Existence

By: David Brin

Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins, Robin Miles, L. J. Ganser

Length: 32 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's summary

Best-selling, award-winning futurist David Brin returns to globe-spanning, high concept SF with Existence.

Gerald Livingston is an orbital garbage collector. For a hundred years, people have been abandoning things in space, and someone has to clean it up. But there’s something spinning a little bit higher than he expects, something that isn’t on the decades’ old orbital maps. An hour after he grabs it and brings it in, rumors fill Earth’s infomesh about an "alien artifact". Thrown into the maelstrom of worldwide shared experience, the Artifact is a game-changer - a message in a bottle, an alien capsule that wants to communicate. The world reacts as humans always do: with fear and hope and selfishness and love and violence. And insatiable curiosity.

©2012 David Brin (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Boring

There is a semi-interesting story buried in the mountains of useless verbiage that comprises this book. The book is 90% sophomoric pontification, 7% story and 3% character development. My recommendation is to give this one a pass.

What is this book about?

Would you try another book from David Brin and/or the narrators?

Maybe this book wasn't meant for audio. But I've listened to it for several hours and have not a clue what is going on. Listening to another 28 hours strikes me as just pointless.

The most amazing journey you'll ever take!

I've read hundreds of sci fi. novels and Existence. tops them all.

It's a monument to Brin's growth as an author. a leap into the near future with all the gusto and mystery one can imagine. He weaves endlessly delicious and prescient perspectives and data bits into a rich and deep tapestry of reality. It is all packaged into a fun and exciting story which he rolls out like a magic carpet that will cause any thinking. human to pause...repeatedly...and utter, "WOW!"

This creation. is NOTHING like the myriad of dystopian futures so much the rage today. As one deeply steeped in climate science and long range scenarios I was astounded at. Brin's. depth and breadth of covering so many data points and issues starting us in the face... His ability to navigate these windows impacting the planet are unsurpassed...he doesn't ignore them nor use them for cheap plot twists....instead he brings them to life and puzzles thru the ramifications with skill and zeal.

The performance of both narrators is absolutely stellar.. I have listened to this book twice now and could quite frankly listen another dozen times as it is that full of detail worth absorbing. So many reflections and observations on humanity, the cosmos, eaarth, and.... existence...

As an informaniac I was in heaven. as a lover of. a good story I was endlessly tickled and as one who ponders and tries to make sense of reality I was mesmerized.

Mind Opening

Would you listen to Existence again? Why?

Yes, this book has so many things going on I'm sure you will listen to it again in a year and be surprised by how much you might have over looked.

What did you like best about this story?

This books looks at a situation in multiple ways with having an over lapsing point of view during the book.

What does the narrators bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

There are 3 narrators.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

It is makes me appreciate the world around me and develop greater and greater questions for understanding in the world around me.

Gave up.

Any additional comments?

This is the first audio book I have given up on, but I feel I'm only being teased, where is the story hiding?
It feels like a (maybe solid) short story that was just padded and padded and padded some more to get it long enough to publish.

One word: Thorough

Thorough seems like a good word to describe this book. David Brin expertly covers each and every topic imaginable regarding the perils of existence of our species without ever becoming dull or repetitive (in my opinion). The narration almost read my mind, answering on queue whenever my mind thought: "Oh yeah? and what about X?" to which the book swiftly answered with an elegant and great answer.
I've read other reviews which talk about some of the drawbacks in Existence. I agree with all of them. The cliffhangers are sometimes too far-apart from each other, the story timelines jump abruptly and without warning, it is very long, etc. I think it was good I read those reviews, as they prevented me from feeling the slightest of disappointment. In fact, by starting my listening with a slightly low bar in my expectations the book astounded me with its complexity, deepness, strong rationale and striking originality. This may not be the most hard-sci fi ever created, but it is close, and that alone makes it capital A amazing.
This book is quite an accomplishment, you can feel the vast time Brin dedicated to think things through in such a thorough way. Despite any tiny stylistic drawbacks it has, I cannot recommend this enough for those who are passionate about good sci-fi.

Excellent

I wasn’t sure how he would bring so many stories together, but he did in the end.

One of my Faves. Should be required reading for any politician.

This is one of my faves. Up there with UKL, Butler, Stephenson, and Stapledon.

Such a wide ranging, far thinking story; not possible to summarize. Just trust the author and enjoy.

Looking forward to reading more of Brin’s work.

Not my cup of tea

Story is all over the place. I've listened/read other books that have this type of non sequential / alternating progress but this one is not easy nor enjoyable to follow.
Got about 3.5 hours in and thought about stop listening several times in that period. Already returned it.

thought provoking

it starts off slow and in a strange way introducing characters that seemingly have nothing in common. it then becomes a masterpiece combining science fiction and well thought out questions