Gym

Well, that was a waste....

Revisado: 05-31-13

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

A completely different book

Would you ever listen to anything by Robert A. Heinlein again?

Yes, I'm working my way through all of his books. I love most of his stuff. LOVE it. Which is the only reason I kept reading this waste of time.

Have you listened to any of the narrators’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I don't think so.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from The Number of the Beast?

The geometry and navigation lessons, the nonsense about command, and any scenes involving the four main characters.

Any additional comments?

Heinlein has created a mess of a book. He has created characters I can't stand, a story premise that is unintelligible, and seems to have a fetish for the word "kiss." In almost every scene where someone is leaving, someone else is saying "kiss me." He has done this in other books, but this one is just brutally annoying.

The only thing I liked was "Gay Deceiver" and the furtherance of the Lazarus Long mythology. But that was the last quarter of the book. The rest - well, read this if you're reading other Heinlein stuff. You'll hate it, but it's like the one course in college you had to take.

Don't bother reading it otherwise.

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Had to skip ahead at one point

Revisado: 07-09-12

At one point, the plot got pretty circular so I fast-forwarded. Amazing but I didn't miss a thing. I enjoy these books because of the south Florida setting. There was almost none of it in this book...it all happens in NY.

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Gosh, another Vatican-secret society book!

Revisado: 02-24-12

This is the author's first book, and it shows. Instead of developing characters, he simply has another character think, "gosh, he's deep." And the heroes (and villains too) keep doing really stupid stuff. Repeatedly! This isn't a spoiler, but if you want a preview of what's happening as the story goes along, just think about the dumbest thing the character can do. That will be what they do! Just unbelievable. What a complete waste of time.

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Story may be OK, but can't stand the narration

Revisado: 11-11-11

I'm a Heinlein fan and have loved all of his other books. And the reviews indicate that this one will be worthwhile too. But this one, at least in audio form, is a turn off. They really should have gotten a woman to read this book since most of the relevant characters are female. The narrator doesn't have enough vocal variation to help you differentiate between characters and his voicing of women characters comes off really fake.

I plan to "read" this book. I think I'll be able to handle the dialogue. For example, in the last five minutes, before I gave up (almost all the way through part 1), the words "pretty" "sweet" and "dear" were used too many times. If I'm reading, I can tune out those awful word choices. But the way Heald performs, it is just too annoying.

Now to download another Heinlein book that I haven't read yet. Audible doesn't have many more.

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Narration is bad

Revisado: 01-05-10

The person doing the narration is fine, but the sound quality was pretty bad. It sounds like they held a microphone up to 8 track tape player to make the downloadable file.

I would have gotten more from buying the paperback.

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A little overacted

Revisado: 09-19-08

Good book and great story. The narrator was good and the audio quality was good. Only one problem - the narrator REALLY overacted the women's parts. In fact, he carried on so much, I fast forwarded through a couple of sections because it got so nerve-rattling.

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Great!

Revisado: 11-04-07

I read this book years ago when I was in college and enjoyed it then. And I've reread it at least once since then. But now that I'm older, I got a lot more out of the book and really enjoyed it as an audio. I probably will listen to it again in a few years.

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LIke listening to a dictionary

Revisado: 11-04-07

Don't buy this! Unless you like to listen to someone reading the dictionary, then avoid this one. I vary rarely write a review, but this one cries out for a warning. There are lots of dates, and the reader reads EVERY date. Every time a person or event occurs, the reader reads the date. And there is no cohesiveness. Characters are described in alphabetical sequence. And the reader refers to photographs and other images that obviously we don't get to see. This actually sounds like a book I'd like to read, but listening to it was a waste of a credit.

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Very good

Revisado: 11-26-04

This is my first experience with the author and I am looking forward to reading some of his other books. Not only was the book enjoyable, I enjoyed the reader too, who did a great job on the characters and didn't simply slip into phony falsettos when doing the females. Good job.

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