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Echoes of an Alien Sky Audiolibro Por James P Hogan arte de portada

Better-Than-Average

Total
4 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
3 out of 5 stars
Historia
5 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 03-02-15

I no longer read 5 star reviews, having found they are rarely critical examinations of the story. Some "reviews", especially on Amazon, are very long and look like high school book reports. I don't read those either. And a lot of reviews say more about the reviewer than what is being reviewed. e.g. criticizing "1984" for not having a happy ending.

This is not a glowing 5 stars review, is reasonably concise, and hits the main points, which means it's probably a better-than-average review.

Some criticize this story because the ending is easily guessed. While true, this totally misses the point. Hogan's desire here is to express his views of the human condition. (I can see the beginnings of this in his "giants" series, written by a much younger and more optimistic Hogan.) Here, he accomplishes this by constructing outsiders (the Venusians) who explore and try to understand a future unpopulated earth. Normally I would greet such an attempt with a smirky "Oh no.". However, I find Hogan to have been a very intelligent and keen observer. So I think his tale is not just worth reading, but also worth thinking about.

I like the way Hogan constructs and then logically analyzes and solves mysteries. Even if some are easily guessed at, it's a style of writing that holds my attention and is more palatable to me than the "horrific conflict" schtick that many sci-fi writers use nowadays.

Hogan became very knowlegable in multiple disciplines including physics, biology, and computer technology. And he does a good job of weaving lots of good sciencey stuff into his stories. My kind of story! On the other hand, inexplicably, Hogan promotes naive Velikovskian ideas in this story. Whatever his reason was for doing this, science trained readers may react violently to this outrageous blasphemy. Subtract 0.65 stars.

Narrator warning: he uses a British accent which sounds snooty. I find it to be bloody irritating and incongruous with the story. Subtract 0.7 stars. If people in the future will sound like British aristocrats, we ought to just start WWIII and end it all right now.

Incidently I also like his "Giants" series, even though the main character is a chain-smoking
alcoholic. Well, nobody's perfect.

RIP James P. Hogan, 1941 - 2010. He was a better-than-average science fiction writer. And he cared about us enough to write this story.

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Not what I hoped for

Total
2 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
3 out of 5 stars
Historia
2 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 04-19-13

I don't really care for military/shoot'em-up stuff but I do like science fiction. For some reason, I decided to give this series a try, and I did enjoy the first three books. But this last story in the series was lousy. There's just way too much silliness in this story. And if I was forced to listen to more of the narrator's female readings, I think I'd shoot myself. A little more action and a lot less Navy-ology would have been nice. No I don't recommend it.

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esto le resultó útil a 4 personas

Thank you Lalla Ward!

Total
5 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
5 out of 5 stars
Historia
5 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 07-18-12

I like Douglas Adams' humor. But what makes this audiobook really special is Lalla Ward's reading. She is a great story-teller. And some of her characterizations are priceless. I wish Lalla would do more fiction audiobooks.

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Spin Audiolibro Por Robert Charles Wilson arte de portada

Disappointing

Total
2 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 05-03-08

Out of 38 reviews so far, only a few have been accurate assessments of this story. I find this to be very strange. Very, very strange. And I will certainly be more careful in the future about selecting books based on ratings.

The few little parts of the book having anything to do with science fiction are good. Not great, but good. However, the vast bulk of this work is just boring and irrelevant filler. There is far more of this than would be needed for any character development. I suppose the author imagines himself to be a very clever and gifted writer of dialog. But he should try to craft a story that will actually make sense and entertain science fiction readers. It isn't all that clever to take a short story and throw in tons of junk to make it a (more lucrative?) novel.

Also, I didn't much care for the narrator. At times, his inflections definitely reminded me of an infomercial announcer. I have a pretty good idea of what he did before reading books.

As someone who has read science fiction for the past 35 years, and who eagerly looks for more good books to read, I have to say this one was a big disappointment.

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