Eversion

De: Alastair Reynolds

Narrado por: Harry Myers

From the master of the space opera comes a dark, mind-bending adventure spread across time and space, where Doctor Silas Coade is tasked with keeping his crew safe as they adventure across the galaxy in search of a mysterious artifact.

In the 1800s, a sailing ship crashes off the coast of Norway. In the 1900s, a Zepellin explores an icy canyon in Antarctica. In the far future, a spaceship sets out for an alien artifact. Each excursion goes horribly wrong. And on every journey, Dr. Silas Coade is the physician, but only Silas seems to realize that these events keep repeating themselves. And it's up to him to figure out why and how. And how to stop it all from happening again.

©2022 Alastair Reynolds (P)2022 Orbit

Time after time...

Alastair Reynolds' Eversion is a bit of a departure to his usual space opera extravaganzas. The tale narrator is a ship's surgeon (Silas) who is part of a quest for a mysterious 'edifice.' When the story opens, the 'ship' is an 18th century sailing vessel off the coast of Norway, but disaster strikes and the surgeon awakens to finds himself in the same position, on a steamship off Patagonia with similar results. Next is an airship heading to Antarctica. Each vignette repeats a similar pattern, but advances in time until finally he finds himself in our future out in space, but always in search of the 'edifice.' To say more would reveal too much, but a young mathematician part of the crew plays a central role in divining the 'everted' (the basis for the title) of the structure.

Reynolds offers rich and detailed descriptions of the state of art technology for each time period that is complimented with the surgeon also writing a fantasy tale that predicts future states. While Silas has his last hurrah in this tale, the nature of the edifice or its origins are never fully revealed suggesting the possibility of a future follow-up mission.

Narration is superb with excellent character distinction that is quite clear despite heavy accents. Pacing is smooth and brisk.

And I thought John Lee was the best

Harry Meyers has a voice like honied silk, and brings the mastery of Alastair Reynolds work to a new level. What a fabulous piece

Wow

This is a beautiful, brilliant book from start to finish. The performance was top notch, one of the best narrators I’ve heard. I found myself just sitting and listening to this book a lot because I didn’t want to miss a second of it. I wish it were longer!

Interesting genre time bending tale

Ultimately a story of what it is to be a person. Interesting way to mix sci-fi and historical storytelling. Narrator did a great job especially conveying main character’s conflicts. I do suggest patience because there is quite a bit of necessary repetition. I listened to this in half hour spurts going to and from work and that kept it fresh for me

Great!

This was really great. I recommend it to anyone interested in science fiction and historical fiction. 👍👍

Captivating story and great performance

Coming from Alastair Reynolds other work I really loved this little departure. Very much enjoyed the slow reveal of layers to the story. Characters were well written and felt a bit more meaty than earlier works. Maybe my favorite Alastair Reynolds piece so far.

Well-executed concept

This one grabbed me - I listened to the whole thing over 3 days, and stayed up much too late listening.

1899’s Heart of Darkness - Reimagined in space

A psychological, dark sci-fi plot with a very similar feel to Joseph Conrad’s controversial tale of colonization in Africa - Heart of Darkness p1899.

It challenges the reader with multiple overlapping tales and psychedelic type mind wandering.

A Beautiful Enigma.

I found this work to be frustrating, terrifying, and heartbreaking. In other words, it is a wonderful achievement. I never read the works of Mr. Reynolds prior to this novel, but I will certainly be reading His novels in the future.My congratulations to him upon a truly remarkable book, which I highly recommend to all friends of science fiction and historical fiction.

I also want to extend my congratulations to the voice actor for a truly masterful performance.

Maybe better read

First of all, this is the best narration I’ve heard out of hundreds of books. Every single character was distinct and recognizable. Incredible!
Now, it took me quite a long time to not be confused, and I’m able to follow some pretty crazy storylines. Maybe I didn’t do enough research on the story or maybe I just wasn’t paying close enough attention, but I would say this is probably better read than listened to to better keep up with the narrative. Great story, though!