The Terraformers

By: Annalee Newitz

Narrated by: Emily Lawrence

Length: 13 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

Long-listed, Library Journal Best Books of the Year, 2023

Long-listed, Barnes and Noble Best New Books of the Year 2023

This program includes original sound design.

From science fiction visionary Annalee Newitz comes The Terraformers, a sweeping, uplifting, and illuminating exploration of the future.

Destry's life is dedicated to terraforming Sask-E. As part of the Environmental Rescue Team, she cares for the planet and its burgeoning eco-systems as her parents and their parents did before her.

But the bright, clean future they're building comes under threat when Destry discovers a city full of people that shouldn’t exist, hidden inside a massive volcano.

As she uncovers more about their past, Destry begins to question the mission she's devoted her life to, and must make a choice that will reverberate through Sask-E's future for generations to come.

A science fiction epic for our times and a love letter to our future, The Terraformers will take you on a journey spanning thousands of years and exploring the triumphs, strife, and hope that find us wherever we make our home.

"Brilliantly thoughtful, prescient, and gripping.”—Martha Wells, The Murderbot Diaries

Also by Annalee Newitz

Autonomous

The Future of Another Timeline

A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Books.

©2023 Annalee Newitz (P)2023 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

"The Terraformers is so engaging, you could almost miss the pyrotechnic world-building and bone-deep intelligence. Newitz continues doing some of the best work in the field."—James S. A. Corey, author of the Expanse series

"Fascinating and readable in equal measure, The Terraformers will remake your mind like its cast remakes an entire planet."—John Scalzi, author of The Collapsing Empire

"Newitz performs a staggering feat of revolutionary imagination in this hopeful space-opera. . . . With the ethos of Becky Chambers and the gonzo imagination of Samuel R. Delany, plus a strong scientific basis in ecology and urban planning, this feels like a new frontier in science fiction."—Publishers Weekly, STARRED review

Not a fan of this book

Not a fan of this book and do not recommend to others. Three more words.

Had Promise; Failed to Deliver

the setting is incredibly interesting and the premise waa intriguing. However, the bizarre, oddly graphic inter-species sex scenes were thoroughly unnecessary, and the dialogue was a bit weak at times. The narrator was good, but the special effects were overdone and took me out of it.

The narrative was oddly constructed and seems to me like it should have been expanded to a trilogy to better resolve character arcs. There are two time jumps in the story that made following it difficult. This was only my experience though and other listeners who prefer more special effects, or robot-on-cat romance, might enjoy it.

Imaginative with unique perspectives

Definitely will be tied to the era in which it was written because of the use of language. Very creative with unique views, but I did struggle to finish it. At some places the pace picked up and I appreciated the struggles and fight of the oppressed to be liberated.

A solid 3/5. 1st third good the rest boring

The premise of the book is great, the world building and characters are interesting and plausible within the parameters of the story, the socioeconomic and political commentary is good. The book gets boring after the first third. It should have ended with Destry's story. It was really hard to finish after that. Also, the ending is anti climactic and reads as lazy writing. Finally, I am not interested in interspecies sex scenes. If I was I would read alien porn or similar.

Uneven and sort of preachy

The story seeks to have a grand sweep, covering three different eras separated by hundreds or thousands of years with three different sets of characters. I found the three parts of the story uneven. I enjoyed the third the most, which is why I finished the book.

The story and setting portray a world of galaxy-spanning corporations vying with eco-communes governed by direct democracy, and it presents the reader with a pretty good idea which one of those is better. But the story fails to grapple with its own morality. Massive crimes - like slavery, deliberate mental handicapping by genetic engineering, and two characters threatening to cause a disaster that could slaughter millions - pass by in a few pages each. I found that aspect jarring and the rest unnecessarily preachy.

Inanimate objects and rodents as people? Meh!

Inanimate objects and rodents as people? Meh! Sex between a robot and a cat? Why?? That train happens to be a living, biological, sentient, multi car passenger train that flies and plays video games. Weird!

This book was a recommendation via an interview with the author on an NPR Podcast I subscribe to. It was made to sound like a fresh angle on Climate change and mitigation from elements of the environment like the soil and trees and animals that are able to communicate their wishes needs and general health to the people in charge of the environment. This allowed them to maintain balance in the ecosystem...or at least to know that when there is lack of balance, that nobody could claim they didn't know. However, this story took a turn for the fantastical with the introduction of naked mole rats as engineers and scientists and intelligent earthworms, and actually living breathing intelligent passenger trains. If this were about a struggle between different bioengineered humanoid species on the needs and expectations of the populations vs the health of the ecosystem, kind of what I was led to believe this would be, it would have been a fascinating angle to take. As it is, I finished the book with an image of an adult version of Thomas the Tank Engine.

An uneven audio experience

The Terraformers was not as good as I hoped it would be. I found its premise intriguing - in the far far distant future , lifeless planets are terraformed by corporations to provide habitats for visiting outworlders who are promised pristine lands and beautiful cities. In order to create this, multiple life forms were created and given intelligence and bodies according to the needs of the corporation who owned the planet.
The basic conflict is between those who eventually settled on the planet (many in virtual servitude ) and the corporation leaders who supplied a preferred hominid shape from ancient earth DNA for a select few. This part I found interesting.
What was troublesome was the emphasis on the sex between trains, cats. humanoids etc and the annoying sound effects after a line of dialogue . The characters also often behaved in a playful way that conflicted with the seriousness of the plot.
Another issue I had with the novel itself is the tendency of the author to follow a character for a time and then jump to a much later year abandoning that character.
All in all, I stuck with the story to its predictable conclusion and felt that there were enough memorable moments to suggest that readers should listen/read The Terraformers and form their own judgement.

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Falls Flat

Fantastically interesting concept but falls flat as the story progresses in the second half. Definitely should have been fleshed out more in the second half or even segmented into two books to allow for as much story progression that occurred in the first half.

I Wanted to Like This

The premise was good - execution and story line just dragged along. Story arch was weak - uneven pace and disjointed across the board. Narration was a distraction with the sound effects.

(Eye Roll) … (Sigh)

I knew we were off to a bad start when the protagonist was riding a… talking moose. 59 THOUSAND YEARS into the future, and all we’ve managed to do is give animals sentience? Yawn.

If you like fantasy with a few robots, you’re in for a treat.

Gave up at 1.5 hours.