
Appleseed
A Novel
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed

Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $24.29
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Mark Bramhall
-
By:
-
Matt Bell
About this listen
A New York Times Notable Book
A Philadelphia Inquirer Best of the Year
“Woven together out of the strands of myth, science fiction, and ecological warning, Matt Bell’s Appleseed is as urgent as it is audacious.” (Kelly Link, Pulitzer Prize finalist and national best-selling author of Get in Trouble)
A “breathtaking novel of ideas unlike anything you’ve ever read” (Esquire) from Young Lions Fiction Award-finalist Matt Bell, a breakout book that explores climate change, manifest destiny, humanity’s unchecked exploitation of natural resources, and the small but powerful magic contained within every single apple.
In 18th-century Ohio, two brothers travel into the wooded frontier, planting apple orchards from which they plan to profit in the years to come. As they remake the wilderness in their own image, planning for a future of settlement and civilization, the long-held bonds and secrets between the two will be tested, fractured and broken - and possibly healed.
Fifty years from now, in the second half of the twenty-first century, climate change has ravaged the Earth. Having invested early in genetic engineering and food science, one company now owns all the world’s resources. But a growing resistance is working to redistribute both land and power - and in a pivotal moment for the future of humanity, one of the company’s original founders will return to headquarters, intending to destroy what he helped build.
A thousand years in the future, North America is covered by a massive sheet of ice. One lonely sentient being inhabits a tech station on top of the glacier - and in a daring and seemingly impossible quest, sets out to follow a homing beacon across the continent in the hopes of discovering the last remnant of civilization.
Hugely ambitious in scope and theme, Appleseed is the breakout novel from a writer “as self-assured as he is audacious” (NPR) who “may well have invented the pulse-pounding novel of ideas” (Jess Walter). Part speculative epic, part tech thriller, part reinvented fairy tale, Appleseed is an unforgettable meditation on climate change; corporate, civic, and familial responsibility; manifest destiny; and the myths and legends that sustain us all.
©2021 Matt Bell (P)2021 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
-
Superworld
- By: Gus Krieger
- Narrated by: Fred Berman, Ellen Archer, Therese Plummer, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ignatius Lohman longs to make his mark, to be someone. But in a world populated entirely by superpowered beings, he’s nothing but a powerless white-collar civilian. Iggy’s plight is not helped by the fact that his father, General Lancelot Lohman of the defense agency PEERLESS, is one of the most powerful men on the planet. Then, suddenly and unexpectedly, Iggy finds himself in the crosshairs of Erle P. Van Owen, a megalomaniacal corporate overlord with the astonishing ability to neutralize any superpower.
-
-
tedious
- By Amazon Customer on 08-01-20
By: Gus Krieger
-
The Great Glorious Goddamn of It All
- A Novel
- By: Josh Ritter
- Narrated by: Josh Ritter
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the tiny timber town of Cordelia, Idaho, 99-year-old Weldon Applegate recounts his life in all its glory, filled with tall tales writ large with murder, mayhem, avalanches, and bootlegging. It’s the story of dark pine forests brewing with ancient magic, and Weldon’s struggle as a boy to keep his father’s inherited timber claim, the Lost Lot, from the ravenous clutches of Linden Laughlin.
-
-
That was a pretty good story….
- By Linda on 10-02-21
By: Josh Ritter
-
Pastoral Song
- By: James Rebanks
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As a boy, James Rebanks's grandfather taught him to work the land the old way. Their family farm in England's Lake District hills was part of an ancient agricultural landscape: a patchwork of crops and meadows, of pastures grazed with livestock, and hedgerows teeming with wildlife. And yet, by the time James inherited the farm, it was barely recognizable. The men and women had vanished from the fields; the old stone barns had crumbled; the skies had emptied of birds and their wind-blown song.
-
-
Peter Noble's narration ruined this book for me.
- By sarah clayton on 08-18-21
By: James Rebanks
-
The Power of the Dog
- A Novel
- By: Thomas Savage, Annie Proulx - afterword
- Narrated by: Chad Michael Collins, Annie Proulx
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in the wide-open spaces of the American West, The Power of the Dog is a stunning story of domestic tyranny, brutal masculinity, and thrilling defiance from one of the most powerful and distinctive voices in American literature. The novel tells the story of two brothers—one magnetic but cruel, the other gentle and quiet—and of the mother and son whose arrival on the brothers’ ranch shatters an already tenuous peace.
