C. Tipton

It made me cry in both sadness and anger.

Revisado: 05-11-22

The book is damning, in many ways. It made me want to apologize for my country, and I was a child at the time the book covers. It made me want to go back in time and punch the face of every person in the Reagan administration, asking how they slept at night or looked at themselves in the mirror in the morning.

There was a review of this book, that, paraphrased, said that it was like a thriller made more entailing because it was real people and events, and more enraging because, well, it's real people and events. I can't put it better than that, and just have to agree. Wikipedia shows that there wasn't even a real federal plan with actionable steps to deal with the AIDS epidemic until the Obama administration! Obama took office in 2009, nearly 30 years after this started. I want to yank my hair out in anger.

Specific to the audiobook format, the narrator was excellent, kept me interested in even the dryer, political bits. The bonus interview was kinda meandering for how short it was, so I don't think it added anything, but the book is a great value any way, especially if you have a credit to burn on Audible.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Great Stories, Poor Quality

Revisado: 03-28-22

TLDR: Do yourself a favor, skip this and get Stephen Fry narrating Sherlock Holmes instead.

I'll not review the books themselves, as classics, that's been done many, many times by much better reviewers than I. Instead, I'll review the narration, as that is one of the most important parts of an audiobook.

Book 1, Call of the Wild: Good narration, keeping to sentence structure and pauses, even good at the accented speech like "Dat Buck, he two devils."

Book 2, White Fang: Poor narration, mispronounced words and oftimes odd pauses in the middle of sentences, like he lost his place, or went back and restarted recording at a word instead of a sentence.

Book 3, To Build a Fire: I didn't think it could get worse than the last guy. I was so wrong, so very wrong. There is a weird not-quite-echo that shows he isn't using a good mic or it wasn't properly post-processed. The sentences have no structure left, as he speaks with no rhythm. At least once he repeats a few sentences, or repeats a word. Plus the same complaints as the previous guy, not able to pronounce rarer words. Thankfully it's a short story, so you don't have to put up with him for long.

OR SO I THOUGHT! But the story just stops mid-sentence while the man is trying to pick up his matches. That's it, it says thanks for listening. I redownloaded it. just in case. Making sure all your files are complete is the BARE MINIMUM of quality control. I gave up at this, Shelved DNF.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

I don't usually like first person stories...

Revisado: 03-01-22

But, like many unreliable narrator stories, this doesn't work without it. The space opera was interesting, and the narrator was excellent. Recommended.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Just excellent!

Revisado: 12-31-20

Stephen Fry is an excellent orator, and he is absolutely having fun reading his book on Greek mythology to us. if anything about that interests you, I can't recommend it enough. It won't disappoint!

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Very interesting lecture series on Earth Science.

Revisado: 02-04-20

I really quite enjoyed the lecture series, with a few reservations, those being:
A) Too many references to visual aids. It is very obvious that this was originally a video series and not a audio series in the number of references to things he suggests we watch or look at. Some of them are also described, but some are not, and it's an issue in an audio series to require so many visual aids.
B) Probably not as much as an issue, again, in the video series, but the lecturer, Dr. Wysession, has many verbal artifacts, "um"s and "ah"s that are pronounced without the distraction of seeing the person talking, only listening.
C) Very personally, the lecture structure - that of different systems, instead of a more chronological structure - was a bit odd.

Other than that, I learned a lot or geology I only had the vaguest notions of, and that is enough for me to recommend it. Also, the ~30 minute lectures fit almost perfectly into my commute, so that was great!

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

A bit too "human interest" for me.

Revisado: 02-04-20

When the science was presented, it was presented well, with a good balance of information for the layperson interested in epidemiology, like myself. It was the biographies of the people involved, how the personnel were recently married, or engaged, were introverts or extroverts, etc, etc, that lost my interest. I was interested in some of the science and history of epidemiology, not particularly in mini-biographies of some epidemiologists.

Also, and this annoyed me the whole chapter, a serial murder, while interesting in another context, is not an "outbreak." Even if it was thought to be an outbreak prior to investigation. I felt that chapter, three, I think, should have been in another book entirely.

Finally, the narration was adequate at best. A friend who I gave a ride to asked if this was an AI voice assistant reading the book, like Alexa or SIri. The sentences had odd breaks e.g. "hundreds... of thousands," the words were often oddly or over enunciated... I could only wish for better in the future.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Very interesting science, mediocre voice work.

Revisado: 02-04-20

As a book, this is 5 star, two thumbs way up material. I had minor quibbles here and there, but found the information edifying and fascinating stuff. I thought the final chapters' focus on the ethics of genetics and ancient DNA research to be a great coda to the book.

The narrator was like listening to an AI voice assistant. Over enunciating, odd pauses in the middle of sentences (where there should have been no comma), non-standard pronunciation of some words... I might have been sensitive to it because it was the second science text in as many months where this was a complaint of mine (albeit with different narrators.)

Recommended as long as you take the caveat of the narration into account.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Good for it's length.

Revisado: 08-29-19

It's well narrated and approachable, it tries to be fairly light heated and fun. I just wish it were longer and touched more on the different Mesozoic periods and the dinosaurs that lived in them, or the Deccan Traps hypothesis before the discover of the Alvarez meteor... Its tiny length cuts out a lot of cool hypotheses, theories, and science.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

An excellent book.

Revisado: 03-26-19

With a few small exceptions I found it just as applicable today as when it was written over a decade ago. I wholeheartedly recommend it, not just to proponents of science, but to anyone who believes in education, that ignorance is a burden to democracy, and knowledge to gateway to freedoms.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Excellent "read," award winning for a reason.

Revisado: 02-26-19

From now on, every time some racist starts in on "Western Civilization," I'm going to ask them to read this book. Then, and only then, can we have some sort of reasonable discussion.

There are some weird jarring changeovers mid-paragraph and the like in the narration, so I took one narration start for that, but don't let the perfect be the enemy of the great.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña