Ullanta

Excellent and timeless story, beautifully narrated.

Revisado: 02-21-24

I first read this in the 70’s, and have enjoyed revisiting it as an audiobook. The narrator does a great job with complicated material, holding interest through narrative, technical, and sociological passages. Anyone who enjoys this book should also google information on the relation between Panshin and Heinlein… this book is both Heinleinesque and a criticism of many of Heinlein’s attitudes.

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Amazing Book

Revisado: 08-01-23

Amazing book very good theme and is great especially great when trying to relax! Overall very good book

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How can this fail so badly on Dooku’s voice?!?!?

Revisado: 05-13-19

This is kind of meh, especially compared to the recent “Master and Apprentice” which I feel itself gave more insight into Dooku than this. But my main impression is “How can this fail so badly on Dooku’s voice?!?!?” Neither the voice not the accent are anything like Dooku. It is very distracting. Ugh. How can that happen in the audiobook focused on Dooku?

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Great for meditation or sleep

Revisado: 08-06-18

This book is full of interesting information. It is, as others have stated, occasionally repetitive in academically building it’s arguments. But it is somehow soothing, and endlessly listenable.

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Had me laughing out loud....

Revisado: 04-24-18

This was pretty fun, and at moments had me laughing out load. Especially Lando's sartorial musings. A lot of it is silly. I have no idea what the connection to the Solo movie might be (seems all to take place long after). This feels somewhere between an official novel, fanfic, and comic book, and it's FUN. Beautifully written for what it is. The multiple narrators help to keep the multiple-timelines separate when listening - a nice touch.

Don't expect a great book. But if you can look at it as a FUN book, you'll love it. At some moments I even thought this was kind of what a Daniel Pinkwater take on Star Wars might be like....

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esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

Can't get past inhumane treatment of sister/daughter

Revisado: 09-21-15

This is in some ways a well-written and powerful book, similar to the author's others. It is a real tearjerker, and were it not for the way the author handles Sophie, the narrator's autistic sister, I would recommend it.

But the treatment of Sophie is so... lazy, ignorant, inhumane? ... that I can't get past it. And regardless of all the nice work on character development for other characters, the way they all interact with Sophie unintentionally turns them all into pretty wretched excuses for human beings.

Basically, all Sophie does in the book is scream. This is seen by the other characters only as a burden on themselves. It causes problems with neighbors. They have to move. Sophie screams, and her family puts in earplugs. She screams until she loses her voice for a day or two, and the family then feels relief at the burden off their minds.

Never in the book do any of the characters question whether their may be a reason or cause for this screaming. Never do they try to communicate. Never in the times when she is not screaming do they try to engage. She screams, and that's a part of their life, or she is quiet, and is like a piece of furniture to them. They are reluctant to put her in an institution, which is supposed to indicate something about them having some feeling for her, some concern for her, but it m makes no sense here... there are no good times at home, there is no time when the sister/mother try to engage with her (except to try to shut her up), there is no indication that her life would be anything but improved in an institution. I don't say this lightly, and don't at all think institutionalization is the way to go in the vast majority of cases - but that's because in the vast majority of cases there would be at least a scrap of benefit, of happy experience, of deeper understanding, among family. Not here.

So, it turns out that Sophie can be calm and peaceful when around the neighbor's dog. During this good period of life when she is calm and peaceful, does anyone try to interact with her or engage with her? No. Does anyone think of getting Sophie a dog? No. Does anyone think that maybe they should find some other activities involving animals that might be good for Sophie? No. Is everyone content just to let Sophie act like a dog, as long as she isn't noisy and thus burdensome to them? Yes. When it's obvious the situation with this dog can't last, does anyone take any steps to address it? No. Again, get a freakin' dog for Sophie, find other situations with dogs/animals, anything? Even a stuffed dog? Doesn't enter anyone's mind.

During the course of this book, Sophie is picked up by a school bus and dropped off daily, for at least three years. What happens there? Does she learn anything? Does she sit there all day and scream? Does she haver any favorite activities that may indicate what would be good for her in the rest of life? Not a single word is said about what happens when Sophie is at school in the entire book. Noone seems to care. She's just out of sight, out of mind. Except when they think about what a burden her screaming is.

