A World Out of Time

The first chapter of this book was a short story called Rammer. It was an excellent story and I would give 5 stars to it alone.

The rest of the book deviates from the first chapter in content, style and imagination. Niven has a great imagination as demonstrated in his books, Ringworld, Protector, The Integral Trees and Limits. The second half of this book sounds as if it was written by Philip Jose Farmer.

The question: Do you know how people get old? is asked a couple of times. For me it was listening to the second half of this book.

A better narrator would have gotten it to at least a 3 star review. I don't think there is anything that could have me commit to a 4 star or higher though.

It depends on the friend. If it were a friend that enjoys wildly imaginative worlds and characters and philosophies, I probably would recommend this one. A friend that enjoys a more structured story with character depth I would advise to skip it.

He had a repetitive tone. I have listened to narrators before that had inflection and feeling to their reading based on the situation. I never found that here. It even took me out of the story sometimes as I was listening to the same sentence pattern after same sentence pattern. I would just listen to the da da da da daaa. It varied of course based on sentence length obviously, but was clearly evident.

I should clarify that it wasn't horrible. I have listened to many worse narrators. It was just monotonous for long stretches which is not suitable to my attention span.

Sadly, no reaction.

This was my 2nd Niven book; my 1st being Ringworld. If you are a fan of the Larry Niven style and imagination I do think you will enjoy this book regardless of narration. Had I not known it was the same author as Ringworld, I would have noticed the similarity in styles. That said, however, Ringworld was a much better book and while it may not be fair to compare this book to one as acclaimed as that, you should at least be cognizant so as to have lessened expectations.

I actually loved that this wasn't just a time travel book. There is a good chunk of it that takes place in interstellar space. That learning is done by memory shots. That even in millions of years cars will still be an accepted form of transportation. I love Peerssa for some reason. I love the cat tails. I loved that despite this book being written in the 70s, it is still a brilliant piece of fiction.

I have only listened to 3 other time travel books, "The Time Travelers Wife", and "Times Eye", both of which are nothing like this book. If I had to make a comparison to anything, it would be the Blockbuster movie, "The Time Machine".

Everything, every voice was distinct and separate. Mirelly-Lyra even had that old crony sound. Tom was awesome!

I didn't laugh or cry but I had an acute interest in getting to the next chapter.

Got to ask yourself...would you ever take a one way trip 3 million years into the future?

I enjoyed the ideas of what the future may hold. I felt that it lagged in the middle.

I don't know if it's the sort of book you could change much.

Jaybee Corbell

Ummm nope.

This book struck me as something to listen to if you're in the mood for some Larry Niven. It pretty solidly delivers on that, albeit not exceptionally so.

Semi-thought provoking, but feels rather dated (anything more recent that concerns life extension always seems to trot out telomeres, and this doesn't). Doesn't detract at all from the story, though.

I wouldn't mind some sort of sequel, which is to say that it seems to leave itself open to one, but I honestly don't know Nivens' bibliography well enough to say whether there is one.

The narrator is the same who's narrated the last few Niven books I've listened to. Does a decent job, and has more or less taken up residence in my mind as the "Voice of Nivens."

the story concludes with Ross and Ash still together on yet a new mission in space and time. Well written and the narrator was fair. short and fun listen.

This is my third Niven book and I just can't get enough. My favorite book so far as been Ringworld but I also found this one to be very interesting. It involves plenty of space travel, some AI, and plenty of dystopia. I loved how the novel technically takes place over a huge time period because the main character goes into cryo so often. This book encompasses so many theories of how the world could go in the future: What if girls ruled the sky and boys ruled the earth? What if adults were just used to make children? What if there was immortality? What if you could move planets? Plus there's a whole Les Mis kinda part where a government official is obsessed with bringing to justice the main character. Lots of action and plenty of interesting science.

This is a very well written and very well narrated book. All I will say is that I'm glad I'm NOT the guy in this book! lol

Imagine waking up in someone else s body and being told that you have no value other than the function you can perform for the US Government, the state. This job opportunity will give you a chance to travel through space and live an extended life. And should you succeed and return, we will give you your freedom. Wink! Wink!

While most of us don't face this exact challenge, the repercussions of meeting the challenge are all to familiar. Don't do the job and face starvation. Don't do the job and face eviction, Do the job and hope you receive your reward. But is there another option other than doing the job or not doing the job.

In this galactic tale Jaybee Corbell gets to see more than any human alive because he stood up for himself. He got to stand up for humanity because he stood up for himself. He gets to do this because he seems to constantly evaluate his position and knows when to make a move.

I really enjoyed this story. Larry Niven made Jaybee Corbell interesting and someone that most people can relate to. Then Tom Weiner gave an outstanding performance giving him life. Tom's voice was a little rough for some of the female voices but there was enough distinction between them that that you can listen to the cadence of the voice and know which character was speaking.

Overall this is a great listen! Check it out!

The narrator was mono-toned and the story was boring. The characters change names and come to crazy conclusions.

maybe

Yes