Sammicatcat

Antarctic thriller

Revisado: 03-04-25

Kept my attention till the end although various plot points seemed unlikely. The narrator was mostly very good except when voicing men's voices. That needs a lot

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

A Classic

Revisado: 04-29-23

Persuasion is one of my favorite Jane Austen novels. It is a kind of Cinderella story if Cinderella was the daughter of a baronet and the prince was a captain in His Majesty's Navy (the analogy breaks down quickly so don't think about it too much). Juliet Stevenson narrates with just the right amount of feeling vs restraint. A lovely book.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Not quite what I expected

Revisado: 04-20-23

Contains a mild spoiler. This book is not really a haunted house story. It begins that way but soon diverges into a complex mix of science fiction/fantasy/horror myth. The first time I read it I was disappointed because (as I said) it isn't really a haunted house story, the second time I was able to appreciate it for the original story it is.

I enjoyed the eclectic mix of journal entry, raw footage, and newspaper reportage that advances the story. The audio performance was excellent. All in all a worthwhile listen just leave your expectations at the door.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

A Weird One

Revisado: 02-07-22

Spoiler Alert: do not read if you want to know nothing about what happens in the book!

This is a weird one; even after finishing I'm not sure what exactly happened. Initially you have a small group of people taking care of an institution in the Arctic. Each person is running from something in the 'real world' except the psychiatrist Mel who has an agenda of regaining her professional reputation by a spectacular cure of one of the residents. The action mainly unfolds as a series of first person recordings by Trieste the main protagonist to her lover Anna who was supposed to come with her but didn't and Trieste listening to the therapy tapes Mel conducted with the other residents (why Trieste has these tapes is part of the complicated plot).

The personality of Trieste is immediately sympathetic and I wanted to believe her version of events but after a while you recognize that she's even more unreliable than the usual unreliable narrator (I miss the 19th century when you could believe what a narrator told you -usually). She continually retells her story (to herself/Anna and later in the book to Grace). She gradually admits that she has lied/exaggerated/misrepresented certain events (different ones at different times) but always says the rest of her story is the total truth. After she changes crucial little bits of her story two or three times you realize it's impossible to distinguish fact from fantasy . Did she kill her friend/lover Anna or was it an accident? To what extent did she and Anna actually have a relationship as some dialogue near the end calls even that into question?

The rest of the group have their own serious problems with varying degrees of culpability or madness. I feel the the therapist Mel with her determination to break the group down with her mandatory therapy sessions, expose their deepest secrets and destroy their coping mechanisms bears responsibility for making a terrible situation even worse. Probably why she met the fate she did...unless you believe it really was a bear.

Anyway...I really enjoyed listening to this but I definitely still had questions at the end I wish could have been answered. The narration was very good. The atmosphere was mysterious and charged. People who like twisted psychological stories or dystopic stories will probably enjoy this most.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Terrible narrator

Revisado: 11-06-21

This book is one of my favorite novels but the narrator had a breathy lilting affected way of speaking that destroyed my pleasure in this book. I don't know that it's her fault; perhaps the studio director told her to talk that way. Julia Whelan is perfectly suited to narrate Pym's books, why not her Audible?

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

People Acting Stupid

Revisado: 04-10-18

I know people acting dumb is a hallowed feature of most horror to the point that it's become a cliche (don't go into that dark basement) but surely there are limits and this book pushes most of them.

From the doctor who thinks dissecting a corpse infested with an unknown parasite in an essentially closed & vulnerable community (isolated Alaskan tower where residents mostly live indoors 24/7), to the Coast Guard leader who continues to search a government facility working on top secret weapons research even after discovering dozens of dead bodies, to the people who just stand and stare while the spiders take them over....well the author mentions that certain traits are desirable for the occupants living in this most isolated of Alaskan communities, i.e., wanting to live off the grid or escape a bad past but he forgets to mention the most important...that your shoe size should be higher than your I.Q.

Ok that's an exaggeration but I had to listen to the book in short intervals to work off my annoyance at the dumb things the characters were doing. If you can get past that, this book is not bad. The pacing is suspenseful, the s.p.i.d.a.r.s are interesting and, really, this is just the kind of techno-thriller book I like. I only wish the characters behaved a little less like lambs lining up for the slaughter and more like intelligent humans.

