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Hominids
- The Neanderthal Parallax, Book 1
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis, Robert J. Sawyer
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
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Publisher's summary
BONUS AUDIO: Author Robert J. Sawyer explains why Ponter Boddit is his favorite among all the characters he's created.
Critic reviews
- Hugo Award Winner, Best Novel, 2003
"Sawyer is a writer of boundless confidence and bold scientific extrapolation." (The New York Times)
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The World Walker
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- By: Ian W. Sainsbury
- Narrated by: Todd Boyce
- Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Just outside Los Angeles, a prisoner hidden away for 70 years sits up, gets off the bed and disappears through a solid wall. In Australia, a magician impresses audiences by producing real elephants. Nobody realizes it's not an illusion. Across the world, individuals and organizations with supernatural power suddenly detect the presence of something even they can't understand. At the center of it all, Seb Varden, a 32-year old musician with a secret in his past, slits his wrists, is shot dead and run over on the freeway.
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Good Stuff
- By DobieChuck on 01-15-17
By: Ian W. Sainsbury
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The Kid Sensation Series: Books 1-3
- By: Kevin Hardman
- Narrated by: Mikael Naramore
- Length: 20 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Get the first three books in the Kid Sensation series. Like millions of other kids, Jim grew up wanting to be a superhero. Unlike most of his contemporaries, however, Jim actually had the goods: a plethora of super powers that would have been the envy of any meta on the planet. But when his tryout with the Alpha League - the world's premiere group of supers - goes disastrously wrong, Jim basically becomes an outcast.
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Puberty and Superpowers
- By LITRPG Audiobook Reviews on 03-06-18
By: Kevin Hardman
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Marsbound
- By: Joe Haldeman
- Narrated by: Liza Kaplan
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Young Carmen Dula and her family are about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime - they're going to Mars. Once on the Red Planet, however, Carmen realizes things are not so different from Earth. There are chores to do, lessons to learn, and oppressive authority figures to rebel against.
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Meh.
- By Wes Parker on 03-19-09
By: Joe Haldeman
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Anniversary Day
- Anniversary Day Saga, Book 1 (Retrieval Artist Universe)
- By: Kristine Kathryn Rusch
- Narrated by: Jay Snyder
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Four years ago, a bomb destroyed part of the dome protecting Armstrong, the largest city on the Moon. Now, as the city celebrates its survival with an event it calls Anniversary Day, a larger threat looms - one that begins with the murder of the mayor, and spreads across the moon itself.
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Defferent Focus
- By Tracey Rains on 10-10-11
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The Engineer Wizard
- The Genie and the Wizard, Book 1
- By: Glenn Michaels
- Narrated by: Commodore James, Jordan Byrne, Bennett Cousins, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Paul Armstead is your average American senior citizen and electrical engineer. He's 61 years old, unremarkably unattractive, and a self-proclaimed science fiction nut. He's lived the American dream in drab, typical fashion. So how does he end up fleeing from one end of the world to the other, dodging government dragnets; evil, nightmarish monsters known as the Oni; good wizards; bad wizards; beautiful women; spies; and wizardly spells? Well, it is entirely the genie's fault....
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Hurry up with the 2nd one!
- By Brody T. on 08-30-16
By: Glenn Michaels
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Stand on Zanzibar
- By: John Brunner, Bruce Sterling - foreword
- Narrated by: Erik Bergmann
- Length: 21 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Niblock House is a rising executive at General Technics, one of a few all-powerful corporations. His work is leading General Technics to the forefront of global domination, both in the marketplace and politically - it's about to take over a country in Africa. Donald Hogan is his roommate, a seemingly sheepish bookworm. But Hogan is a spy, and he's about to discover a breakthrough in genetic engineering that will change the world...and kill him. Society is squeezed into hive-living madness by god-like mega computers and mass-marketed psychedelic drugs.
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perfect audio experience
- By Darryl on 03-24-14
By: John Brunner, and others
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Main plot - Tiresome; Subplot - Cool!
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A scientific experiment begins, and as the button is pressed, the unexpected occurs: everyone in the world goes to sleep for a few moments while everyone's consciousness is catapulted more than twenty years into the future. At the end of those moments, when the world reawakens, all human life is transformed by foreknowledge.
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How would you digest the fruits of knowledge??
