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.

Felt disjointed.

Felt disjointed. Stopped listening during the forth part. I couldn't finish it. Kept waiting for it to gel together. Finally gave up.

Outstanding, after a couple of hours

This was one of the best books I've ever heard/listened to! The narrators were just amazing. The author was fantastic.

It did, however, take a couple of hours to get in to the story, but considering the story is over 30 hours, I'll take that trade off any day.

The story does just sort of jump time frames every now and then without making the reader aware, but it is actually done purposefully to give the reader a sense of uneasiness and dysphoria. It actually fits very well with the storyline and helps move the story along.

Read this book don't listen to it

It took several chapters but I did enjoy this once I got into it. It is not an easy listen. I like to multitask and this really is not the book to multitask to. I gave this three stars for the interesting ideas, but I was really hoping for more story.

Extremely well written. And Yet ...

David Brin is fantastic with words. I love these characters, these settings, the premise.

The story arc for this novel is not my thing. There were some fantastic tense moments. And plenty of meat on the bone.
However; The start was incredibly slow. The ending was much much to to long, and even though I really appreciated all of the words, and ideas behind this book, my emotional ride was poorly timed.

I am glad I read it. Some people will love it. I did not.

Unexpectedly wonderful

I’m glad I no longer base my picks on reviews. I found this book quite interesting and a refreshingly different perspective on space and aliens. It’s a philosophical view, not explosions and warp drives. Perhaps a bit dry for some but I enjoyed it thoroughly. >*{{{€

Good story, narration a bit odd

The story is good, as usual for Brin. Two of the three narrators sounded like they were reading for the Romance section, but one gets used to it and there are portions toward the end for which it seems appropriate.

Half novel, half philosophy rambling

It was difficult to find the story among the many disjointed character and commentators in the book. The cadence of the performers seem to be deliberately slow and staccato. It drove me crazy until I increased the playback speed to 1.25X. Two of the three performers are quite good, while the third is among the worst I've heard. The wildly random jumps in character perspective along with unexplained leaps in time, along with several subplots that just drop and go nowhere made this a confusing mess.

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.

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.

Not for pessimists

If you are a fan of apocalyptic, end of the world science fiction pass this one up. It is far from that extreme while not returning to the 40's and 50's space opera it does present a positive take on humankind and our future, There is some action but that is early in the set-up stages and not really the main theme. For those of you who like hageographies of the military caste might also look elsewhere. Who should read this? Anyone who isn't afraid of big ideas will ind this book captivating. It is ironic that Dr. Brin quotes Kim Stanley Robinson in this book in that while reading "Existence" Robinson's latest book "Aurora" was brought to mind. Another answer to the "Fermi Paradox". In his epilogue Dr. Brin promises new additions to the "Uplift Series". To this I say hurrah!