The Algebraist

By: Iain M. Banks

Narrated by: Anton Lesser

Length: 7 hrs and 42 mins

Publisher's summary

The novels of Iain M. Banks have forever changed the face of modern science fiction. With breathtaking imagination and extraordinary storytelling, they have secured his reputation as one of the most extraordinary and influential writers in the genre.

It is 4034 AD. Humanity has made it to the stars but Fassin Taak, a Slow Seer at the Court of the Nasqueron Dwellers, will be fortunate if he makes it to the end of the year.

The Nasqueron Dwellers inhabit a gas giant on the outskirts of the galaxy, in a system awaiting its wormhole connection to the rest of civilisation. In the meantime, they are dismissed as decadents living in a state of highly developed barbarism, hoarding data without order, hunting their own young and fighting pointless formal wars.

Abruptly seconded to a military-religious order he's barely heard of - part of the baroque hierarchy of the Mercatoria, the latest galactic hegemony - Fassin Taak has to travel again amongst the Dwellers. He is in search of a secret hidden for half a billion years.

But with each day that passes a war draws closer - a war that threatens to overwhelm everything and everyone he's ever known.

Books by Iain M. Banks:
Consider Phlebas
The Player of Games
Use of Weapons
Excession
Inversions
Look to Windward
Matter
Surface Detail
The Hydrogen Sonata
The State of the Art
Against a Dark Background
Feersum Endjinn
The Algebraist

©2004 Iain M. Banks (P)2004 Time Warner AudioBooks

Critic reviews

"Once again Banks is having enormous fun with space opera, and his exuberant enjoyment is infectious. Highly readable stuff." (Amazon.co.uk)

Complex but novel story

Anton Lesser has the best voice in English language. Actually I selected book on basis of reader.

Great Story

A 1st rate science fiction story. I love the sounds effects. Great narrator.

Caution.

A quick browse on the Internet will quickly tell you that “The Algebraist” is a well regarded science fiction novel, indeed the reviews are sparkling with comments like “Far from formulaic”, “absorbing cast of characters and multitudinous subplots”, “space opera at its baroque best”, “bold, daring and epic”, “another magnificent work from Iain M Banks”, and I got a real sense of this in the opening passages. The plot centers on the search for a long lost formula that explains the process for faster than light travel. However, I could not get past the narrator, and the problem was the pacing. Simply, it was poorly read and at times indecipherable and so, for the first time ever, I abandoned an audio download. However, please listen to the sample and decide for yourself, for the science fiction genre is home to its fair share of bad books, and it sounds like this one is has real promise.

Not a good book to abridge

The original is a long book so this abridged version does not work very well. I liked the setting and would like to read the full version but it just felt like you were leaping from point to point in this version to get the key plot covered.

Mixed Package

The narrator does a good job in my opinion although the audio quality could be better. The problem is mainly that the unabriged version of this book is around 22 hours long. It's not an easy to follow plot and 2/3 of the story missing does not help.