Peter

The author betrays the reader

Revisado: 12-01-24

This is NOT a stand-alone story. It is absolutely incomplete.

I bought it thinking it was a novel. It turns out that it's part of a series. But normally a book in a series is also a satisfying story in itself. Not this one. It just stops mid-story and expects you to buy the next one.

Very disatisfying.

OK author, you've tried manipulating me. I'm walking away.

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Find yourself inside an utterly different mind

Revisado: 12-12-21

This book puts you inside a mind which is completely foreign to your own and at odds with society. It manages the interior of that mind so that it makes sense within its own walls. And it manages the boundary between these two worlds so that that perverse world can sustain itself. That is quite an accomplishment on its own. But it's also beautifully written.

The narration is excellent in my opinion. Could be a bit too flat for some but I think it's a deliberate and good choice. It renders the abhorrent unremarkable.

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Superb narration

Revisado: 10-04-20

I've read so much praise of this book. Personally I found it dragged. Feels wrong to criticise a classic... maybe I have much less free time than younger me.

The narration is amazing. Many diverse characters, each given their own life. I was pessimistic a few minutes in - an early character seemed like a bad actor's caricature - but I was wrong to worry.

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Over-rated

Revisado: 07-26-20

This book crops up often in an online forum for book suggestions, with many saying it's their favourite book, or at least Vonnegut's finest.

I don't see it. it has some clever plot devices and I think they could have yielded much deeper explorations of... anything really. Instead it was like eating that kind of salad where you know you spent the time eating but you feel like you haven't.

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Superb

Revisado: 08-10-17

Top marks for the story and the narration. The author transports us right through the wall of "that could never happen" into "yes that really could happen". That is quite an achievement - to make something which is both horrific and unecessary become a solid reality and something which happened **on purpose**. Which in turn carries us from "yes that really could happen" to "that must not be allowed to happen".

As for the narration, it may be the best I've come across in Audible. I'm not privy to the author's thoughts but I feel as if the narrator has captured every nuance as the author intended.

Recommended, without hesitation.

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esto le resultó útil a 6 personas

Should a "classic" fade away?

Revisado: 12-28-14

Great performance.

This is one of those classics so embedded in culture that you know the story without ever reading it. These classics stand out from other works just as the few tbousand visible stars stand out from the billion others we don't see. Each star has held its place for ao long that we don't notice the individual unless we deliberately look - but together they form a familiar backdrop by which we can navigate and enjoy this world.

But after finishing this I ask myself whether some classics should fade from the sky. I felt that Jules Verne gave us a narration of spectacle only; the sibterranean world is explored but the human soul is not. It's interesting to imagine you're hearing tbe story as a contemporary, when people weren't so numb to spectacle and the story would have been gripping as it is. But I feel that classics should have some kind of greatness about them, and that grestness should probably be more than just situation... it should teach us something about ourselves.

On that score I'd allow JTTCOTE to be crowded out of yhe sky.

But one thing is worth repeating: Tim Curry's performance is superb.

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Chopped to pieces - the patient is dead

Revisado: 01-13-12

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

I read the book and loved it to death. This adaptation has instead carved it to death. Great passages from the book have been chopped out, rendering the story incoherent and completely losing the development of the characters. The narrator does a tremendous job on the male voices, but sounds comically amateurish on the female ones.

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

A feeling of having been robbed by Audible and their publishing partners.

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