Regular price: $13.99
Shevek, a brilliant physicist, decides to take action. He will seek answers, question the unquestionable, and attempt to tear down the walls of hatred that have isolated his planet of anarchists from the rest of the civilized universe. To do this dangerous task will mean giving up his family and possibly his life. Shevek must make the unprecedented journey to the utopian mother planet, Anarres, to challenge the complex structures of life and living, and ignite the fires of change.
The Confederation has fought three wars against the forces of the totalitarian Union. Three generations of its warriors have gone off to war, held the line against the larger, more powerful enemy. Now the fourth conflict is imminent, and the Confederation's navy is on alert, positioned behind the frontier, waiting for the attack it knows is coming.
New York City, New Year's weekend, 2001. Jillian Guthrie, a troubled young journalist, stumbles onto a tantalizing mystery: the same man, unaged, stands alongside Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, and Gandhi in three different photographs spanning eighty-five years of history.
In 2061 a young scientist invents a time machine to fix a tragedy in his past. But his good intentions turn catastrophic when an early test reveals something unexpected: the end of the world. A desperate plan is formed: recruit three heroes, ordinary humans capable of extraordinary things, and change the future.
When DARPA's billion-dollar program to create artificial superintelligence is sabotaged, US operative Cameron Carr is tasked with finding the culprit. He's been on high-stakes missions before, but this time the stakes are nothing less than the future of humanity. Because the race to evolve a superintelligent computer is on, and power players around the world will stop at nothing to get there first.
Wayward Pines, Idaho, is quintessential small-town America — or so it seems. Secret Service agent Ethan Burke arrives in search of two missing federal agents, yet soon is facing much more than he bargained for. After a violent accident lands him in the hospital, Ethan comes to with no ID and no cell phone. The medical staff seems friendly enough, but something feels…off. As the days pass, Ethan’s investigation into his colleagues’ disappearance turns up more questions than answers. Why can’t he make contact with his family in the outside world? Why doesn’t anyone believe he is who he says he is? And what’s the purpose of the electrified fences encircling the town? Are they keeping the residents in? Or something else out? Each step toward the truth takes Ethan further from the world he knows, until he must face the horrifying possibility that he may never leave Wayward Pines alive…
Shevek, a brilliant physicist, decides to take action. He will seek answers, question the unquestionable, and attempt to tear down the walls of hatred that have isolated his planet of anarchists from the rest of the civilized universe. To do this dangerous task will mean giving up his family and possibly his life. Shevek must make the unprecedented journey to the utopian mother planet, Anarres, to challenge the complex structures of life and living, and ignite the fires of change.
The Confederation has fought three wars against the forces of the totalitarian Union. Three generations of its warriors have gone off to war, held the line against the larger, more powerful enemy. Now the fourth conflict is imminent, and the Confederation's navy is on alert, positioned behind the frontier, waiting for the attack it knows is coming.
New York City, New Year's weekend, 2001. Jillian Guthrie, a troubled young journalist, stumbles onto a tantalizing mystery: the same man, unaged, stands alongside Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, and Gandhi in three different photographs spanning eighty-five years of history.
In 2061 a young scientist invents a time machine to fix a tragedy in his past. But his good intentions turn catastrophic when an early test reveals something unexpected: the end of the world. A desperate plan is formed: recruit three heroes, ordinary humans capable of extraordinary things, and change the future.
When DARPA's billion-dollar program to create artificial superintelligence is sabotaged, US operative Cameron Carr is tasked with finding the culprit. He's been on high-stakes missions before, but this time the stakes are nothing less than the future of humanity. Because the race to evolve a superintelligent computer is on, and power players around the world will stop at nothing to get there first.
Wayward Pines, Idaho, is quintessential small-town America — or so it seems. Secret Service agent Ethan Burke arrives in search of two missing federal agents, yet soon is facing much more than he bargained for. After a violent accident lands him in the hospital, Ethan comes to with no ID and no cell phone. The medical staff seems friendly enough, but something feels…off. As the days pass, Ethan’s investigation into his colleagues’ disappearance turns up more questions than answers. Why can’t he make contact with his family in the outside world? Why doesn’t anyone believe he is who he says he is? And what’s the purpose of the electrified fences encircling the town? Are they keeping the residents in? Or something else out? Each step toward the truth takes Ethan further from the world he knows, until he must face the horrifying possibility that he may never leave Wayward Pines alive…
It came from deep space. It sent the signal. Now our computers are killing us, helping the enemy drive us into extinction. But some of us refuse to die. We fight back. We learn. Jon Hawkins revives from cryogenic sleep in a drifting SLN battleship. The crew is dead and the main computer has been destroyed. Jon is a soldier, the start of the resistance, the one man with the will to beat the alien death machines that have terminated 1000 races. This is our hour as we face the ultimate evil, the galactic destroyer of life.
