Patrick

A bit hackneyed

Revisado: 05-27-24

The factual information in the front of the book is helpful, but the narrative experience of the ride doesn't offer much. This part of the book is mostly the author's musings on married as experienced on a tandem bicycle which are mostly the usual cliches about men being Neanderthals and women being sensible and smart. One example, men being genetically incapable of asking for directions when lost, while the woman looks scornfully on. There are other nostalgic musings on classic cars and Harley-Davidsons the author identified with his sense of masculinity when a young man, etc etc., none of which have much to do with the practical experience of the Katy Trail. Also look forward to the author's middling commentary on gun control, which has nothing to do with the topic of cycling. all of this seems to try to relate to the everyday reader, But could be found in many other places ad nauseam.

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Highly recommend

Revisado: 11-24-22

Best narration I've heard in a while, perfectly suited to the characters. Engaging, enjoyable to listen to

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In essence, underwhelmt

Revisado: 06-17-22

There is much (breathless) telling and not showing in this series, and made yet more difficult to enjoy by the professor's habits of speech.

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Complex ideas with awkward dialogue

Revisado: 11-04-21

I know the book won a Hugo, and the ideas are fascinating, but the character dialogue may have lost something in the English translation. It probably couldn't have been helped.

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Well, it was just 5 bucks, so...

Revisado: 07-03-21

This reads more like someone's very detailed high school term paper, lots of facts and incidental accounts but no overarching theme to tie things together. No 'controversy' was ever identified, nor any conclusions reached. Not sure how this made it to Audible.

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Good story but dialogue needs help

Revisado: 07-04-14

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

I might recommend it to a teenager but not an adult. My impression in several instances was that little effort was put into making the dialogue between the characters interesting and engaging. An example is when Victor (a teenager) explains the potential physical ailments of long term space travel to Mono (a nine-year-old). The dialogue "reads" as if from a textbook, and is made more unpleasant by the breathless and over-dramatic reading by the voice actor.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

Most interesting: the setting and situation seemed a plausible and a realistic future projection of current technology, which I always find interesting. Least interesting: the dialogue.

How could the performance have been better?

The quality of the narration is inconsistent. The voice actor reading Lem's chapters is the most skillful and nuanced; the reader of Victor's chapters is overdoing it to the point of severe annoyance. I guess the idea is to make the reading more dramatic, but the result is off-putting, at least to me - I feel like I'm listening to sports announcer at a soccer match the entire time. The reading of the children's parts by adult voice actors at the beginning of the next book in the series is particularly grating on the ears.

Did Earth Unaware inspire you to do anything?

I liked the story enough to want to continue listening to the rest of the series.

Any additional comments?

If you can, I'd recommend buying a paper copy of the book, rather than listening to it. I do a lot of long distance car commuting and enjoy an audio book if it is a pleasure to listen to, but this one I often wanted to turned the stereo off or fast forward.

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