A World Out of Time

By: Larry Niven

Narrated by: Tom Weiner

Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's summary

After more than two hundred years as a corpsicle, Jaybee Corbell awoke in someone else’s body and under threat of instant annihilation if he made a wrong move while they were training him for a one-way mission to the stars.

But Corbell bided his time and made his own move. Once he was outbound, where the society that ruled Earth could not reach him, he headed his starship toward the galactic core, where the unimaginable energies of the universe wrenched the fabric of time and space and promised final escape from his captors.

Then he returned to an Earth eons older than the one he’d left, a planet that had had three million years to develop perils he had never dreamed of - perils that became nightmares that he had to escape... somehow.

Larry Niven is the multiple Hugo and Nebula award–winning author of the Ringworld series, as well as many other science fiction masterpieces. His Beowulf’s Children, coauthored with Jerry Pournelle and Steven Barnes, was a New York Times best seller. He lives in Chatsworth, California.

©1976 Larry Niven (P)2012 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“This fantastic novel is a mix of Niven hard science and a time-travel concept to boggle the mind.…Even after the last line the feeling remains of the story still rushing on into the magic distance of the universe.” (A. E. van Vogt, winner of the SFWA Grand Master Award)

“Niven rams this fantastic tale at the reader with taut authority, mixing hard science with mind-boggling concepts of time and space to give us a whole new kind of trip.” ( Publishers Weekly)

“Niven’s intoxicating concepts, ideas, scientific extrapolations, and exotic hardware bubble up from every page. Rich in imagination and astonishing in breadth…Will challenge the most sophisticated readers.” ( Booklist)

fun little story

Tom Weiner did a great job Narrating this story. i enjoyed it vary much.
it was fun and funny. i think most will like this story.
give it a try audible good about returning credits if you dont like it so what do you have to lose. i buy more books knowing i dont have to worry about if i dont like it.
i love audible. best place to buy audio books.
i look at the reviews and try the simples and if it sounds like i may like it i get it knowing im safe to try it.
you cant lose.
so go for it, i think youll like it.

It is so okay that it is mediocre

Do you remember the late-career books and stories from RAH (Number of the Beast, etc)? AWOoT falls and fails to many of the same tropes. It was okay. I do not feel as though I was robbed of either money or time. It simply wasn't as good as I was hoping for?

Great story, very strange but good.

The journey of several lives, an implausible situation, ridiculous over the top characters, but I still really enjoyed it. The state has all the makings of a catastrophic future.

like teller the story a little hard to follow

I will listen to it again. maybe better the second round. because I believe the story is engaging.

Generic Niven, Generic Goodness

This book struck me as something to listen to if you're in the mood for some Larry Niven. It pretty solidly delivers on that, albeit not exceptionally so.

Semi-thought provoking, but feels rather dated (anything more recent that concerns life extension always seems to trot out telomeres, and this doesn't). Doesn't detract at all from the story, though.

I wouldn't mind some sort of sequel, which is to say that it seems to leave itself open to one, but I honestly don't know Nivens' bibliography well enough to say whether there is one.

The narrator is the same who's narrated the last few Niven books I've listened to. Does a decent job, and has more or less taken up residence in my mind as the "Voice of Nivens."

NIven Fan ..., but this is not in the top ranks

Would you try another book from Larry Niven and/or Tom Weiner?

Niven's plots are usually complex, but this becomes (for my feeble brain) to hard to follow, understand or enjoy in its many twists and turns over a huge block of time. Too many different human cultures to follow along with many, many fights, flights, foes and twists. Did I mention many?

I like the narrator, but not the story

What did you like best about A World Out of Time? What did you like least?

The story really lagged. It had some interesting ideas until about the half-way point. Then there were no new ideas.

Random Buttons

This review requires 20 words but as I am "for myself" I choose not to comply completely.

Brought back great memories

I first read this book as a teenager in the 70s. Some books and/or characters stick with you, and this far-ranging story has been one that has come to mind often over the years. The audiobook was a nice journey down memory lane. I enjoyed every minute.

Niven writes my kind of sci-fi.

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I love sci-fi and I love futurist stories and Niven excells at this. His projected futures always come from an extension scientific principles and then he builds amazing stories inside a rooted world where the rules make sense.
I loved this story of what happens when societies are insulated and over specialized.