Nothing ever changes in Sanders. The town's still got a video store, for God's sake. So why doesn't Eli Teague want to leave? Not that he'd ever admit it, but maybe he's been waiting - waiting for the traveler to come back. The one who's roared into his life twice before, pausing just long enough to drop tantalizing clues before disappearing in a cloud of gunfire and a squeal of tires. The one who's a walking anachronism, with her tricorne hat, flintlock rifle, and steampunked Model A Ford.
Emily Baxter’s dream life turns into a waking nightmare the day the red rain falls. Like a biblical plague, the scarlet downpour spreads a hideous virus that demolishes life in New York City, the nation, and the world. Suddenly the last soul in an annihilated metropolis - and possibly on Earth - the onetime newspaper reporter must learn to scavenge, survive...and plan for a future of utter solitude. Then, from far-flung Alaska, another living voice reaches out, and Emily grasps at her only glimmer of hope. But she may be even less alone than she thinks.
When Dan McCarthy stumbles upon a folder containing evidence of the conspiracy to end all conspiracies - a top-level alien cover-up - he leaks the files without a second thought. The incredible truth revealed by Dan's leak immediately captures the public's imagination, but Dan's relentless commitment to exposing the cover-up and forcing disclosure quickly earns him some enemies in high places.
In 1988, 43-year-old Jeff Winston died of a heart attack. But then he awoke, and it was 1963; Jeff was 18 all over again, his memory of the next two decades intact. This time around, Jeff would gain all the power and wealth he never had before. This time around he'd know how to do it right. Until next time.
Space travel just isn't what it used to be. With the invention of Quantum Teleportation, space heroes aren't needed anymore. When one particularly unlucky ex-adventurer masquerades as famous pilot and hate figure Jacques McKeown, he's sucked into an ever-deepening corporate and political intrigue. Between space pirates, adorable deadly creatures, and a missing fortune in royalties, saving the universe was never this difficult!
I found the journal at work. Well, I don't know if you'd call it work, but that's where I found it. It's the lost journal of Nikola Tesla, one of the greatest inventors and visionaries ever. Before he died in 1943, he kept a notebook filled with spectacular claims and outrageous plans.
Sixteen-year-old John Grady Cole's grandfather has just died, his parents have permanently separated, and the family ranch, upon which he had placed so many boyish hopes, has been sold. Rootless and increasingly restive, Cole leaves Texas, accompanied by his friend Lacey Rawlins, and begins a journey across the vaquero frontier into the badlands of northern Mexico.
Joel Byram is an everyday 22nd century guy. He spends his days training artificial-intelligence engines to act more human, jamming out to 1980s new wave - an extremely obscure genre - and trying to salvage his deteriorating marriage. Joel is pretty much an everyday guy with everyday problems - until he's accidentally duplicated while teleporting. Now Joel must outsmart the shadowy organization that controls teleportation, outrun the religious sect out to destroy it, and find a way to get back to the woman he loves.
Appointed to conquer the "crime capital of the world", the first police chief of Paris faces an epidemic of murder in the late 1600s. Assigned by Louis XIV, Nicolas de La Reynie begins by clearing the streets of filth and installing lanterns throughout Paris, turning it into the City of Light. The fearless La Reynie pursues criminals through the labyrinthine neighborhoods of the city. He unearths a tightly knit cabal of poisoners, witches, and renegade priests.
The year is 2025. Astronaut Caitlyn "Sif" Wagner and her team emerge from stasis to discover that their Mars mission has gone terribly awry - the crew has run off course in space and, they suspect, in time as well. Their damaged ship returns to an Earth reduced to overgrown cities and blasted terrain. Yet humans have somehow survived, living in caves, foraging at night, returned to a tribal existence.
Writer John Howard Griffin (1920-1980) decided to perform an experiment in order to learn from the inside out how one race could withstand the second class citizenship imposed on it by another race. Through medication, he dyed his skin dark and left his family and home in Texas to find out.
