2312

The story intrigued me. I love far future, hard science stories. In fact, I will be buying this book for my ereader. However, I couldn't make it past 30 min of this audiobook.

Yes, I love far future and hard science, scifi.

I'm sure Sarah Zimmerman is a wonderful person but I can't listen to her narrate. Her delivery is monotone and there is something about the cadence of her speech that makes it difficult to tell when one person stops speaking and another starts. I couldn't get into the story because I was too distracted by her narration. Sorry but that's my opinion.

Disappointment with the narration. I couldn't listen to more than 30 mins.

REVIEW OF THE STORY

Kim Stanley Robinson has a pretty narrow audience. Are you in that audience? Did you like the Mars trilogy? Are you a hobbyist geologist/astronomer/physicist/chemist/engineer/biologist/ecologist/mathematician/programmer/etc? Or - better still - are you a professional in any of these fields? Yes? Then you'll be happy to know that 2312 is exactly what you expect: it's more of KSR doing what he does, and doing it well. So, grab your pocket protector and your graphing calculator, and run - don't walk - down to your local bookstore and buy a physical copy of the book and read it; you're going to love it. But, beware: do not buy the audiobook. Why? Well, I'm glad you asked...


REVIEW OF THE NARRATION

This audiobook represents the absolute worst narration of any story I've ever heard, in any genre, anywhere, anytime, ever. No, I'm not being hyperbolic; it really was *that bad*. Sarah Zimmerman does not have an unpleasant voice, but the way it is delivered in this book is absolutely..."unlistenable."

For starters, Ms. Zimmerman's delivery is remarkably monotone; no matter what she's reading, it all sounds the same. Interpersonal dialog? Omniscient narrator's perspective? Supplemental lists and excerpts academic information supplemental to the story? Yep; it all sounds identical. Similarly, there is almost no attempt at voice characterization. There is a brief moment towards the middle of the book where one of the characters (Inspector Jean Genette, a flesh-and-blood person) starts to speak in a monotone drone that is slightly reminiscent of the stereotypical 1950s sci-fi robot voice meme, but that's about it. But that's not the worst part. What truly ruins the whole production is the fact that the cadence of Ms. Zimmerman's narration (or, rather, lack thereof) appears to completely disregard punctuation. What do I mean? Well...

Imagine. A, book where the punctuation, is completely random without following. Any conventional. Rules of phrasing or -- voice or -- timing or meter or anything that gives. The language it musicality its, flow its inflection its, meter. Imagine. Trying to, understand, a, text that is narrated. In, a manner that seems to, be. Written the same, way, I have written. This paragraph.

....Yeah. Like that. Now, admittedly, the above paragraph was a bit of an exaggeration for the purpose illustrating the point. But here's the thing: sadly, it wasn't *that* hyperbolic.

Now, take that chaotic, unstructured narration, add a monotone voice, and a total lack of voice characterization, and what you get is a story that takes real, conscious effort to follow. I can imagine this would be particularly difficult for people who don't have at least a passing familiarity with the scientific/engineering topics presented therein. I will admit that I *eventually* got used to it, but it tool over 12 hours of narration before I could stop skipping back to hear passages again in order to comprehend them. In fact, it was so bad, for the first five or six hours of the book, I could only listen to 30 minutes at a stretch before I had to take a break. With most audiobooks, I can - and have! - listened for hours and hours on end.

I have one final complaint about the narration -- and this may be a nitpick, but... If a person is going to narrate a book written by someone who ranks among the "hardest" of the hard science fiction authors - a book where science *is* the main character - then one should probably know how to properly pronounce words like "coronal" (as in, coronal mass ejection), or "teleological." And Ms. Zimmerman doesn't.

While it's surprising that such a poor quality product (the audio rendering of KSR's book) would be available from a respected publisher, it's downright incomprehensible when one considers that Sarah Zimmerman is just one person in a group of people involved in its creation. In addition to the narrator, there's also a producer, a director, an editor (or two), engineers...and NONE of these people said, somewhere along the line, "Hey, you know, this doesn't sound so good...?" Really? Really?!


