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The This
- Narrated by: Elliot Fitzpatrick
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
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Publisher's summary
Adan just wants to stay at home with his smart-companion Elegy - phone, friend, confidante, sex toy. But when his mother flees to Europe and joins a cult, leaving him penniless, he has to enlist in the army. Sentient robots are invading America, but it seems Adan has a surprising ability to survive their attacks. He has a purpose, even if he doesn't know what it is.
And in the far future, war between a hivemind of AIs and the remnants of humanity is coming to its inevitable end. But one woman has developed a weapon which might change the course of the war. It's just a pity she's trapped in an inescapable prison on a hivemind ship.
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At his death in 1988, Robert A. Heinlein left a legacy that almost single-handedly defined modern science fiction. But one of Heinlein's masterpieces was never finished. In 1955, he began work on Variable Star, a powerful and passionate tale of two young lovers driven apart by pride, power, and the vastness of interstellar time and space. Now, the Heinlein estate has authorized award-winning author Spider Robinson to expand his outline into a full-length novel. And the result is vintage Heinlein.
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Spider WHO
- By Randall on 04-25-09
By: Robert A. Heinlein, and others
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Tigerman
- By: Nick Harkaway
- Narrated by: Matt Bates
- Length: 13 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Lester Ferris needs a rest. He's spent his life being shot at, and Afghanistan was the last stop on his road to exhaustion. Mancreu is the ideal place for Lester to relax. A former British colony, soon to be destroyed because of its very special version of toxic pollution. But Lester Ferris makes a friend: a street kid with a comicbook fixation who will need a home - who might, Lester hopes, become an adopted son. But in a place like Mancreu, just what sort of hero will the boy need?
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Slow start - but very touching
- By Cath on 08-25-14
By: Nick Harkaway
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The World Walker
- The World Walker Series, Book 1
- By: Ian W. Sainsbury
- Narrated by: Todd Boyce
- Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Just outside Los Angeles, a prisoner hidden away for 70 years sits up, gets off the bed and disappears through a solid wall. In Australia, a magician impresses audiences by producing real elephants. Nobody realizes it's not an illusion. Across the world, individuals and organizations with supernatural power suddenly detect the presence of something even they can't understand. At the center of it all, Seb Varden, a 32-year old musician with a secret in his past, slits his wrists, is shot dead and run over on the freeway.
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Good Stuff
- By DobieChuck on 01-15-17
By: Ian W. Sainsbury
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The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination
- Original Short Fiction for the Modern Evil Genius
- By: John Joseph Adams - editor
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki, Mary Robinette Kowal, Justine Eyre
- Length: 15 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Mad scientists have never had it so tough. In super-hero comics, graphic novels, films, TV series, video games, and even works of what may be fiction, they are besieged by those who stand against them, devoid of sympathy for their irrational, megalomaniacal impulses to rule, destroy, or otherwise dominate the world as we know it. It’s just not fair. So those of us who are so twisted and sick that we love mad scientists have created this guide.
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HAND DANCING
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 05-30-15
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Down Cemetery Road
- By: Mick Herron
- Narrated by: Julia Franklin
- Length: 13 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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When a house explodes in a quiet Oxford suburb and a young girl disappears in the aftermath, Sarah Tucker becomes obsessed with finding her. Accustomed to dull chores in a childless household and hosting her husband’s wearisome business clients for dinner, Sarah suddenly finds herself questioning everything she thought she knew, as her investigation reveals that people long believed dead are still among the living, while the living are fast joining the dead.
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A bit of a slog....
- By rhl60 on 01-26-24
By: Mick Herron
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2113
- Stories Inspired by the Music of Rush
- By: John McFetridge - editor, Kevin J. Anderson - editor
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 13 hrs
- Unabridged
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The music of Rush, one of the most successful bands in music history, is filled with fantastic stories, evocative images, thought-provoking futures and pasts. In this anthology, notable, best-selling, and award-winning writers each chose a Rush song as the spark for a new story, drawing inspiration from the visionary trio Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart.
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I'm a RUSH fan, but ...no..not this book
- By NBP on 07-15-17
By: John McFetridge - editor, and others
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Stories
- All-New Tales
- By: Neil Gaiman - author/editor, Al Sarrantonio - editor, Joe Hill, and others
- Narrated by: Anne Bobby, Jonathan Davis, Katherine Kellgren, and others
- Length: 18 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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The best stories pull readers in and keep them turning the pages, eager to discover more—to find the answer to the question: "And then what happened?" The true hallmark of great literature is great imagination, and as Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio prove with this outstanding collection, when it comes to great fiction, all genres are equal.
