Voice of the Whirlwind Audiobook By Walter Jon Williams cover art

Voice of the Whirlwind

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Voice of the Whirlwind

By: Walter Jon Williams
Narrated by: Don Leslie
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Steward is a clone, a beta. His memories are 15 years old, because his alpha never did have a brain-scan update.

In those 15 years, the entire world has changed. An alien race known as The Powers has established relations with humanity, and the Orbital Policorp which held his allegiance has collapsed. He fought and survived the off-world Artifacts War, but dozens of his friends did not. Both his first and second wives have divorced him. And, more importantly, someone has murdered him, causing the activation of the beta back-up.

Now Steward must probe into the horrors of the war, its politics and betrayals, to find out who wanted him dead - if he doesn't want to die again.

©2007 Night Shade Books (P)2008 Blackstone Audio, Inc. Adventure Cyberpunk Fantasy Fiction Science Fiction War

Critic reviews

"Slick and intelligent entertainment. The tension remains high throughout. A taut, satisfying tale of space-age skullduggery." (San Francisco Chronicle)
"Resonances of Vietnam-era moral concerns make this deft updating of the postWorld War II genre of psychological thrillers about amnesiacs one of the best of its kind." (Publishers Weekly)
Fascinating Worldbuilding • Thrilling Plot • Excellent Narrator • Compelling Protagonist • Intellectual Consistency

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Billed as a sequel to Hardwired, but the stories don’t have anything to do with each other. Presumably much later.

I loved the idea of mankind’s outward expansion into space being stunted by a failure of ideas and ideologies rather than technological limitations - all the tech in the world won’t help a soulless society.

The Zen-Detective angle was a good idea, but I felt like the mystery needed more clues and less explanation. Still, a good scifi yarn.

Strong concept, needed tightening up

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The pay phone was the internet in this world that was so cool….many won’t understand. The ‘80s beat any other decade in futuremagination IMO.

Looking at a future then ..quite cool.

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I hadn't heard of Walter Jon Williams before but now, after listening to Hardwired and this book, I need to check out more of his stuff! Really well-written, gritty stuff. The premise of a man trying to solve his own murder may not be TOTALLY unique, but I'm willing to bet it's at the rarer end of the scale. Also the alien race is pretty unique-sounding.

While the story is top notch, the narrator makes it shine even more. I remember wondering about his voice on Hardwired, it sounded... weird somehow. Well, it still does occasionslly, but it's the good kind of weird. Sometimes he sounds like Duke Nukem (I'm not even kidding) and sometimes like Ian McShane of all people. Gotta say, I'm pretty envious of that. The downside of that voice is that it makes the female characters sound a bit goofy, but it in no way distracted me.

Excellent stuff all around.

Really loved this!

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Walter Jon Williams was one of the best authors of the cyberpunk genre. This is an excellent story and as with most cyber punk it is more focused on the story and the world with seriously flawed, often tragic characters. This novel has a lot of attitude and action.

The only down side is that the voice of the narrarator didn't match what I envisioned for the main character, but that is a personal choice. The narrarator took some getting used to but once I did I enjoyed the audiobook, although I have to admit I think I enjoyed reading it a little bit more. it is still worth a credit if you like this type of book.

Really good cyberpunk

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Low cost audible, didn't expect much. Very drawn into the book quickly Twist ,turns, plot was very creative. Narrator was excellent, nuanced each character, I highly recommend this book. Spy, revenge, love, story of many interesting characters.

Surprisingly excellent

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