-
-
Abrupt Ending and Hard to Follow Story
- By Trevor on 09-08-21
By: Thomas Savage, and others
-
The Present
- By: Jay Martel
- Narrated by: Fred Berman
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Adam Diehl is an 11-year-old in crisis. He knows his parents are going to split up - today - and he'd do anything in his power to stop them. If only he could turn back time.... As it turns out, he can. What his parents don't know - what his sister and brother would never suspect - is that Adam is a genius, and the computer he stares at all day has opened a gateway to knowledge beyond our comprehension. But not Adam's. Now, he has a plan. He's going to repeat this day over and over until he finds the version of it that ends with his parents staying together.
-
-
Explosive family drama
- By Robin Ruhf on 03-19-21
By: Jay Martel
-
Von Neumann's War
- By: John Ringo, Travis Taylor
- Narrated by: Chris Henry Coffey
- Length: 13 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mars is changing. Seemingly overnight the once "Red" planet is turning to gray. Something is happening, something unnatural. A team of, literally, rocket scientists figure out a way to send a probe, very fast, to Mars to determine how and why it is changing. However, when the probe is destroyed well short of the formerly red planet, it's apparent that Mars is being used as a staging ground. The only viable target for that staging ground is Earth.
-
-
Okay story.
- By Brandon Trumbo on 11-08-20
By: John Ringo, and others
-
Superworld
- By: Gus Krieger
- Narrated by: Fred Berman, Ellen Archer, Therese Plummer, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ignatius Lohman longs to make his mark, to be someone. But in a world populated entirely by superpowered beings, he’s nothing but a powerless white-collar civilian. Iggy’s plight is not helped by the fact that his father, General Lancelot Lohman of the defense agency PEERLESS, is one of the most powerful men on the planet. Then, suddenly and unexpectedly, Iggy finds himself in the crosshairs of Erle P. Van Owen, a megalomaniacal corporate overlord with the astonishing ability to neutralize any superpower.
-
-
tedious
- By Amazon Customer on 08-01-20
By: Gus Krieger
-
The Great Glorious Goddamn of It All
- A Novel
- By: Josh Ritter
- Narrated by: Josh Ritter
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the tiny timber town of Cordelia, Idaho, 99-year-old Weldon Applegate recounts his life in all its glory, filled with tall tales writ large with murder, mayhem, avalanches, and bootlegging. It’s the story of dark pine forests brewing with ancient magic, and Weldon’s struggle as a boy to keep his father’s inherited timber claim, the Lost Lot, from the ravenous clutches of Linden Laughlin.
-
-
That was a pretty good story….
- By Linda on 10-02-21
By: Josh Ritter
-
Pastoral Song
- By: James Rebanks
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As a boy, James Rebanks's grandfather taught him to work the land the old way. Their family farm in England's Lake District hills was part of an ancient agricultural landscape: a patchwork of crops and meadows, of pastures grazed with livestock, and hedgerows teeming with wildlife. And yet, by the time James inherited the farm, it was barely recognizable. The men and women had vanished from the fields; the old stone barns had crumbled; the skies had emptied of birds and their wind-blown song.
-
-
Peter Noble's narration ruined this book for me.
- By sarah clayton on 08-18-21
By: James Rebanks
-
The Power of the Dog
- A Novel
- By: Thomas Savage, Annie Proulx - afterword
- Narrated by: Chad Michael Collins, Annie Proulx
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in the wide-open spaces of the American West, The Power of the Dog is a stunning story of domestic tyranny, brutal masculinity, and thrilling defiance from one of the most powerful and distinctive voices in American literature. The novel tells the story of two brothers—one magnetic but cruel, the other gentle and quiet—and of the mother and son whose arrival on the brothers’ ranch shatters an already tenuous peace.
-
-
Abrupt Ending and Hard to Follow Story
- By Trevor on 09-08-21
By: Thomas Savage, and others
-
The Present
- By: Jay Martel
- Narrated by: Fred Berman
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Adam Diehl is an 11-year-old in crisis. He knows his parents are going to split up - today - and he'd do anything in his power to stop them. If only he could turn back time.... As it turns out, he can. What his parents don't know - what his sister and brother would never suspect - is that Adam is a genius, and the computer he stares at all day has opened a gateway to knowledge beyond our comprehension. But not Adam's. Now, he has a plan. He's going to repeat this day over and over until he finds the version of it that ends with his parents staying together.