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The Face of God is what every young saurian learns to call the immense, glowing object which fills the night sky on the far side of the world. Young Afsan is privileged, called to the distant Capital City to apprentice with Saleed the court astrologer. But when the time comes for Afsan to make his coming-of-age pilgrimage, to gaze upon the Face of God, his world is changed forever- for what he sees will test his faith...and may save his world from disaster!
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Definitely Original!
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Rainbows End
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Set a few decades from now, Rainbows End is an epic adventure that encapsulates in a single extended family the challenges of the technological advances of the first quarter of the 21st century. The information revolution of the past 30 years blossoms into a web of conspiracies that could destroy Western civilization. At the center of the action is Robert Gu, a former Alzheimer's victim who has regained his mental and physical health through radical new therapies, and his family.
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Great Discovery
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The Wanderer
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In the future, men and women have colonized the moon, and dazzling technological advances have created a better life for those on Earth. But the arrival of "the Wanderer" may change all that. A sphere of immense size, it appears suddenly one night during a lunar eclipse, causing crushing quakes on the Moon and catastrophes on Earth. Now, Lt. Don Merriam must find a way to reach the Wanderer and discover its purpose.
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dated scifi
- By finhead on 09-28-07
By: Fritz Leiber
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The Neanderthals Rediscovered
- How Modern Science Is Rewriting Their Story (Revised and Updated Edition)
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In recent years, the common perception of the Neanderthals has been transformed, thanks to new discoveries and paradigm-shattering scientific innovations. It turns out that the Neanderthals' behavior was surprisingly modern: they buried the dead, cared for the sick, hunted large animals in their prime, harvested seafood, and communicated with spoken language. Meanwhile, advances in DNA technologies are compelling us to reassess the Neanderthals' place in our own past.
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Fascinating Subject... Soporific Reader
- By Andrew E. Yarosh on 11-21-17
By: Dimitra Papagianni, and others
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Neanderthal Man
- In Search of Lost Genomes
- By: Svante Pääbo
- Narrated by: Dennis Holland
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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A preeminent geneticist hunts the Neanderthal genome to answer the biggest question of them all: what does it mean to be human? What can we learn from the genes of our closest evolutionary relatives? Neanderthal Man tells the story of geneticist Svante Pbo’s mission to answer that question, beginning with the study of DNA in Egyptian mummies in the early 1980s and culminating in his sequencing of the Neanderthal genome in 2009.
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Excellent science tale
- By Neuron on 01-19-15
By: Svante Pääbo
What listeners say about Hominids
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Scott
- 08-10-09
Scicen Fiction Can Be Literature
I found the book fast paced, well narrated and well edited. Some complain of the politics and religion but this is literature. Since we can't discuss these things at "polite gatherings" literature is appropriate except for those who wish pure escapism (While concise, entertaining and compelling certainly this is not a 'light' read).
It won the Hugo award (Science Fiction Writer's "Oscar" as most likely know), and only rarely are such prizes awarded to art without any merit.
Much fuss is made by some about the graphic sexual assault which is brief but absolutely key to distinguishing two cultures and a woman's feelings about a more sensitive being.
My only critique, is I found the verisimilitude lacking in the other culture regarding their belief system. I would think any being that could contemplate its death might have different views. A line or two more explaining their reasons would have helped. That is my only critique.
Finally, remember this is fiction. If one finds FICTION so offensive why bother reading? I can understand political or religious NON-fiction being offensive but isn't the joy of fiction that it's just "make believe?"
The price is right considering its length.
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36 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Guillermo
- 04-25-09
Without Good and Evil
I'm very glad I listened to this Hominids Book 1 without regard to the numerous member reviews that clearly were blinded by their own hidebound perspectives.
The beauty of this book is that it shows us two entirely different civilizations each of which is in many ways blind to its own flaws and yet each of which has its own strengths and humanity.
It's clearly not by accident that the Neanderthals call themselves human and that the Homo Sapiens call themselves human and that as a whole each civilization is short sighted.
The flaws of the Neanderthals really are both potential and present flaws of our society, too. And the flaws of the Homosapiens are parallel flaws of our own.
It's a book without good or evil. Each society is both compassionate and prejudiced, and each side is worthy of existing and interacting with the other.
Finally, the main characters are for good reason benevolent and often wise. Thus individuals redeem their societies.
Some reviewers are caught up on one side or another, on one character or another, on trivia that misses the whole point. Be willing to accept the evil to appreciate the good.
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31 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Grant Loving
- 05-16-08
Awesome!
