Arctic Rising

The premise and the setting were fascinating: UN Polar Guard airships over the now ice free areas above Canada. And the idea that there would still be smuggling and intrigue -of course, and with energy at the heart. But then both the technology and the plot went pretty far away from plausibility AND the characters felt like they were just speaking their lines. Couldn't finish it and didn't care too much how it ended. I DID like that the heroine is a Nigerian lesbian.

Thrillers aren't generally my bag, though I found a lot more to like, sf-wise, in Arctic Rising than in Neal Stephenson's ???Reamde???, another "sf/thriller" hybrid of recent memory. (This isn't a fault necessarily of ???Reamde???, it is after all set in a future as near as next year.) For ???Arctic Rising???, I very much enjoyed Smith's narration, my first experience with her as a narrator. She handled African and Afro-Caribbean accents well enough, along with a clear mainline narration, though her Russian accents left a little more to the imagination. Story-wise, an interesting and sophisticated near/medium future of a climate change with winners and losers is marred only a little by the incredulous parade of near-deaths and escapes which drive Anika to and fro. 3.5 to 4 stars, somewhere in there.

Buckell's story line holds your interest. The narration was not quite up to par. I would consider both author and narrator again.

Unfortunately had to give up listening after about hour in to the story, mostly due to narrators accent. She was constantly switching to some jamaican/south american pronunciations which was very hard to understand and more so was taking away from story, which seemed to be very plain.

This narrator would be excellent for children's books. I think this may have been a better listening experience if a person could tell if it was a serious story,..........or a child's fantasy book. Except for the swear words.

Not likely.

Only with a different narrator.

A tougher, more forceful voice to hopefully match the character better.

Any of the non-necessary non-action scenes could go.

Sadly, did not live up to the descriptions I read ... save your credit.

Not only is the book a GIANT propaganda rag, it is full of these weird utopian descriptions of the near future. Everyone uses airships ie blimps. Somehow there is this extremely rapid change in climate (not weather) that somehow makes everyone in the world live a better life because of ease of access to natural resoures and the use of an orbital mirror? As always I do NOT rate the narrarator. Its not the narrators fault the book is terrible and not the authors fault if the narrarator is poor. I knew up front, given the description that it would contain environmentalist wacko theme, BUT this includes weird economic theory mixed with a bizarre global political framework. Throw in a chase to find a nuclear warhead of course, because otherwise, this book has NO plot to speak of.

I had heard a review of Arctic Rising, and liked the idea of a suspense novel combating eco-terrorism in the newly ice-free Arctic. Set in the near future, it has a few new technologies, but is more a chase book than sci-fi. I wanted to like the book. Instead, I couldn't make myself finish it, which is pretty unusual for me. If a reader cannot truly master accents, she should just read the story straight. I spent the first few pages wondering where in the world the main character was from-- Japan? England? Africa? It was soon revealed that she was from Nigeria-- this worked some of the time-- again it would have been better read without the attempt. Her other female characters generally sounded like "Valley Girls" who one suspected were chewing gum at the same time and ready to say "ya know?" Other voices were inconsistent, making it hard to figure out who was talking.

In fairness, the story wasn't that great either. Meandered all over, a lot of talk, talk, talk. Wished I'd given it a pass.

Yes, use another narrator.

Yes. Once I got past the annoying narration, the story and concepts he introduced were very intriguing

Not unless there is absolutely no other choice and I REALLY wanted to listen to the book.

No.

The narrator used voices and inflections that were way out of character for the story. It's a valley girl doing science fiction OMG!

Get the book and do you own narration in you head.

The characters weren't differentiated enough to follow who was talking.

Disappointment. Good story, to a point.

The story was interesting but lacked plausibility at time ..... a missile held upright with ropes?