Ark

Forward

By: Veronica Roth

Narrated by: Evan Rachel Wood

Length: 1 hr and 22 mins

Publisher's Summary

Audible narration by Evan Rachel Wood (Westworld)

On the eve of Earth’s destruction, a young scientist discovers something too precious to lose, in a story of cataclysm and hope by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Divergent trilogy.

It’s only two weeks before an asteroid turns home to dust. Though most of Earth has already been evacuated, it’s Samantha’s job to catalog plant samples for the survivors’ unknowable journey beyond. Preparing to stay behind and watch the world end, she makes a final human connection.

As certain doom hurtles nearer, the unexpected and beautiful potential for the future begins to flower.

Veronica Roth’s Ark is part of Forward, a collection of six stories of the near and far future from out-of-this-world authors. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single thought-provoking sitting.

©2019 Veronica Roth (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Critic Reviews

"Narrator Evan Rachel Wood portrays Samantha in a soft, resigned tone that fits a story in which humanity has already been through the painful grieving process and has settled into a somber acceptance of its fate...it’s the gentle emphasis Wood gives to the connections between humans that makes this audiobook such a compelling listen." --AudioFile magazine

"…A sensational project...." --Spine Magazine

“This is exactly how I like my techno-anxiety.... Happy bingeing!” --Audible, an October Editors Pick 

Couldn’t Finish

Slow and boring! The narrator’s voice was so slow it could have put me to sleep. With 20 minutes left, I was so irritated I just abandoned it. I don’t know how it ends, and I really don’t care! Hoping the others in this series are better than this one.....😴😑

OMG let me save you an hour of your life

this is not a spoiler because this story is horrible.

it's the end of the world and humanity has evacuated to another planet at the last minute someone discovers a new flower the end.

how does garbage like this get curated? is it the idea of curating to select good stories for a collection? dammit?

boring

Unfortunately it was a snore fest.
However if you'd like a nap I recommend this.
Bye bye

Good, but nothing special

I enjoyed listening to this book. I especially recommend it to anyone who is interested in flowers. the narrative was pleasant, but there was little driving the plot forward. I would be interested to explore other books by this author.

Powerful in the Moment Story

Those last few minutes of earth observed by scientists whose senses are heighten by knowing this may be the last time.....

borrrrring!

I read the other books in this series this one was especially boring and really not very exciting to listen to do if I heard it over audible. Not recommended in the least.

Endings lead to beginnings

If I had simply read this, instead of listening to it, I think I would have been able to feel more emotional about the characters and their dread, or lack thereof, about the coming event. This story was tautly crafted...and here I am reading it on the day that the news breaks that the chances of a particular asteroid hitting Earth is slightly higher than first estimated!

Boring,

What an anesthetic! I kept falling asleep luxtening to this one. I might listen again. But probably not.

Couldn't finish, have to return

The story might be great, but I won't be finding out. Evan Rachel Wood is a wonderful actress but she is a terrible narrator. Way too many pauses (even when I sped up the narration to 1.3) and lack of animation. AND!! If there's one instance of a word mispronounced, I can overlook it. Not when there are continual repetitions.
When you're talking about boats, and you see the word "bow" -- or "bowline"! -- then you should be aware that the word is bow-rhymes-with-wow, NOT bow-rhymes-with-slow.

Too frustrating to listen. Maybe I'll read it.

Me encanto, es una libro maravilloso!

Sentí estar en un futuro donde lo que narraba el libro, había sucedido hace unos años.

Nice, but not spectacular

I enjoyed it. It was a nice diversion for the 45 minutes or so (I listened at 1.5x speed), but it didn’t move me as much as I think was intended. Evan Rachel Wood’s narration was a little bland but competently done.

"A piece of unravelling."

After most of the earth's inhabitants have been evacuated prior to it's annihilation by an huge oncoming meteor, a small group of scientists remain behind to continue to document plant species and select those which will also make that final transition. One of these is Samantha, a botonist, and, like the others in this select group, 'orphans' with no living family. She forms a friendship with an eccentric older man with a love of orchids.

Gently and lovingly written, this is a melancholy short (about an hour long) story, but one which values memories, relationship, discovery and hope. Slow moving, satisfying: it is almost better in retrospect. The narrator was Jason Isaacs, who gave a fine and sensitive performance.

One of the six future looking shorts in the Forward Collection, it is definitely not one for readers looking for fast action but is a slow and thought provoking emotional read. Beautiful.

narrator was great but story..not so much

so youd think this is a book about people leaving earth because it will soon be uninhabitable. wrong. its about a woman who likes plants and a bit about her parents. like? okay. sure, it was cute but Roth couldve done so much with that plot

Single Track AudioBook Anybody?

Well, to begin with, aren't Chapter points really useful, to help locate where you were listening up to?
Well, Amazon do not appear ro agree with me, just put it out as a singlw chapter, after-all, its is less than 1hr 50mins in length.
Pathetic and Stupid, especially with an Amazon Title.
Whilst this does not serve as a review of the story, it does serve as one for the actual 'product'.
You, can have this one back, it has passed my 'annoyance' test, straight out of the box.

An advantage of the CD over that of a cassette when they were originally released was the ability to easily skip forward to the next track/chapter.
Amazon do not consider this to have been useful.

So single track audiobooks, well, for me, no thanks, not even they run shy of two hours. Not worth the bother.