind the story.

A true classic. I heard the book referenced in another audio book and had to check it out. Great story but narration a bit dry.

abysmal performance

do you know those b-movie scenes where one of the main characters lies dying after barely escaping from an exploding building or ship and with his very last breaths reveals some story changing secret? "the secret..... code.... is hidden.... beyond... the....". 7 hours of that.