Seriously! Freaking awesome! I can totally understand why it won a Hugo award. I would have driveway moments just as I got home from work listening to the book in my parked car. It is a good sci-fi book because it focuses on the characters and their interaction to the technology. The sci-fi part itself is spectacular and raises a bunch of what-if questions. It is the kinda sci-fi where it seems like it could almost happen, that it is not so much of a stretch. Another great thing about it, is that the storyline is episodic, so you almost get several stories at once. My next Audible purchase is going to be the next book in this series. I might actually put this up there with Ender's Game, and Starship Troopers, as one of my favorite books.
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27 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Fred
- 02-14-09
Graphic Rape Scene
Hi, I don't want to sound too prude, but this book has an early graphic rape scene. In a regular book, it isn't a problem to fast forward through this, but in an audio format, it is just a little bit creepy.
I really felt awkward listening to this and just wanted to pass it on to others. I realize this may come off as old-fashioned, but having to listen to it is very different than reading through it (where you can skip lines and/or pages).
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24 people found this helpful
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- Michael
- 11-07-12
OK but flawed
Any additional comments?
Overall this isn't a bad book...the narration was super. Jonathan Davies doe a great job at bringing each character to life.
where i have a problem is parts of the story. For example (not giving away any story here) our Hero (Ponter) accidentally travels through a portal to a parallel universe and the 2nd or 3rd thought out of anyones mouth is "oh he must be from a parallel universe'"...i don't know, maybe, just maybe you explore a couple of other concepts first? And did we really need to experience a characters sexual assault? This did not enhance the book one bit for me, as a mattter of fact it diminished the story...i still cannot see where it fit into the story at all.
Also, i am really bored & tired of authors who feel the need to lecture us on all of the ills of modern society and worse: on our violent & foolish history, by having some fictional visitor bemoan, chastise & condemn us for our actions. it just seems a cheap shot and i expected more from a Hugo nominee....maybe i won't use these Hugo's as a basis for my choice of books anymore. I know i am not going to bother with any more of this series.
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18 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Linda B
- 10-26-08
Very thoughtful
While this is a very interesting book, listeners/readers should be warned that it isn't fast paced, and the story unfolds slowly - this is not a criticism, but if you are impatient, you may not enjoy this. However, if you are willing to commit, it should be pretty enjoyable.
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15 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Adi
- 07-09-09
Brilliant book - going straight to the next one!
I'm glad I chose to ignore some of the less good reviews this book got because I really really enjoyed it. It's a great story that shines a (not always flattering) light on our own society as well as exploring an interesting fictional world as well.
I've gotten so involved in this novel that I've listened (unusually for me) at all sorts of times outside of my normal commute and that I'm going straight on to book 2 as soon as my next credit becomes active!
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14 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Jim "The Impatient"
- 03-05-11
Good Science Fiction
I am a fan of Robert J. Sawyer and this is another great read. This is Science Fiction in it's purest form. We are talking Neanderthals, parallel universes and a little physics thrown in. Character development not the best. Mainly it has neat stuff in it that leads to a lot of deep thought.
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13 people found this helpful
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Overall
- crazybatcow
- 02-10-09
Don't gag on the politics and stereotypes
If you've read Sawyer before you'll be aware that he has a lot of political commenting (a.k.a. complaining) in his works... this is no exception. And, no, it's not done discreetly or in flow with the story, he sorta just sticks it in at some spot he deems convenient - sometimes it doesn't clash with the story flow, but mostly it does and you'll stop and think, "now what does the government funding policy have to do with this Neanderthal?".
The narrator is okay though he attempts to do accents which are not very good or very consistent. I.e. the Jamaican accent sometimes sounds French, sometimes is not present, and once in awhile might sound sorta Jamaican, but not really.
The concept behind the book is cool and there is some exploration of how it could be "possible" which makes the sci-fi part of the novel pretty decent... it's the character development (or lack thereof) that makes this story frustrating. Instead of developing characters, Sawyer relies on stereotypes to dictate and explain behaviors: females are victims (to menstrual cycle, to rapists) men get so distracted by beautiful women they can't focus on their work, etc.
The concept is worth 4 stars, the rest of it warrants a 3, or less if you tend to choke on political grumbling. I won't buy any more in this series.
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13 people found this helpful
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- CLR
- 04-23-13
Great idea, execution a bit flat
The first in a series; great concept and a fun vision of what a "modern" neanderthal culture might be like. Even so the plot speed, complexity, and execution are a bit slow and even at times predictable. A fun read overall and worth the time.
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