THE BOTTOM LINE

If you like this author's other work, if you're a sci-fi fan with a truly nerdly bent, 2312 might be right up your alley. But get a *physical copy* to read the good 'ol fashioned way, because the audio rendering of this work is so amazingly bad, it detracts and distracts from the content of the story itself. Save your money; this audiobook isn't even worth the paper it's printed on.

No on both. Robinson must have been paid by the word, and I found myself skipping (2x speed) over most of them.

Ms Zimmerman's narration was barely tolerable. I listened to the book at 1.5x speed (with bursts of 2x and 3x).

Robert Charles Wilson

Not before listening to a sampling.

Robinson seemed to have researched his material (terraforming and climate change). But he wrapped those topics in a long story with a small plot.

I have read science fiction for over 40 years (Asimov, Heinlein, Herbert, Neal Stephenson, Jim McDevitt, Robert Charles Wilson) . This is one of the 3 or 4 books during that time that I could not complete. I had had Mr Robinson on my reading list for some time. He is no longer on it. This is just my view and personal preference, and I wish Mr Robinson every success with his audience.

As a huge fan of The Mars Trilogy, I was very excited to find out this book takes place in the same universe, so to speak. The sample first chapter really caught my interest, as it takes place on Terminator, Mercury--the city where one of the most memorable scenes in Blue Mars takes place. But in the end, the book did not captivate me even remotely as much as those previous books.

Partly it may be because of erroneous expectation on my part--I expected another epic story with complex multiple characters. 2312, instead of being a multiple protagonist story, is focused mainly on one character, Swan Er Hong. And therein lies the first problem: she's just not very interesting. In the Mars Trilogy, Robinson created some smashing female characters, very complex, very flawed. Swan is no comparison to Nadia, Maya, Hiroko, Anne, Jackie and Zo. Instead of being complex and flawed, she comes off as a bit of a pill.

The other characters are also not very interesting. Supposedly, there's a love story here, but it didn't resonate with me.

The tone of 2312 is far more pessimistic than the Mars Trilogy, perhaps because we're living in a more pessimistic time than when the Mars Trilogy was written. The story is not entirely hopeless, but it's still kind of a drag to think that even 300 years into the future, Terrans will be just as short-sighted as many are now. Especially since Blue Mars left us with a more hopeful vision of the future.

As usual, Robinson includes a ton of science that is very interesting, but without amazing characters and story, it comes off as very dry. There are some amazing moments, such as the description of Manhattan post-flood, and the reintroduction on Earth of extinct animals that have been bred in space. However, for the most part, it is a bit of a slog.

The performance is adequate (she's at least a better reader than the fellow who narrates the Mars Trilogy) but nothing special.

I had some expectations for this book, but .....
I think that all possible factors agreed to combine and create the worst book I read this year.

Readers who love super hard core science fiction.

Something science fiction.

No.

Yes. It was interesting but dragged on and on about subtle things about the main character that I just did not find interesting.

If you like hard core sci-fi that's ponderous and has a lot of techno babble this is your book.

No plot, no story

Not if I had to pay for it. Now that I think about it not even for free.

anybody says this was great read, well (a case of the kings cloths)

All

The author made the population of the other planets seem real, as well as the tension between Earth and the other worlds and their differences in economic situations

I didn't like the main character, but she's damaged and has ADHD as well as many other mental problems, which doesn't fully come out until late in the book. Yet, all the contracting characters and locations are wonderfully brought to life.

I never thought I would ever say a book is too descriptive. The story just gets lost in the ongoing descriptions of the planets, the characters weird life, and biology. In the middle the story diverts to Earth and it lends nothing to the main story line. The ending was so dull I practically fell asleep during it.

2312 ranks below average among the audiobooks I have listened to so far. Robinson spends to much time describing the scenery and not enough time developing the plot and the characters.

I probably would recommend other audio books before recommending this one, but I would add that the descriptions of the locations off-world were vivid and captivating.

Zimmerman worked relatively well with the dialogue but became somewhat monotonous with the rambling descriptions.

I became bored at times and had to fight the temptation to skip ahead.

The story failed to deliver what the promotion promised.