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Beyond the Aquila Rift  By  cover art

Beyond the Aquila Rift

By: Alastair Reynolds
Narrated by: Tom Dheere
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Publisher's summary

Beyond the Aquila Rift: It's shorthand for the trip no one ever hopes to make by accident. The one that will screw up the rest of your life, the one that creates the ghosts you see haunting the shadows of company bars across the whole Bubble. Men and women ripped out of time, cut adrift from families and lovers by an accident of an alien technology we use but rarely comprehend.
©2005 Alastair Reynolds (P)2019 ABP Editore

What listeners say about Beyond the Aquila Rift

Average customer ratings
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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Great story, mediocre audio book.

I love the universes that Alastair Reynolds creates, and the stories he weaves in them so I was a little disappointed to see how short this story was (it's only an hour long, take note of the price as it's probably worth purchasing it rather than wasting a credit). Length complaints aside, this is a great story and I really enjoyed it. It vaguely echoes some of his other work but it's definitely new and interesting material, telling the story of some off-track astronauts, shuttling between brief vignettes of "now" and "not too long ago" with a nice psychological twist at the end to keep you wondering for a while.

That said, this audio version of it verges on terrible. I don't know if it's because I now unconsciously relate John Lee with Alistair Reynolds but the narrator (Tom Dheere) just didn't work for me. He sounded like he'd been challenged to read through the story as fast as possible and, to draw a traffic analogy, treated sentence ending punctuation much like a speedhump or chicane rather than stop signs or red lights. Additionally, the vignettes are separated by 15 seconds of music. WHY??? It's an audio version of a book, it doesn't need extra music or sounds effects, it just needs someone to read the words! If it's imperative to draw a distinction between separate passages then leave 2 seconds of silence to indicate it or something, don't start introducing lengthy chunks of foreign material where the author never intended them to be!

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10 people found this helpful

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

Good story, rushed narration

The story was good, and what I'd expect from this author. The narrator, however, seemed to be rushing through it as fast as he could, sounding almost breathless at points, which seemed generally inappropriate for the story.

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5 people found this helpful

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

I forgive you Alastair Reynolds

i wanted to like this. but the experimenting with this form of narrative didn't work for more.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

the narrator is in a rush to finish.

extremely low quality narration. very frustrating with out color, as he was trying to finish the story. this listening was stressful.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great Story

the story was great but I thought the performance was a little to fast paced.

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2 people found this helpful

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

amazing

just as good as the episode for love death and robots. was so much fun to read

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1 person found this helpful

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

Kind of a weird book

I have to say, until the last 10 minutes of the book, it wasn't very interesting.

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1 person found this helpful

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

absolutely lovely story

this book was really well read, the narrator was good and the story was phenomenal.

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1 person found this helpful

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

Short and sweet

Grate story. The narrator read a bit too fast for my liking, but overall a good book. this needs a sequel

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1 person found this helpful

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

Great story, mediocre narration.

The story itself is fascinating, as are all of this author’s offerings. The narration, however, made it very difficult to remain in the story. Rushed phrases, poor and improperly placed inflections, and a very distracting lisp (sorry, but if you’re a professional narrator then you really should enunciate properly) kept pulling me out.
I acclimated eventually, but by then the story was wrapping up.
I would have given five stars had the narration been better.

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