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Poseidon's Wake  By  cover art

Poseidon's Wake

By: Alastair Reynolds
Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh
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Publisher's summary

"Few SF writers merge rousing adventure with advanced futuristic technology as skillfully as Alastair Reynolds" (Toronto Star), the award-winning author of On the Steel Breeze.

In the conclusion of his Poseidon's Children saga, the Akinya family receives an invitation from across the stars - and a last opportunity to redeem their name....

"Send Ndege". The cryptic message originated 70 light-years away from the planet Crucible, where Ndege Akinya lives under permanent house arrest for her role in the catastrophe that killed 417,000 people. Could it be from her mother, Chiku, who vanished during a space expedition decades earlier?

Ndege's daughter, Goma, a biologist, joins the crew of the Travertine dispatched to Gliese 163 to uncover the source behind the enigmatic message. Goma's odyssey will take her not only into the farthest reaches of space but centuries into her family's past, where the answers to the universe's greatest mysteries await....

©2015 Alistair Reynolds (P)2015 Orion Publishing Group

What listeners say about Poseidon's Wake

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Reads like it's lacking plot revisions

There's something admirably simple about this trilogy, especially when you zoom out and look at the romantic bird's eye view, but something about its storytelling method just doesn't sit right with me.

The trilogy was rendered for us as a long string of montages between rather sparse events. Time and attention went into every scene, but it's all just characters standing around, with no ability to act on what little information they have. Subplots spring up everywhere, and turn out to be completely pointless as soon as the story moves on. The only result is that the character personalities are colored just slightly. Even the events that are at the heart of the story come off strangely. A transmission sent across 70 lightyears just for fun apparently, a sabotage plot that exists for essentially no reason, and of course the centerpiece of the whole series, Poseidon itself, completely ignored by the cast, even at the culmination of events.

The only reason the story has any purpose at all is because Eunice's character regularly forces narrative on the reader in the form of random conjecture, covering topics such as the Watchkeepers, Poseidon and its wonders, what the Endbuilders's must have intended for the universe, their solution to a universe-scale issue, what Poseidon must represent for other species. As a reader, it's all so hollow that you start to see through it rather quickly.

This story, most of all, communicated the uniqueness of everyone's relationships with other characters, and there are a couple of magnificent scenes that were likely At the core of Reynolds's vision for the story, and yet somehow all of the characters come up short in my view. They all say the predictable thing. They all complain in the expected manner. They offer each other perfectly reasonable but highly mundane comforts. They seem to act and think in a contextual vacuum, as if every scene was written independently, somehow only vaguely influenced by events that literally just took place.

When the story is somehow most vulnerable and begging for plot advancement, it's given to us in some supremely bizarre anti-"deux ex machina", something that puts a wrench in the whole story just so that the story should go where Reynolds imagined it should. Mpose's role, Kanu's ship damaged around Poseidon, the use of nanomachinery, the sabotage plot, Eunice's ability to send a message across 70 ly of space and yet can't produce a signal strong enough to contact a ship in the same system, Eunice's alarmingly selective loss of memory any time she might actually be useful... all of it exists just to give texture to something that is frankly quite boring. These are all just loose ends that I guess Reynolds thought there was no reason to tie back into the story, and none of the characters seem to notice.

As a fan of Reynolds, I don't begrudge him the time and effort that he put into this trilogy. The idea for the whole thing must have been infectious, consuming his attention. Now that he's finished it, I'll be happy to see him turn to other stories.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Drink every time you hear the word "Chai"

I finally finished the ser-r-r-r-ries. The storr-r-r-r-y itself is fine. Wor-r-r-r-rth the time. Again, it's the nar-r-r-r-ration/performance that is r-r-r-r-ridiculous. Appar-r-r-r-rently, in the futur-r-r-r-re, ever-r-r-r-ryone eitherr-r-r-r r-r-r-r-olls their R's to the point of absur-r-r-r-rdity (and I can't ser-r-r-r-riously can't make it clear-r-r-r-r enough how much I HATED hea-r-r-r-r-ring that over and overr-r-r-r-r and over-r-r-r-r to make my point), they sound like a Bella Lugosi vampir-r-r-r-r-re that r-r-r-r-rrolls their-r-r-r-r-r R's, or like a Japanese anime kid's character-r-r-r-r that r-r-r-r-r-olls their R's. Befor-r-r-r-r-re I ever-r-r-r-r-r listen to another-r-r-r-r Adjoa Andoh nar-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-rated book, I'll download a sample and check for that fir-r-r-r-rrst. The ONLY r-r-r-r-eason I finished the ser-r-r-r-ries was that it's an Alastair-r-r-r-r-r R-r-r-r-reynolds book.