-
-
Explosive family drama
- By Robin Ruhf on 03-19-21
By: Jay Martel
-
Von Neumann's War
- By: John Ringo, Travis Taylor
- Narrated by: Chris Henry Coffey
- Length: 13 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mars is changing. Seemingly overnight the once "Red" planet is turning to gray. Something is happening, something unnatural. A team of, literally, rocket scientists figure out a way to send a probe, very fast, to Mars to determine how and why it is changing. However, when the probe is destroyed well short of the formerly red planet, it's apparent that Mars is being used as a staging ground. The only viable target for that staging ground is Earth.
-
-
Okay story.
- By Brandon Trumbo on 11-08-20
By: John Ringo, and others
-
A Single Swallow
- By: Zhang Ling, Shelly Bryant - translator
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey, Adam Verner, Feodor Chin, and others
- Length: 13 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the day of the historic 1945 Jewel Voice Broadcast - in which Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender to the Allied forces, bringing an end to World War II - three men, flush with jubilation, made a pact. After their deaths, each year on the anniversary of the broadcast, their souls would return to the Chinese village of their younger days. Now, seventy years later, the pledge is being fulfilled by American missionary Pastor Billy, brash gunner’s mate Ian Ferguson, and local soldier Liu Zhaohu. All that’s missing is Ah Yan - also known as Swallow.
-
-
A Must-Read
- By 20eagle16 on 05-13-21
By: Zhang Ling, and others
-
Truth and Other Lies: A Loki Norse Fantasy (The Nine Worlds Rising Book 1)
- By: Lyra Wolf
- Narrated by: Casey Eade
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nothing is trickier than the truth. All Loki the trickster god of Asgard wants is a peaceful life where he's free to stir up a bit of harmless mischief. But when he's struck by a painful vision of blood, ash, and death he knows his fun has run out. Refusing to have his life obliterated by some stuffy prophecy, Loki feels he must save Asgard. Except the gods stand in his way. They don't trust the God of Lies, which means his only hope is to return to Odin, the man he wished to forget thanks to their complicated history.
-
-
A fun listen
- By Michelle L Wayte on 01-06-22
By: Lyra Wolf
-
North by Shakespeare
- A Rogue Scholar's Quest for the Truth Behind the Bard's Work
- By: Michael Blanding
- Narrated by: Will Collyer
- Length: 15 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A work of gripping nonfiction, North by Shakespeare presents the twinning narratives of rogue scholar Dennis McCarthy, called "the Steve Jobs of the Shakespeare community", and Sir Thomas North, an Elizabethan courtier whom McCarthy believes to be the undiscovered source for Shakespeare's plays.
-
-
An exciting investigative adventure
- By Derek Hunter on 10-29-21
By: Michael Blanding
-
The Wind's Twelve Quarters
- Stories
- By: Ursula K. Le Guin
- Narrated by: Amy Landon, Grover Gardner, Will Watt
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The recipient of numerous literary prizes, including the National Book Award, the Kafka Award, and the Pushcart Prize, Ursula K. Le Guin is renowned for her lyrical writing, rich characters, and diverse worlds. The Wind's Twelve Quarters collects 17 powerful stories, each with an introduction by the author, ranging from fantasy to intriguing scientific concepts, from medieval settings to the future.
-
-
Follow the development of U K Leguin through well chosen short stories.
- By Joseph Tracy on 04-22-22
-
Freedom Road
- By: William Lashner
- Narrated by: James Daniels
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Oliver Cross is fresh out of jail. His plans for the future are to live out his days in regret, back pain, and a bottle of Lone Star. But when he finds out his granddaughter, a wild child who reminds him of his late wife, has vanished - bless her hell-raising heart - Oliver jumps parole. With a sketchy teen and an abandoned dog, he hits the blacktop to find her. On the road and on the run from a vengeful Russian drug dealer, Oliver finds himself on a trip across America and into his own past, fueled by fumes from a Ford F-250 and a reason to live.
