Tau Zero

De: Poul Anderson

Narrado por: Neil Hellegers

This science fiction novel describes the epic voyage of the spacecraft Leonora Christine, which will take a 40-strong crew to a planet some 30 light years distant.

From practically the very first minute, Tau Zero sets scientific realities in dramatic tension with the very real emotional and psychological states of the travelers, exploring the effect of time contraction due to traveling at near-light speed on the human psyche. This tension is a dynamic that Anderson explores with great success over the course of the novel, as 50 crewmembers settle in for the long journey together. While they are a highly trained team of scientists and researchers and therefore professionals, they are also a community of individuals, each of them trying to create for him or herself a life in a whole new space - or, literally, in space.

It isn't long, however, before the voyage takes a turn for the worse. The ship passes through a small, uncharted nebula that makes it impossible to decelerate the ship. Their only hope is to do the opposite and speed up. But acceleration towards and within the speed of light means that time outside the spaceship passes even more rapidly, sending the crew deeper into space and further into an unknown future.

©2016 Poul Anderson (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Nice story, poor telling

The story was interesting, looking continuously at the effects of long-term high speed travel, from physics and psychology perspectives. However the readers method is so staccato and compressed, it is not relaxing and does not flow smoothly. The result is that sounds angry and ultraintense.

Incredibly great sci fi

Mind bending on a level I haven’t seen touched in years of listening to the greats. The story is amazing and the performance is very good too, the “noir” thing is way overhyped in other reviews, I can understand everything fine and I’d listen to something else narrated by the same guy.

Brilliantly envisioned

Brilliant story. One of my favorite story of all time. I was sceptical about the narrator in the beginning, but as the story drew on I think he did a very good job. I cannot recommend enough.

A classic Sci-Fi

Story was very good, but the narrator was stilted, overly dramatoc, and ruined the flow of the story.

Mind blowing story

Had a hard time understanding narrator . Story was excellent, though. Made a difficult subject easy to understand.

Great concept and execution.

The story is sweeping and believable. Definitely one for the science nerds. Good characters too.

Hard Sci Fi at an epic scale

This book blew my mind a bit. At first the humans were not the most interesting characters, it was instead the ship that caught my interest. As the story progressed I began to care about the people while the ship remained the star of the book. Very rich in details and epic in scale, extremely scientific feeling read. The performance was wonderful as well.

I can't tell you if the story is good or not

Might be a good book, I don't know. I couldn't get past the orator. I found his speaking style unpleasant to listen to

Good story

Good story.
Orator on this novel was difficult to hear: breathy, quiet, rushed voice. The cadence of his speech was annoying and difficult to follow.

Bad narration, interesting plot, soft sci-fi.

The narration is awful, as the tone maintains a constant grave sense of danger and urgency no matter the context, making the text extremely difficult to understand. I had to return the audiobook and resort to reading a harrdcopy.