Macrolife

A Mobile Utopia

By: George Zebrowski

Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins, Victor Bevine

Length: 13 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's summary

This pioneering novel about the meaning of space habitats for human history presents spacefaring as no work had in its time - or has since. A utopian novel like no other, presenting a dynamic utopian civilization that transcends the failures of our history.

Epic in scope, Macrolife opens in the year 2021. The Bulero family owns one of Earth's richest corporations. As the Buleros gather for a reunion at the family mansion, an industrial accident plunges the corporation into crisis, which eventually brings the world around them to the brink of disaster. Vilified, the Buleros flee to a space colony where young Richard Bulero gradually realizes that the only hope for humanity lies in macrolife - mobile, self-reproducing space habitats.

A millennium later, these mobile communities have left our sunspace and multiplied. Conflicts with natural planets arise. John Bulero, a cloned descendant of the 21st century Bulero clan, falls in love with a woman from a natural world and experiences the harshness of her way of life. He rediscovers his roots when his mobile returns to the solar system, and a tense confrontation of three civilisations takes place.

One hundred billion years later, macrolife, now as abundant as the stars, faces the impending death of nature. Regaining his individuality, but falling away from a highly evolved macrolife, a strangely changed John Bulero struggles to see beyond a collapse of the universe into a giant black hole.

Inspired by the possibilities of space settlements, projections of biology and cosmology, and basic human longings, Macrolife is a visionary speculation on the long-term future of human and natural history. Filled with haunting images and memorable characters, this is a vivid and brilliant work.

©1979 George Zebrowski (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Wished I had read it.

Enjoyed the story, concepts, the sci fi stuff but the voice chosen for the main character was so whiny and desperate that he seemed like he was on the verge of tears through the entire story. Tough to listen to.

Excruciatingly ... good

What made the experience of listening to Macrolife the most enjoyable?

Several days after finishing it, it started to gel.

What other book might you compare Macrolife to and why?

1961 Dandridge Cole Space World Magazine articles entitled "Macro-life". They made the points that this puts a story around, kinda like the tomes you have to read to make flesh of e-mc2

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

Seems there were two readers, but they were very close to each other... both seemed to be crying. That's a lot of hours of pleading, whining. But in the end the story comes through and it all works.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Macro-life: Longer than Lord of the Rings, no flashy action but far more epic

Any additional comments?

At first you may think you're channeling Ayn Rand via the stiff characterizations from The Roads Must Roll era Heinlein, and then it takes off like Methuselahs Children or Time For The Stars. And then... and then...

If you get part way in and feel it's just too thick and lifeless, hang on just past your wits end. It's worth it. It just needs to ferment in your brain after the reading is done.