All these nice people, learning to love and care for each other, to find their inner humanity and connections, and none can see Sophie as a human being. We're supposed to feel bad about how the mother doesn't really see or understand the narrator. The narrator is able to see under the curmudgeonly exterior, and the curmudgeon to see so well inside the narrator to understand her best self, etc. But none of them even attempt to see Sophie. The only interaction they ever have is to try to get her to shut up. She screams, they want her to shut up. She is quiet, they don't want her to make any sound. In a crucial scene dealing with her future, she is attempting to communicate in a new way (I don't know if the author even intended it to be such) - making new vocalizations and banging a fork - and they scream "SHUT UP" in her face until she goes back to the same old screaming.

In all the catharsis, nothing is resolved for Sophie. No authorial nod is given to the fact that Soiphie - through her relationship with the dog - is the real cause of all the life-changing and coming together and getting into a better place. She's not screaming, so the characters neither hear nor think anything about her.

It is such a horrid, paper-thin, inhumane characterization of Sophie; and the actions of the people around her are so sure to guarantee that Sophie never improves her life or gets treated as a human being that they can't be seen as decent people, and any message the story aims to convey about human connectedness is obliterated. Blech!

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esto le resultó útil a 62 personas

A beautiful, touching, and unique story!

Revisado: 03-17-15

This is a beautiful story that delves deeply into the essence of humanity, both within us and in the relations, physical and metaphysical, between us. The entire book was great, but the best part was the third quarter of the book, when things were starting to come together in the readers minds but the story hadn't yet hit the resolution phase. The ending certainly leaves a lot of interpretation up to the reader, but I liked it even better before the ending, when there was more mystery about the forces at work. I suppose it had to end! In any case, the writing is full of colorful imagery that reinforced the characters' characters, and does a great job of evolving the characters (drastically) while keeping them themselves, and of weaving together the different characters' perspectives. The narration was brilliant, especially as the narrators very effectively handled the internal/external dialog (often tightly intertwined) in a manner that made clear which was which without any annoyance. This is essential to this story, and hard to pull off. Bravo to both!

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Okay, but self-contradictory in places

Revisado: 02-08-15

An OK listen, though I'd suggest Dale Carnegie for a better take on the same ideas. This book is not as clear or concise, and is occasionally self-contradicting... For example, shortly after a rant about phone center operators showing false concern, she seems proud of herself for suggesting ways in which a researcher could send canned responses to people as a way to show concern.
But, fine, especially as a daily deal book!

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A beautiful story that doesn't pull any punches.

Revisado: 06-21-14

This story reads like a fable, meditatively, simple and straightforward yet heavy with metaphor and intertext. It certainly is forthcoming! I don't want to give any of the story away, though the story is kind of timeless and yet secondary to the experience, so I will just say that there is much tragedy and disappointment, many questions and surprises, to the point of being quite heartbreaking at times, which makes it all the more beautiful.

The performance was excellent. The voices of some minor characters were annoying, but meant to be, and only briefly. I must also praise the production and engineering - this was non-fatiguing, never left me needing to rewind to catch too-quiet sections, and didn't have any of the glitches that often pop up in audiobooks. The recording process was totally transparent, which, unfortunately, has not been the case for any of the last 10 or so audiobooks I've listened to. So, Bravo!

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esto le resultó útil a 5 personas

Don't be fooled... the narrator is great!

Revisado: 06-01-14

I will not review the story much here, except to say that is a worthwhile followup to the Sparrow; anyone who enjoyed the Sparrow should read this, anyone who hasn't read the Sparrow should read it first. An excellent and thought-provoking book, perhaps not quite the masterpiece the Sparrow was, but worthy of it.

When first listening to this immediately after finishing the Sparrow, I was thrown by the narrator. The narration on the Sparrow was sublime, among the best I've listened to, possibly THE best, especially given the range of characters and attitudes that needed to be voiced. The beginning of Children of G-d is narrator-heavy (as opposed to dialog-heavy), and the contrast between the bold, female narrator here and the subdued, plaintive male narrator of the Sparrow gave me pause. I worried it would be a disappointment. But, again, the characterizations were sublime, and cohesive with the Sparrow's. Anna Fields' narratorial voice turns out to be better suited to many of the parts of THIS book - especially the major characters of Haanala and Isaac (sp?). Really beautifully done, adding a great deal to this complex world. Brava! Also a strong candidate for best-narrated audiobook ever.

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esto le resultó útil a 4 personas