marsbars

Hard Sci-Fi w/ a Global (non-western) Frame of Reference

Revisado: 12-21-23

It is my personal opinion that Reynolds had two major issues when putting together this trilogy.

First he was writing from the perspective of women in much of these stories.

The second was that he was writing from a non-western African perspective. The story repeatedly goes back to talking about Chinese and Swahili being the dominant cultural lingua franca along with the idea that many of the world’s great thinkers are from both Asia and Africa moving forward rather than North America or Europe.

For the second reason alone, I was very interested in these stories. While acknowledging that Reynolds is a white male author, whose primary life experience took place in the western world, I admire him for writing hard science fiction with this backdrop. I thoroughly enjoyed it as somebody who has worked in Africa, and somebody who’s best friends are from Africa and Asia. I believe this is the first and only work of hard fiction I’ve ever had the opportunity to read that comes from the global south’s perspective. I very much recommend it to connoisseurs of hard science fiction. I also appreciate Reynold’s scientific background and describing the difficulties that the characters encounter. It gives every story he writes authenticity, that other writers like Peter Hamilton, lack.

The narration was just fun! The narrator’s voice and intonation when she spoke, as Eunice was fun and made the story really come alive. It felt like I was listening to multiple actors. People who are unfamiliar with various accents from around the continent may complain, people who are overly familiar with various accents from around the continent, who Snub the voice actor as being unauthentic… they all can just take a chill pill.

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Complex and Engaging

Revisado: 09-20-22

I’ve seen several reviews that claim that this story meanders and is off putting due to its scope, chronology, and number of primary characters. These listeners clearly aren’t readers. The put the book on while they are doing other things and expect the story to unfold in an easy to follow, formulaic way similar to podcasts. That is not what Peter F Hamilton is about.

Hamilton’s stories are original and demand your thought and attention. I love how captivating his characters are. I enjoy living in a storyteller’s perspective for 50+ pages only to discover they are something completely different than what I had thought. No paragraph is wasted, and no anecdote is without some significance to the mystery of the plot, even if you don’t see the relation at first.

Bravo Hamilton. Another fantastic read!

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One of the Best SciFi Stories

Revisado: 08-23-22

This isn't just one of my favorite Peter F Hamilton's, I believe this may be one of my favorite books of any category. The coming of age tale in adversity combined with the scientific realism of what it would mean for a post scarcity human race to create an ark ship and have it survive various trials is just a thrill to listen along with and imagine.

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Good Boom, Bad Reader

Revisado: 08-01-22

I greatly appreciate it hearing George W. Bush's perspective on his presidency. Both is somebody who is the news watcher and us somebody who does not agree with his politics, I was able to come away knowing that he was a good and thoughtful man.

The reader however was not very good at performing. The names of people places and parties were often comically mispronounced.

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Great story!

Revisado: 03-26-22

I love learning more about this new world that Hamilton has brought to life with nothing but his imagination.

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Not a casual listen

Revisado: 03-11-22

This is a really intense story. I tried listening to it at first in the background while I did other things and it didn't work very well. I could only listen to this book when I was doing a task like driving or some thing that didn't require a lot of conscious thought. You really have to focus to understand because there's so much going on and the author uses such rich language.

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Great story about an even greater president

Revisado: 01-16-22

The first chapter of the book takes some patients. Once it gets going however, this is one of the best books about a president I have ever read. Moreover the character of President Truman is like something out of a novel. He is able to wrap himself into almost every important piece of history in the first half of the 20th century.

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