Seven Surrenders

By: Ada Palmer

Narrated by: T. Ryder Smith

Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's Summary

The second book of Terra Ignota, a political SF epic of extraordinary audacity

In a future of near-instantaneous global travel, of abundant provision for the needs of all, a future in which no one living can remember an actual war, a long era of stability threatens to come to an abrupt end.

For known only to a few, the leaders of the great Hives, nations without fixed location, have long conspired to keep the world stable, at the cost of just a little blood. A few secret murders, mathematically planned. So that no faction can ever dominate, and the balance holds. And yet the balance is beginning to give way.

Mycroft Canner, convict, sentenced to wander the globe in service to all, knows more about this conspiracy the than he can ever admit. Carlyle Foster, counselor, sensayer, has secrets as well, and they burden Carlyle beyond description. And both Mycroft and Carlyle are privy to the greatest secret of all: Bridger, the child who can bring inanimate objects to life.

Shot through with astonishing invention, Seven Surrenders is the next movement in one of the great SF epics of our time.

©2017 Ada Palmer (P)2017 Recorded Books

AWFUL Performance, Thought-provoking story

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

I can't recommend this book to anyone; the narrator is atrocious. He croaks and growls. He uses incomprehensible accents to denote different characters and inexplicably adds confusing pauses and timing choices between words. Just awful, awful.

What other book might you compare Seven Surrenders to and why?

This is the second in a series and matches the first (Too Like the Lightning) with a variety of speakers, and is in the style of spoken-word history.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of T. Ryder Smith?

Jefferson Mays.

Do you think Seven Surrenders needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

Can't say as yet. Still considering.

Any additional comments?

This book needs to be re-recorded with a different narrator. Since it's a series, they should get the narrator for the first one, Jefferson Mays, whose voice and talents are quite well suited to this text.

10 of 11 people found this review helpful

Egad!

Wonderful! Possibly the single best series of speculative fiction I've ever read. Utterly different from my other top picks, but definitely jostling for #1.

The change in narrators is jarring, but give yourself time to adjust. Smith brings a nuance to the performance that I don't remember being present in Mays, though both are excellent.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Narrator is terrible; returning a few minutes in

Too like the lightning was a singularly magnificent book and Mays was a great narrator who brought a very complex story to life. The new one alternates between a slow drone and an odd, affected storybook villain caricature that ruins the story.

Listeners, do not bother buying you’ll just return it.

Recorded Books, it’s worth your time to just remake this one, you’ll sell more in the long run.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Storybook narration ruins sequel

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

I was so excited to listen to the second part of this trilogy that I immediately bought it when I finished the first installment. I braced myself, knowing that a different reader always brings something different to the story, but try to imagine my disappointment when I discovered that this new reader brought only two voices, (kindly storybook narrator, and a poor approximation of a Peter Lorre sneer) and nothing in his tone to suggest that he is at all invested in the tale he tells.H

His lack of tonal variance completely undermines the conceit of the story itself, as we easily forget from which perspective he's speaking - this is most apparent in the in-story interaction between Narrator and Reader, . Instead of enhancing the richness of the story, his performance completely distracts. I'm halfway through it now, and I have no idea, most of the time, which characters are speaking. After the excellent voice acting on the part of Jefferson Mays, I am not just disappointed, but devastated.

I will be returning this title, rather than suffer through the ruination of an excellent story at the hands of this painfully uninspired drone.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Good story, narrator not anywhere near first part

Sorry, the voice acting sounds like a bunch of kids half the time, wish they'd kept the narrator from the first book.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

A masterpiece.

For me, a life long lover of the sheer originality and depth that can come out of the SF genre, this will be one of those series that I come back to again and again throughout my life.

An engaging story, fully-fleshed characters, a utterly unique and deep world, and the most complex and directly astounding first-person perspective and thematic presentation style I've read.

Whatever you do next, Madam Palmer, I will be an eager reader for life.

I was slightly disappointed they'd switched narrators between the books, but by an hour in I was already sold on Smith. Make sure you read Too Like the Lightning first!

4 of 5 people found this review helpful

give the new narrator time. it's amazing

once you are used to the new narrator you will realize this book is a great continuation of the series. I will say that it took me about 3 chapters to get used to the new narrator but it comes around.
great conclusion of the first two books in the series

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Terrible Sound Engineering

Any additional comments?

T. Ryder Smith overdoes the voices, especially by lowering his voice so much for some of the characters--Dominic and Ganymede in particular--that the sound contrast between when he's speaking in those characters' voices and when he's speaking more loudly makes the book practically unlistenable. No matter how much I cranked up the volume, if I was listening in the car, or when there was background noise I literally could not hear the dialogue of the characters he did in the softer voices, and I had to go back more than once to catch what I'd missed. The sound engineering did not make up for the dramatic volume differences. Jefferson Mays, who narrated the first book in the series, was much, much, much, much easier to listen to. The extreme volume differences utterly ruined my enjoyment of listening to (as opposed to reading) this book.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

A great follow up to Too Like the Lightning

A different reader was something to get used to but it is done very well.
The story itself reveals many of the mysteries put forth in the first book. You might actually want to reread the first book so can enjoy all background and reveals in Seven Surrenders.
Really looking forward to more books in this series no matter who reads it!

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Excellent!

Surpassed the 1st book. Makes me want to read Voltaire/Diderot/etc! I was sad about the new reader but he grew on me.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

great book, mediocre performance

Excellent novel. I just finished and am weeping real tears. Wonderful characters, exciting plot, possibly the best worl building I have ever seen.

not a fan if the performance though. The decision to give Bridger a lisp really bothered me. A lot of the accents weren't so great.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful