The Speaker for the Trees

By: Sean DeLauder

Narrated by: Larry Oliver

Length: 3 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

Hedge is a typical human - fat and bald, not pretty but not ugly, with a round, doting wife, and a farm where he tends beehives. Except Hedge is not a typical human. In fact, Hedge is not human at all, but a plant sent by the council of plants and the plant of ultimate knowing to observe humanity and determine whether or not humanity is a threat to the universe. This is a task he has blithely performed for 20 years - until the night he receives a message to report back to the Council and realizes he has to leave everything behind.

Pursued by an agent of the notorious visitors, whose appearances have heralded the end of civilizations, and torn between his fellow plants and an awakening affection for his earth-wife, Anna, Hedge must find a way to save humanity from visitors, plants, and themselves.

©2012 Sean DeLauder (P)2019 Sean DeLauder

Fun, quick but doesn't scratch the itch

Preface: I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review

While I enjoyed this book, the narration was especially good, I found it somewhat lacking. It's a rather short listen and it feels like it set up for other plotlines and would have benefitted from being a longer book. The pacing feels a bit rushed, where I think it would have been beneficial for the characters to grow more slowly, and for us to actually care about them.

Overall, it's a good audiobook. I'd recommend it.

original

it's maybe not my usual story but I did enjoy the book very much I will not name a genre to this book because it's quite impossible in my mind but the book was very original very sophisticated and the fact that it wasn't long but it created all you could have expect and even more was quite brilliant it's a very special and unusual book and I'm happy I listened to it

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review

Overall a pretty good book

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

I want to preface this by saying I'm a hard Sci-Fi fan, so I'm probably not the target audience, I haven't read much in the form of romance literature so maybe this hits that group better. The point is, most of my criticism for this book comes from not matching my expectations from a Sci-Fi perspective. Overall the book is decent, and if you can pick it up for a few bucks it's probably worth it. If you're looking for a strong Sci-Fi entry, this probably isn't it.

The Good:
The Author builds an interesting scenario where plants are the dominant sentient beings in the universe. They basically act as galactic gatekeepers. It's an interesting twist, there's a certain logic in plants doing this job. There's a decent variety in the characters and there's lots of opportunity for plants to bring a new perspective into this sort of scenario.

The Meh:
Although an interesting scenario, the Author didn't capitalize on it all that much. Nothing that happened would have been any different if you had substituted plants for "generic" alien species, that felt like a missed opportunity to me.

The Narrator, not bad, but the voices picked for a few of the characters just didn't seem to work.

"A Love story", I see why the author added that as the subtitle, but there wasn't enough development in that department to get it there. There were some points where the main character probably should have felt more anguish over their relationship, and how it came to be, but it got breezed over.


***SPOILERS***

There are some forms of mind control at play here, and while it's used for "good" the fact that the main character doesn't trip over "does she love me", makes "love" a hard sell. If you manipulated someone's memories, even for their own good, you probably shouldn't have a relationship with them.

For aliens embedded into human society they seem to know/understand very little about humans, some of that is for the sake of humor, but the fact that the aliens don't understand human mating on a biological level, at the point were at in the book, was a bit world breaking for me.

There is a government system among the plants, and we know these plants can perform deception. So when the main character drops off "humanity", and there seem to be no safeguards on the species submitting process, no redundancies, it was a little world breaking. That plant "agents" can just disappear, and that they put someone in charge of exterminating humans that has obvious issues with it, I don't care how influential the dandelions are...

*** End Spoilers ***

I'll sum this up by saying, there are some interesting concepts here, and the author could probably make this into something much better by working with a professional editor. If you can pick it up for a couple of bucks, it's probably worth it.

I Need A Toaster!

This reminded me of the Hitch Hiker's Guide's Guide to the Galaxy. It has some light hearted humor and some rather amusing philosophical debates. The story is quite entertaining and has some interesting perspectives that is conveyed to the listener. The narrator is a perfect fit for this kind of story and adds a lot to the tone of the story. I really enjoyed it and recommend you give it a listen.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

quite enjoyable

I was given this free review copy audio book at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

This is an interesting and unique story. Has a very Hitchhiker's Guide feel to it. The narration is done fairly well. All in all, I really liked it and would recommend to anyone who wants a quick but fun listen.