Bowl of Heaven

Maybe someone who lives in the future who already can read whatever the rest of the books in this series will be... but even then I wouldn't recommend it.

If they made anything at all happen in the book at all... also they could have finished the book in some way.

I usually don't pick books based on the narrator... but I think I would avoid this one. The voices for characters are either dull and monotone or an annoying stereotypical nerdy voice.

All of them... or none of them... it doesn't really matter none of them had any reasonable personality to them.

I was relatively enjoying myself with this book up until about the midway point.I decide that if the story picks up a bit it will likely be an interesting story... however instead of picking up it just switches back and forth between the two groups of humans and tells the same story from slightly different angles over and over for 6 hours.

Some reviewers are saying this book ends with a cliffhanger... which really isn't true... it simply ends without any rhyme or reason. It is like they ripped a full book arbitrarily in half and decided to just publish that.

This could very likely be the worst book I have gotten from Audible in the 5 years I have been a member.

Someone who hasn't read Ringworld. This is a slight variant on the Ringworld, and most of the interesting issues about the big artifact are the same ones dealt with, much better, in that book.

The aliens here are new, and it looks like there might be interesting issues with them, but the book ends in the middle of the story before any of that gets going.

If you haven't read Ringworld, listen to that book instead of this one.

Put a whole story into this book, or provided some kind of resolution or payoff at the end of it. Or at least labelled this as only part of a story, so I would have known to avoid it. This is not the first book in a trilogy, because it is not a complete book in any sense. It ends at a seemingly random, insignificant point in the plot.

Niven and Benford, individually, are much better than this. Listen to just about any other of their books, but skip this one.

I am not inclined to

Again, not inclined

Not one but the performance is not the issue, the very weak, uninteresting and inconsistent characters are. Their contributions to the story are shallow and they resort to cheap antics (like "relief sex") where there's really no justification in the background story for it.

The fundamental idea of an inhabitable half dyson sphere with a surface equivalent to several large planets is tantalizing, to say the least. It is however very weakly explored and just focuses on a largely uninteresting Logan's run

What the heck? Just when the story looks like it just might be going somewhere - BOOM! - it ends. If these guys were planning on writing a trilogy or something, they should at least let the reader know ahead of time because the story ending in the middle of nowhere is a HUGE disappointment.

Don't waste your money...

Story was not at the same level as Ring World and ended without warning while not finishing any of the story lines. I wish I had known this was a part one of a series. I will not buy the next installment if it ever comes out.

Finished the stories

Ok, not great

You could cut any, it would not have changed anything.

serious waste of my money

Starts off pretty good, then turns into a long drawn out story that leaves you waiting for something to happen.
Once something starts to build the book just ends, leaving you hanging and wondering why you bothered suffering through the slow drawn out survival story that occupies most of the story.
Even if a second book is released, I wouldn't bother.

have an aim for so there is something to build up to

Did pretty good job of a long drawn out story

Lacking in direction and no ending.

Resolving the plots, the mysteries, the conflicts, the story, the character development -- anything at all -- before just ending the book in the middle of everything. At the end, it was obvious that the publisher wanted the reader to buy another book whenever it comes out, but I will not and I do not recommend that anyone else do so. The story line was repetitive and predictable. Also, the discourse among the characters and within the minds of the characters was elementary. It was extremely disappointing.

maybe, not likely

no

maybe

no

Terrible ending. No resolution. Could use another 6 hours to wrap it up.

The imagined odd arrangement of the Dyson Hemisphere was about as bad an idea as the 2D genetically confused and manipulated polychromatic Big-Bird Wanna-inhabitants. Genius of Ring-World was that the engineering problem solved was inadequate land reachable given C speed limit, limitless time and smarts, and 1 solar system mass equivalent.

They should have storyboarded a plot rather than just waiting for the editors to blow the whistle and say OK qut and onto the next project.

Maybe this is one of those books that is better to read than listen to! I could not even finish the book! In my opinion save your credit for something better, I wish I had! I am going to ask for a refund!