The narrator is competent but he has an oddly chipper delivery for this sort of book; more like what I'd expect in a children's story than a horror novel.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Great Throwback to '50s Giant Spider Movies

Revisado: 03-07-18

The story is an excellent homage to 1950s era Giant Spider movies. A biotech company is apparently producing weapons grade spiders which escape their compound. As an aficionado of the genre, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. It has it all; enterprising teenagers, bumbling cops, stuffy parents and lots & lots of creatures and gore.

The narration on the other hand is horrible. The narrator has adopted what I imagine to be an attempt at a 'Perils of Pauline' over-the-top dramatic style with accents on odd words and a sibilant, hissing style of speaking. It is incredibly annoying.

The only reason I gave the narration two stars instead of one is because I've heard that it's usually/often the production staff who make narrators use these absurd accents. If this is the case, it isn't the narrator's fault but the production staff should be ashamed of themselves (in my opinion).

Overall, a great story if you like this genre and can overlook the narration.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Yawn...

Revisado: 10-29-17

I'm sorry but I have to agree with those reviewers who find this one boring. Although I've read other books by B.V. Larson and enjoyed them, this one has all the usual cliches and pounds them relentlessly. Mark Boyett does a reasonable job with the narration but can't save it IMO. I don't think I'm going to be able to finish it...

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 7 personas

Could use some polishing

Revisado: 05-06-17

This is not a bad attempt at a space horror novel but I have the impression the book was written by someone early in their writing career. Pacing and plot seem subtly off (nearly half the book is taken up by selection of the teenagers to go to the Moon which seems a bit unbalanced as it isn't that important to the main plot).

Some plot elements seem frankly incredible; that the US government could conduct a series of covert operations on the moon, even going as far as building a moon base, without any other governments or even amateur astronomers noticing is not likely (to put it mildly). Even if we accept this as possible it is further incredible to me that any government with a functioning press could or would send a crew back decades later (using seriously out-of-date equipment) to investigate a dangerous mystery using Teenagers to the Moon as a cover story.

As other reviewers have noted, even when you understand the proposed nature of the mystery nothing is explained satisfactorily. Some elements common to the mystery (trying not to say what it is here) seem to have occurred or to be occurring on the earth before they go to the Moon in which case why did they have to return to the Moon to investigate it or why did returning to the Moon trigger the events it did. What even was it really? We don't know.

The narrator has an attractive, light voice such as you find in many young adult narrations (although I thought her attempts at regional accents were unfortunate) but I question whether the material wasn't a little dark for such a perky voice. Perhaps the contrast was meant as an added effect.

There are even some semi-humorous (I guess) items as when Mia is in the airlock at the moon base and thinks that 'in space no one can hear you scream.' There is no attribution for the remark and possibly someone too young to have been exposed to advertising for the first Alien movie might pass right over it but it seemed a funny little fan service kind of moment.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Save Your Money

Revisado: 12-15-16

I hate books written about dumb characters doing what they do best (acting dumb) and this book is replete with them. Let's start with the concept of an EMP knocking out power to the world and the subsequent collapse of civilization as we know it. This is not a new concept, several books have been written about this idea (better books than this one) but the author treats the idea of an EMP as though it were a startlingly novel concept. A brief list of things that bugged me:

An astronaut, stranded in the space station after the event, has to painfully and laboriously reconstruct this idea, 'starting with what he knows about the sun' which is that the earth revolves around the sun. Seriously? This is where he starts? What is he, nine years old? I realize that an author has to be careful not to leave behind his audience when writing about scientific ideas but come on, does the author think that the kind of luddites who don't know the earth revolves around the sun are going to be reading his book?

A father out camping with his son and son's friend is asked to jump a stalled car. He gets out his jumper cables and walks all the way over to the site with the stalled car where the woman he's helping has to ask him where his car is. Apparently it never occurs to him at any point that he requires a power source to accomplish his task; perhaps he was going to fasten the cables to one of those current bushes my husband is always telling me about.

I found the relationships between the people in the book to be wooden and superficial; of course you can't expect in-depth characterization in a book of this type but I never felt an emotional connection with anybody, in fact as my annoyance increased, I sort of wished a gamma ray burst would follow up the EMP and wipe them all out.

Bottom line, I'd spend my money/credit on One Second After by William Forstchen or Aftermath by Charles Sheffield instead, both of which involve EMPs knocking out modern society but are just done better (IMO).

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 18 personas