Adam P

Worst of the series

Revisado: 04-06-24

This whole book feels like someone copied Firefly characters onto something else. The author clearly has some weird patriarchy hangup because outside of the regular cast, every man is bad and every woman is a sexy warrior lion, except the Abbess, who is an old and cranky warrior lion. It’s so cliche you half expect the Duke to be twirling his mustache and tying damsels to train tracks.

The narrator, as always, does an excellent job of channeling the mannerisms and speech patterns of the characters, it’s just too bad he had such boring material to work with. This would have been a filler episode.

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Popcorn sci-fi with a strong dose of anti-theism

Revisado: 11-02-23

The first half of the book is a lot of “Christians are evil and will literally destroy society and the entire planet” mixed with a heaping dose “a geeky atheist is the perfect savior for the species!” With one small exception at the very end, any time a religious person appears, they are literally a caricature of a corrupt, fire-and-brimstone street corner preacher.

Once it gets past that, it gets somewhat interesting as the Bobs explore the nearby galaxy finding interesting things, but by the end I found myself not really caring about any of them. When a Bob dies or gets blown up, there’s no sense of loss, just “well, another plaque for the memorial wall, oh well, let’s move on.” If you’re expecting anything intellectual from this book, forget it. Despite all the digs at sci-fi hand waving of technology, this book relies heavily on the super-awesome-future 3D printers that can print literally anything atom by atom, including more copies of themselves. The author attempts some drama with resource scarcity but it ends up feeling like just one more thing in the Bobs’s endless to-do list. I guess in the end, this really is better considered not sci-fi, but fantasy for nerdy, atheist cubicle dwellers. It has all the pop culture references, self-satisfied smugness, and digs at religion they could hope for, with a backdrop of space exploration.

The narration is great. In the beginning during some of the more technical “alone in space with technology” sections I occasionally had a hard time remembering I wasn’t listening to Project Hail Mary. But those moments quickly passed as the author made yet another dig at those over the top evil religious people.

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Really funny

Revisado: 10-13-22

Reminiscent of Douglas Adams, this is fun the same way playing with dinosaurs is fun. The situations are ridiculous and the reactions to them are outlandish. If your politics are your religion, this may not be for you. Anyone with skin thicker than an apple will be fine. Adam Baldwin's narration is great, particularly when portraying carnage-hungry war generals.

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Good music

Revisado: 07-13-22

The music was pretty interesting, and a few of the stories were ok. Listening to him talk to his therapist for 2 hours got extremely tedious, and the bit towards the end where he is delirious from driving too long and just saying whatever weird stuff pops into his head was extremely unnecessary to include. It was about like listening to your kids ask “are we there yet?” a thousand times.

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Hilarious

Revisado: 04-13-22

If you’re expecting high art or deep Sci-Fi like The Expanse, you’ll be disappointed. If you like pop culture references, groan worthy puns, and satirical jabs at just about everybody, then this is a really fun book. People complaining that it’s just making fun of liberal politics obviously missed all the jokes the author made at his own, Adam Baldwin’s, or conservative culture’s expense. I laughed as much at this as I do reading a Patrick F. McManus book.

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Enjoyable, but with recording issues

Revisado: 09-10-21

I really liked the story, but the recording leaves a lot to be desired. The whole thing, save for a couple sentences in the middle, sounds very muffled. I had to severely adjust my EQ just to be able to clearly make out what the reader was saying. There are also numerous places where it will jump back and repeat a passage. Usually just a sentence or two, but one towards the end was several minutes long. The reader herself is fine to listen to, I just wish it didn’t sound like it was coming through a pillow.

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Excellent reading of a wonderful collection

Revisado: 06-25-21

Stephen Fry was a wonderful choice for the narration of these stories. His passion for the material is self evident even without the forewords interspersed among the sections. I often forgot I was listening to a single person performing all the roles.

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A long, boring slog of a book

Revisado: 05-27-21

Maybe it’s the dry and technical translation and the book is better in German, I don’t know, but I constantly found myself checking the time and groaning while there were still 6, 4, or a few hours left to go. The reader does different voices for the characters, which helps break up the monotony, but the in between narration seems very cold and emotionless. I normally listen to books a bit faster than 1x speed, but this one I found myself cranking up the speed multiple times just to get through it, until at the end I was listening at nearly twice my normal speed.
There are two or three moments that are touching in the back half, but the long periods in between describing how much she loves flowers or the colors of every little thing around her make them difficult to reach.

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