-
-
Boys and Girls in Armor Ride Dragons into Battle
- By Empress Karen on 01-17-20
By: William Lashner
-
All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days
- The True Story of the American Woman at the Heart of the German Resistance to Hitler
- By: Rebecca Donner
- Narrated by: Rebecca Donner
- Length: 13 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born and raised in Milwaukee, Mildred Harnack was twenty-six when she enrolled in a PhD program in Germany and witnessed the meteoric rise of the Nazi party. In 1932, she began holding secret meetings in her apartment—a small band of political activists that by 1940 had grown into the largest underground resistance group in Berlin. She recruited working-class Germans into the resistance, helped Jews escape, plotted acts of sabotage, and collaborated in writing leaflets that denounced Hitler and called for revolution.
-
-
Riveting narrative non fiction
- By Sarah Q on 10-22-21
By: Rebecca Donner
-
The Three-Body Problem
- By: Cixin Liu, Ken Liu - translator
- Narrated by: Rosalind Chao
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion. The result is a science fiction masterpiece of enormous scope and vision.
-
-
Why Rosalamd Chao?
- By Erin on 02-29-24
By: Cixin Liu, and others
-
Children of Time
- By: Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Narrated by: Mel Hudson
- Length: 16 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Adrian Tchaikovksy's critically acclaimed stand-alone novel Children of Time is the epic story of humanity's battle for survival on a terraformed planet. Who will inherit this new Earth? The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age - a world terraformed and prepared for human life. But all is not right in this new Eden.
-
-
A very pleasant surprise
- By Simon on 06-17-17
-
The Singularity Trap
- By: Dennis E. Taylor
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dennis E. Taylor, author of the best-selling Bobiverse trilogy, explores a whole different, darker world in this sci-fi stand-alone. Determined to give his wife and children a better life back home, Ivan Pritchard ventures to the edge of known space to join the crew of the Mad Astra as an asteroid miner. He's prepared for hard work and loneliness—but not the unthinkable. After coming into contact with a mysterious alien substance, Pritchard finds an unwelcome entity sharing his mind, and a disturbing physical transformation taking place.
-
-
Excellent.
- By Amy Scott on 06-13-18
By: Dennis E. Taylor
-
Seveneves
- A Novel
- By: Neal Stephenson
- Narrated by: Mary Robinette Kowal, Will Damron
- Length: 31 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A catastrophic event renders the earth a ticking time bomb. In a feverish race against the inevitable, nations around the globe band together to devise an ambitious plan to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond our atmosphere, in outer space.
-
-
Odd narrator choice
- By Josh Mitchell on 05-30-15
By: Neal Stephenson
-
Hell Divers
- Hell Divers Series, Book 1
- By: Nicholas Sansbury Smith
- Narrated by: R.C. Bray
- Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
More than two centuries after World War III poisoned the planet, the final bastion of humanity lives on massive airships circling the globe in search of a habitable area to call home. Aging and outdated, most of the ships plummeted back to Earth long ago. The only thing keeping the two surviving lifeboats in the sky are Hell Divers - men and women who risk their lives by skydiving to the surface to scavenge for parts the ships desperately need.
-
-
A little cliche action hero-y but damn good story anyway
- By Jillian Noone on 09-04-19
-
The Ministry for the Future
- A Novel
- By: Kim Stanley Robinson
- Narrated by: Jennifer Fitzgerald, Fajer Al-Kaisi, Ramon de Ocampo, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Ministry for the Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, using fictional eyewitness accounts to tell the story of how climate change will affect us all. Its setting is not a desolate, post-apocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us - and in which we might just overcome the extraordinary challenges we face.
-
-
Great ideas, uneven narration
- By depthpsychologist on 12-09-20
Absolutely Brilliant
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
If you want more upbeat, even-handed, readable and frankly better researched titles in similar subject matter, go with Neal Stephenson’s Termination Shock or Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future.
If you’re into a more fantasy approach, literary style, and dig 19th century romantic sentimentality, this one might work for you.
Melodramatic
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A complex story for sure. A well timed caution for us all as well. And I have found myself reflecting on this book many times since I listened last month. Worth a listen, but commit. Not a story for a casually listen.
Unique Tale
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Think Climate Change is a Joke? LISTEN 2 THIS!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
One of the more powerful science fiction novels I’ve read in years
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Fascinating
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Appleseed - The World is Already Enough
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Awesome
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Unique, creative but writing a bit tedious
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Bizarre and breathtakingly frightening
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.