And if you want a good dr-r-r--rinking game, chug a beer-r-r-r-r ever-r-r-r-ry time you hear-r-r-r-r the wor-r-r-r-d "Chai". You'll need a 12 step pr-r-r-rogram before it's over-r-r-r-r.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Poseidon's funeral would be more appropriate

Poseidon’s Wake is the 3rd installment of Alastair Reynold’s Poseidon’s Children trilogy. This installment is several hundred years after volume 2 with Crucible now a functioning planet. The Watchkeepers have rendered interstellar travel risky, but a “message” from an uninhabited star system directed at a specific Akinya launches a 140 year voyage to solve the mystery. At the same time, another Akinya back in the Earth system aligns with the machines from Mars to investigate. The mystery surrounding Eunice, Chiku, and Dakota is revealed as well as background on the Watchkeepers and the 2nd alien race that built the mandala.

The sci-fi elements expand the elephant intelligence theme as well as building on the Eunice artificial intelligence, now rendered into actual flesh and blood. The Watchkeepers are revealed as a type of zombie intelligence with consciousness. Much of the sci-fi revolves around the varying manifestations of intelligence. But the truly mind bending aspect is an exploration of the fundamental laws of physics that offer the possibility of meaningless existence since everything could wink out as a result of quantum flux. There are hints at actually attempting to reverse engineer the laws of the universe to eliminate this threat.
This is a hard listen on many levels. The fundamental science fiction is philosophically engrossing, but the plodding nature of plot development along with unengaging characters can become tiresome. The fundamental structure of Reynold’s universe is based on futuristic dominance by Africa that was never sufficiently detailed. North and South America do not exist, Europe has been reduced to just Lisbon, and China merely garners a single representative who is now a whale, while Chinese is sometimes the alternate language. Humanity is basically a hive, not a hive mind, but just a hive. Akinya women are the queen bees, while Akinya men are the male drones supporting the queens, with the rest of humanity reduced to worker bees. Everything in existence has derived from Akinya women from business and economics by Eunice, art by Sunday, and science by Ndigi, working under house arrest at her kitchen table. There’s one Russian operating as a hit man with no motivation for his actions. The Lin Wei conversion to a whale renders her a type of hermit living in a cave that somehow people derive wisdom by just talking to her.

Then there’s the fascination with “tantors” which are just genetically enhanced elephants. There is an almost atavistic obsession with a Kafka-esque man creating God quality with sycophantic worship to the point that one tantor equates to thousands of human. At the same time, a small splinter group is so terrified of tantors, there is a willingness to stage a suicide mission to kill them off the on chance they happen to be found. The proposed rationale justifying this behavior as due to man’s treatment of elephant seems hardly reasonable since horses have probably been treated worse and cows were raised merely for food. Despite the length, the Earth system is inadequately detailed to understand the terrorists and the consolidation.

The characters are annoyingly tiresome. Eunice is an obnoxious, narcissistic Forrest Gump who manages to create who technologies and economies merely by changing her socks. Goma and Ru are constantly morphing all the time except for their tantor obsession and Carno who begins as a diplomat, somehow becomes a science and techno geek. Finally, the notion that if a smart alien intelligence reveals the underlying physics of the universe can be proven to be meaningless because it can end at any moment would somehow be readily believed and then induce depression and catatonia is a bit far-fetched.

The narration is the final element that is troublesome. While accurately rendered with realistic African accents, the melodic trilling and rolling of every “r” will either be favorably enjoyed or quickly become tiresome and straining. There’s also little gender distinction except for the non-African accented characters. Finally, just as a cinematic ceiling fan indicates higher ambient temperature by spinning slower, the more intelligent, especially the elephants, the slower the speech which simply drags everything out.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

5 Stars because I HOPE this series is DONE!

The "ELEPHANTS - IIIIN - SPAAAAACE" (Insert Dramatic Echoing on the word "SPAAAAACE") theme is WAY past "Old" and into the realm of "Getting Ridiculous"....

