The Last Legends of Earth

A Radix Tetrad Novel

By: A. A. Attanasio

Narrated by: David Gilmore

Length: 20 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's summary

Seven billion years from now, long after the Sun has died and human life itself has become extinct, alien beings reincarnate humanity from our fossilized DNA drifting as debris in the void of deep space. We are reborn to serve as bait in a battle to the death between the Rimstalker, humankind's reanimator, and the zotl, horrific creatures who feed vampire-like on the suffering of intelligent lifeforms.

Set in the artificial planetary system of Chalco-Doror, which is no more and no less than a vast cosmic machine, The Last Legends of Earth is a love story, a gripping saga of struggle against alien control, and an examination of the machinery of creation and destruction. Above all, it is world-building of the highest and grandest order, on a scale rarely seen in science fiction since the great works of Olaf Stapledon.

©1989, 2009 A. A. Attanasio (P)2012 A. A. Attanasio

A Truly Visionary Tale

What three words best describe David Gilmore’s performance?

Bad dinner theater. The narration of this book very nearly ruined this book for me.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes

Any additional comments?

I read this book a few years ago and instantly fell in love with the story. The way in which Attanasio manages to tell a tale that spans 7000 years through the experience of the main characters is really unique. The worlds that he creates or rather that he has the Rimstalker create are an astounding concept that really stick with me and I am sure that I will return several more times.

Stimulating .. astrophysics and biology req.

Atanasio creates worlds and realities like no other .. Lengthy be patient.. invest.
Listened to Radix first then In Other Worlds.. I recommend this sequence.
One complaint: the voice effects for certain dialogue was very hard to understand.. could have down without .. just not necessary.

Great Story, Awful, awful narrator

If you could sum up The Last Legends of Earth in three words, what would they be?

Classic, awesome story.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Last Legends of Earth?

What makes this story great is the way the writer is able to bring such creatures to life - and the span of history the story arcs through.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

The sound quality is poor, the volume changes erratically. The narrator doesn't have any story telling skill at all. I will be sure to avoid audiobooks narrated by David Gilmore in the future.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes

Any additional comments?

Narration is awful, dreadful. Almost as if the budget for the audiobook was so low they went and asked Tim from Accounting to read it.

Old favorite

I love this book, have for years. It's a very complex story of time.

The Audio performance was lacking, however. The reader was inconsistent and had issues with emotional phrases, like he would read a phase loud and excited, but then the book would say the character whispered the word.

great story, okay audio

audio got a little rough at a few points. otherwise a great performance by the voice actor

Imaginative first half but runs out of steam

This is called "Radix Tetrad Part 4" but it has little to do with the prior books and stands on its own.

The premise and setting of the story are amazing, and the best part of it. Humans have been extinct for billions of years- they have been resurrected by an extradimensional alien to serve as bait for space-spiders who feed on the suffering of sentient creatures. The resurrected humans can live for hundreds of years, trying to survive on artificial worlds populated by dinosaurs, mutants and other aliens. The worlds are linked through space and time by portals hidden in caves, pits and ravines. And there are other horrors, such as a disease which turns people into "seraphs", glowing skeletal creatures that float like kites with the wind.

Unfortunately the narrative doesn't fully take advantage of these elements, and they're mostly left in the background. The author goes through the entire history of the newly-resurrected human race from beginning to end by following one time-travelling character. Gaps in the historical narrative are filled in with short stories featuring new characters, who are introduced and then never seen again. These short stories are universally pretty underwhelming.

There are two main concurrent plotlines, that involving the time-travelling main character and that involving the fate of the worlds, and both climax only about halfway through the novel. At that point the author seemed to run out of ideas, and everything that happens after feels like an overlong wind-down while we wait for the plotlines to finally, and predictably, terminate.

I did not experience audio issues as bad as some of the reviews here state, but there were some. One chapter near the end of the book is muffled. The narrator sometimes chose to use an echoing filter for some characters who were communicating telepathically in the story, which made those lines of dialog very difficult to understand.

To Dark otherwise it could have been a great book

What disappointed you about The Last Legends of Earth?

I had to fast forward thru the descriptions of gore. I don't want to take my imagination to a nightmare world. This book needs a Horror warning or label.

(I should have know from the short sample, but I gave it a try because it sounded like it was going to be light or even humorous when the narrator was reading the guide book to the worlds inhabitants, warring the Earth's people who have been brought back to life.)

Has The Last Legends of Earth turned you off from other books in this genre?

It is a multi genre horror and SI-FI so no, I never, ever read horror! this slipped in #$%&!!

What didn’t you like about David Gilmore’s performance?

The voice artist is gifted when it comes to clarity and diction. Reading is flat, almost a montone, paced slow and not much change. Some risk and a couple odd voices here and there that are so out of place after the metronome delivery of the rest of the story. Very briefly one voice has a special effect that sounded like an echo chamber that grated so much I fast forwarded that too. Special effects?! Don't do it unless your 100% sure it's going to work. Let our imagination fill in the atmosphere of a well written story and skip the risky stuff.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

I think I could have loved this book without it's dark side, if it were just SI-FI without the sick horror. I don't want to fill my imaginary world with torture or genocide when I follow along in a story. Tone down the dark stuff, it isn't necessary to go there to tell this story, there could still be conflict without resorting to the easy or cheap trick of adding that stuff.

Awful.

Stupid, incomprehensible, uninspiring, overly pretentious. Even worse is David Gilmore'amateurish narration. Glad it was on sale cheap.

Snooze fest

I felt like I was in algebra class again.
I never connected with any of the characters and the voice actor was a sleepy monotone.

Sucks

Story is so convoluted. Everything has stupid sounding names. Between the author's overly flowery language an his not fulling explaining who is who and what is what, it's difficult to keep up with what's going on. The narrator stinks too. Maybe the worst sci fi novel I've ever read/heard.