Thanks to the time travel lab at St. Sunniva University, history is no longer a mystery. But when the beloved co-inventor of the university’s time machine is inexplicably smeared across time, academic exploration and the future of St. Sunniva is thrown into doubt.
As assistant to the dean of science, Julia Olsen is tasked with helping Campus Security Chief Nate Kirkland quietly examine this rare mishap…then, just as quietly, make it go away. But when the investigation indicates that the professor’s disappearance may have been a murder, those inspecting the incident unwittingly find themselves caught in a deadly coverup - one in which history itself is the weapon.
From the snow-blanketed walkways of St. Sunniva’s campus to the sun-bleached cobblestone of ancient Pompeii’s roads, The Far Time Incident is a lively romp through history, science, and the academic world in the wake of a crime.
The problem with this book for me was that it tried to be too many things and didn't really succeed at any of them very well.
As a detective story it was far too simplistic and I knew who the villain was long before the end. As hard SF it was clear that while the author was trying to come up with some kind of scientific justification for time travel and... well let's just say that the 'baffle them with bulls***' tag applies far more than the 'dazzle them with brilliance'. Her lengthy explanations were not self consistent or convincing enough for me to suspend belief (lasers? Really??) and took up time that would have been far better spent on developing her characters more.
The reader was quite good; her reading is entertaining and evocative, although she does not differentiate her voices for different characters quite as much as some others do.
Disappointing overall and not one that makes me want to read others by the author.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
This book is a genre-bender, albeit in a very conservative way. The basic plot is that of an academic murder mystery ("The Professor did it!" No, "The secretary did it!" No, "The Dean did it!," etc.). The twist is that the University in question operates the world's first time travel lab. Otherwise, it's set in the eigenpresent, at a fictitious Minnesota university, even if much of the action takes place about two millennia ago.
I read Maslakovic's first book, "Regarding Ducks and Universes," and enjoyed it. This book offers similarly well-mannered prose, with equally well-mannered characters. For the most part, it all works. As a career academic (20+ years on the tenure track), I am doubtless more sensitive to lapses in verisimilitude (there aren't that many) than most readers or listeners.
Ms. Kowal's narrative range is limited, and this book unfortunately does not especially suit her limitations. There are probably more female narrators who can manage male voices credibly than there are males who can manage female voices; unfortunately, based on this one sample, Ms. Kowal does not appear to be one of them.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful
One narrator attempting an entirely different and occasionally bizarre voice for every single character? Bad directorial choice! Some variations in pitch and rythmn normally help listeners identify various characters, but this is WAY over the top. Returning this one.
I couldn't even get through the first couple hours - and the terrible narration did not help.
If you enjoy the genre of Historians as Time Travelers, you will enjoy this listen. The story line stays on track and interesting and the historical references are detailed enough to be intriguing without being ridden to death.
What made the experience of listening to The Far Time Incident the most enjoyable?
This was my first audiobook, so I wasn't sure if I would like it. I'm not sure if it was Mary Robinette Kowal's performance, the Minnesota setting of the story, or the time travel - but I really enjoyed the whole thing.
What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)
I thought the structure was very similar to other time travel stories (Connie Willis' Dooms Day Book, Pastwatch by Orson Scott Card) - but even so, a fun story.
Any additional comments?
I would recommend to anyone who enjoys time travel science fiction.
Awesome. really really really good totally cool a a a a a a a a a a a a AWESOM
0 of 2 people found this review helpful
Poor review but I just couldn't get into this.
Right from the start I could tell and the posh lisping voice for the intern was beyond annoying.
Didnt get very far so judge it on that if anything - not the content I missed.
This was a free book on kindle unlimited and not sure now why i chose it! I must confess i stopped listening about half way through but the story didn't grip me and didn't seem to be going anywhere. It may have got much better but i'll leave that to others to find out, performance was good though i know a good performance can't improve a stagnant story.
What would have made The Far Time Incident better?
Shorten it
Would you ever listen to anything by Neve Maslakovic again?
No
What aspect of Mary Robinette Kowal’s performance might you have changed?
Nothing it was the book i had issue with.
If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from The Far Time Incident?
An awful lot of the "oh where are we?" come on they are intelligent and it is obvious after several pages.
This is a great book. I look forward to buying the others in this series.
Great storyline, with really interesting characters. Pulls you into the story, and you want to solve the problem just as much as the characters do