I've spent some time in Africa, Seen the "Wild Elephants" (not the ones in "preserves"), and there's one sad, but HARD truth, about Africa... "If an Animal Species can't support itself monetarily, with enough money coming in to hire HONEST Game Wardens and to pay for the land they're living on, the animal species has a short time left on earth in Africa" ..."The Great White Hunter" didn't make a DENT in the Elephant Population.. The AFRICANS kill(ed) 99% of the Elephants that are (and have been in the past) killed.

I don't like it, but I don't have to like it, it's "Africa", and they do things "The African Way".... I.E: "No no no no! Absolutely you can NOT go there or see that".. and then 'a little money changes hands', and suddenly you Absolutely CAN "Go There and See That"... WITH transportation, AND a government guide!

For another 10USD per day, you can hire people to haul your gear, set up tents, DOUBLE-Boil your water, and cook your food (tip, make SURE the cook washes their hands, and that the plates, utensils and cups are 'Bleached and BOILED', AND that they Cook your meal VERY VERY 'WELL DONE!')... "No" simply means "Not until we get a small 'gratuity' for allowing you to do whatever it was you wanted to do"

I can't wrap my mind around how Mr. Reynolds can write some books that are SO DEEP and FANTASTIC, and then write about "ELEPHANTS - IIIIIN - SPAAAAAACE".

Sorry, but EVERYTHING I've seen firsthand about Wild Elephants tends to lead me to the belief that they are kinda like "not-smart Horses" in the Brain department... Like Horses, You can always tell exactly what an elephant is going to do... "Whatever goes through their little Elephant/Horse Mind at that EXACT SECOND".

The whole "Flying around in a Cessna with a herd of Smart Elephants in a hidden Section of a Generation ship" takes MUCH more than just "Suspending reality 'since it's Sci-Fi'".

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Reynolds has a different kind of brain...

than do most of us, I believe. I've never read someone who gets "alien" so...alien-y...yet so utterly believable. This is the 3rd in the series. Strongly recommend reading in order.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Excellent performance

this was a excellent audio performance paired with a reasonably good conclusion to the trilogy but not the equal of the first or second books

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Hard Sci-Fi w/ a Global (non-western) Frame of Reference

It is my personal opinion that Reynolds had two major issues when putting together this trilogy.

First he was writing from the perspective of women in much of these stories.

The second was that he was writing from a non-western African perspective. The story repeatedly goes back to talking about Chinese and Swahili being the dominant cultural lingua franca along with the idea that many of the world’s great thinkers are from both Asia and Africa moving forward rather than North America or Europe.

For the second reason alone, I was very interested in these stories. While acknowledging that Reynolds is a white male author, whose primary life experience took place in the western world, I admire him for writing hard science fiction with this backdrop. I thoroughly enjoyed it as somebody who has worked in Africa, and somebody who’s best friends are from Africa and Asia. I believe this is the first and only work of hard fiction I’ve ever had the opportunity to read that comes from the global south’s perspective. I very much recommend it to connoisseurs of hard science fiction. I also appreciate Reynold’s scientific background and describing the difficulties that the characters encounter. It gives every story he writes authenticity, that other writers like Peter Hamilton, lack.

The narration was just fun! The narrator’s voice and intonation when she spoke, as Eunice was fun and made the story really come alive. It felt like I was listening to multiple actors. People who are unfamiliar with various accents from around the continent may complain, people who are overly familiar with various accents from around the continent, who Snub the voice actor as being unauthentic… they all can just take a chill pill.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

It's not the story - it's the narrator

I need to return this. This narrator is horrible. Cannot stand her. She is OK with the main characters, but the rest is like childrens book witches. Horrible. Combine that with a slow story and I am out. Sorry.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Surprisingly bad

I’m usually a fan of Reynold’s work. 1st book was refreshing and fun, second didn’t get good until the second half, this book never got good and was incredibly disappointing.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Amazing hard sci fi

Alastair Reynolds is one of the great sci fi writers of our time. Highly recommend

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