Edges

Inverted Frontier Series, Book 1

By: Linda Nagata

Narrated by: Nicole Poole

Length: 12 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's summary

From the Edge of Apocalypse:

Deception Well is a world on the edge, home to an isolated remnant surviving at the farthest reach of human expansion. All across the frontier, other worlds have succumbed to the relentless attacks of robotic alien warships, while hundreds of light years away, the core of human civilization - those star systems closest to Earth, known as the Hallowed Vasties - have all fallen to ruins. Powerful telescopes can see only dust and debris where once there were orbital mega-structures so huge they eclipsed the light of their parent stars

No one knows for sure what caused the Hallowed Vasties to fail, but a hardened adventurer named Urban intends to find out. He has the resources to do it. He commands a captive alien starship fully capable of facing the dangers that lie beyond Deception Well.

With a ship's company of explorers and scientists, Urban is embarking on a voyage of rediscovery. They will be the first in centuries to confront the hazards of an inverted frontier as they venture back along the path of human migration. Their goal: to unravel the mystery of the Hallowed Vasties and to discover what monstrous life might have grown up among the ruins.

©2019 Linda Nagata (P)2020 Tantor

Liked the development

I liked the development of the characters and the story. I will give the next book a try too.

Brilliant Space Opera

One of the best space operas I've read or listened to in years. Inventive alien technology and fascinating human evolution. But most of all Negate has a host of wonderful characters and a truly terrifying antagonist.

Wonderful if not Predictable

It’s a breath of fresh air to read a book series that’s wonderfully written with bright characters and fun ideas, and doesn’t always throw you a grim dark curveball. I would give a 5/5 but that’s honestly a harder thing for me to give but I really enjoyed the book.

Cool book read by TTS

The exposition is read in this monotone computer voice for no apparent reason. Otherwise a pretty good book that I enjoyed.

not sure how I feel about it

it has the flavor of alastair reynolds. but doesn't have the depth. from time to time the action slows to a crawl. even as the story ties to span centuries, people seem to waste that time and the passage of the time does not have the effect it should on their relationships. by the end - they are as evolved as if after a few months.
the final sequence was good, and I will listen to the next book. I hope it picks up

Great

Linda is by far my favorite author.
The narration is ok could be better, very manageable.
would love to see an adaptation for a movie or anime of this series.

very dark

It is too dark and grim got me to want to dive right into the next book. Possibly I never will. Yet this is a really excellent piece of serious science fiction. The author is brilliant anc the narrator is wonderful.

What a universe?!

Ms. Nagata deserves top kudos for her world building! Such a universe to live in and explore — chock full of unique characters that are easy to care about; on individual and collective journeys that make you want to keep exploring right alongside them. Very well done.