The Original

De: Brandon Sanderson, Mary Robinette Kowal

Narrado por: Julia Whelan

Duración: 3 h y 25 m

Resumen del Editor

Hugo Award-winning authors Brandon Sanderson and Mary Robinette Kowal team up in this exclusive audio-first production of The Original, a sci-fi thriller set in a world where one woman fights to know her true identity and survive the forces that threaten her very existence. 

In the near future, humans choose life - for a price. Injectable nanite technology is the lifeblood that flows through every individual wishing to experience the world through the lens of their own theme. While death from mortal wounds is still possible, life is made easier in a socially liberated society where automation and income equality allow passion pursuits to flourish over traditional work. Renewal stations are provided to every law-abiding citizen for weekly check-ins, which issue life-sustaining repairs in exchange for personal privacy. But what becomes of those who check out, of those who dare to resist immortality and risk being edited under the gaze of an identity-extracting government surveillance system? 

When Holly Winseed wakes up in a hospital room, her memory compromised and a new identity imposed on her, a team of government agents wastes no time stating their objective. With intent to infiltrate and defeat the terrorist group ICON, the agents tell Holly that she is now a Provisional Replica and has one week to hunt down and kill her Original for the murder of her husband, Jonathan. If she succeeds, she’ll assume her Original’s place in society. If she fails, her life will end. Holly’s progress is monitored by an assigned contact that feeds her information as she confronts the blank, robotic world around her, discovering that others view life through the theme of their own choosing. 

With her newly implanted combat and deduction skills, Holly fends off both attacks by terrorists and doubts about her own trustworthiness as clues lead her to her Original - and to the truth about Jonathan. In the end, one body remains and one walks away. Although questions persist, one thing is certain: Life will never be the same. 

©2020 Dragonsteel Entertainment and Mary Robinette Kowal (P)2020 Mainframe, LLC

Ohhhh Man!

Ohhhh Man! Do you know what happens when two of my favorite authors collaborate? You get, an Effing-Great Book! You get a mystery, the likes of which I've never read before... eerie and haunting, with so much pathos that it'll cut you to your soul!
Julia Whelan's gifted narration was simply wonderful, perfectly setting the stage for us as she wound through the landscape of Holly's life, in the telling of  this story!
Needless to say, even though it's short (only 3.5 hrs), it's one of my most favorite books written this year! So if you like good mysteries that can effortlessly step across genre boundaries, you'll want to tuck this little beauty into your library! 

great short story

i loved it, this is a great short story. it is one of my favorites

a great detective story

I really enjoyed this audio book. It almost seems like a prequal to a detective series.

Fantastic b SciFi premise! Psychological at end

fantastically original sci-fi premise that askd some deep questions a little more profanity than expected from Sanderson but no more than average

Series

I hope this becomes a series. Julia Whelan did a wonderful job narrating and I can't wait to see who gets carved next

Slower than I'd like but a strong finish

Slower than I'd like, especially compared to most of the rest of Sanderson's works, but it had a strong finish that I enjoyed. I'm torn between wanting it to have been longer for more plot development, but on the other hand the 3 hours really seemed slow even for this type of a neo-noir style story.

The concept was really cool but the middle the weakest in my opinion unlike Emperors Soul or Secret History but then again perhaps the bar has been set too high and skewed my outlook.

6/10

Definitely Worth Reading

Great short story and well performed. It's a short read and I genuinely enjoyed it. The ending is good, although I did not find it as wholey sasifying as most of Brandon's other works.

Delightful

It's definitely not a big, genre-shattering, majestic work of incomparable art. it's a good entry into the "enhanced human seeks justice/love/criminals/revenge/answers/self acceptance in the future" genre of cyberpunk. It's not highly likely to blow your mind, though there were some neat twists that I didn't see coming.

for me, for what I was looking for, it was PERFECT. Better than I'd anticipated. I enjoyed the background noises and music and such, the narrator was someone I've heard before and enjoyed this time as well, and it was honestly over a little too soon for me.

it might not have stunned me with novelty or innovation, it isn't my new favorite novel of all time, I'm not foaming at the mouth for a sequel (a sequel wouldn't really fit with the ending, in fact) but it's definitely what I wanted.

Very Enjoyable Throughout

I enjoyed the concept here of Holly consistently trying to put the pieces together and figure out her own story. The music and effects you get in the background are done in a way that enhances the story (gentle heartbeat to convey the intensity or music when inside a club). Julia Whelan is pleasant to listen to and her subtle changes in voice are quite skilled. Her version of some of the male characters is a touch off, but nothing distracting or annoying (you can only expect so much from a single performer, right?)
There are a lot of concepts here that lead your mind to question "what is real" or "what makes a thing real" and I very much enjoyed those underlying themes as well. This mixed with the mystery and action interspersed not only kept me interested, but also had me talking about it the whole way through. I did like the twist ending and the remaining questions for you to conjure up your own version. I see in other reviews that some did not like that, or the potential misgendering of a stranger. That didn't phase me at all, either.
Overall, very good story, read by an enjoyable and interesting performer with a great set of sound effects to enhance the experience.

Out of this world for me

I so enjoyed the twists and the suspicion of the future. The reader was perfect for this with her calm stoic voice. The music did help set the scene.