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Something for Everyone
- By Nicole on 05-24-17
By: Neil Gaiman - author/editor, and others
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Camouflage
- By: Joe Haldeman
- Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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The artifact is found seven miles below the surface of the sea and beneath 40 more feet of sand. The Navy's efforts to raise a wrecked submarine uncover it - and set in motion a scientific race to retrieve it, to discover just what it is and where it came from. Denser than any substance known to man, it has broken every drill bit they've tried on it and will not budge an inch. It resists every effort to breach it - or communicate with it.
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Loved it!
- By Nathan Caroland on 09-21-08
By: Joe Haldeman
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Marsbound
- By: Joe Haldeman
- Narrated by: Liza Kaplan
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Young Carmen Dula and her family are about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime - they're going to Mars. Once on the Red Planet, however, Carmen realizes things are not so different from Earth. There are chores to do, lessons to learn, and oppressive authority figures to rebel against.
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Meh.
- By Wes Parker on 03-19-09
By: Joe Haldeman
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The Draco Tavern
- By: Larry Niven
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 6 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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When a tremendous spacecraft takes orbit around Earth's moon and begins sending smaller landers down toward the North Pole, the newly arrived visitors quickly set up a permanent spaceport in Siberia. Their presence attracts many, including Rick Schumann, who establishes a tavern catering to all the various species of visiting aliens, a place he calls the Draco Tavern. From the mind of best-selling author Larry Niven come 27 tales and vignettes from this interstellar gathering place.
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A Great Listen
- By D. Arkless on 04-07-07
By: Larry Niven
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I want my credit back!
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Russia, 1946, the Nazis recently defeated. Stalin gathers half a dozen of the top Soviet science fiction authors in a dacha in the countryside somewhere. Convinced that the defeat of America is only a few years away, and equally convinced that the Soviet Union needs a massive external threat to hold it together, to give it purpose and direction, he tells the writers: 'I want you to concoct a story about aliens poised to invade earth... I want it to be massively detailed, and completely believable. If you need props and evidence to back it up, then we can create them."
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Railway Baron Sir Martin Malprelate has been laying waste to the warren of Camden; buying up houses and clearing streets for his new railway line linking King’s Cross with the prosperous town of Middlemarch. He stands to make his fortune ever more vast and to earn the loathing of all who attempt to stand up to him. Little wonder, then, that he meets a violent end on a foggy street after walking out of a particularly bitter meeting with outraged residents facing eviction. But the cause of his death causes more wonder.
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What listeners say about The This
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Jacek
- 03-23-24
Is This my new favourite sci-fi book and writer?
I highly recommend this book - it's sci-fi like very few others. I wish there were more books/writers like this. It made me think of Frank Herbert's "The Jesus Incident," not that it has any resemblance to it in any way, except in the overarching messiness of our understanding or ignorance of human existence and evolution. This is also somewhat relevant to what is happening with AI, Neuralink, social networks, and humanity at this time.
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- Brandon
- 10-07-22
A 7/10. Would recommend and will read again.
Five stars because the story was well written and performed, 7 out of 10 for readability and the content and imagination. While a 10 almost doesn’t exist, I feel anything at 5 and above is worth reading.
Excellent style and word choice. More than just a surface story, this is the sort that’ll make you ask questions and consider.
The read has enough breadth to attract casual readers, while maintaining a depth of concept that’ll satisfy the hardcore SciFi nerds (like me).
Publishing has become such a simple process that contemporary authors are literally everywhere, and many of them are not very good. This one is an exception. While I wasn’t absolutely hooked, I did enjoy the story from beginning to end, and am encouraged to read more of the author.
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1 person found this helpful
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- steve w
- 05-28-22
in your philosophies
tries to beat you over the head with how philosophical it is. For me... it just misses.
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- Amazon Customer
- 02-07-22
Deep and lovely stuff....
While not any easy listen, it is a wonderful one. It brought to my mind a deeper desire to understand the existential crisis that is the human experience. I am finding the question "why are we here?" quite devastating at the moment, especially since in the Bardo, subject and object are the same, are the same, are the same for almost ever, and may only benefit a being too simple to understand the meaning of any of it. The creation has become so much more than the creator, because we are the only ones with actual wisdom...it is we, who are the teachers, and perhaps it is time the creator "gets it", or realizes they are not capable of true understanding. This way out, escaping velocity, not just eternity, but infinity.
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- JOSEPH WATTS
- 02-12-24
Brilliant. Worthy to be included among the best SF novels.
The story is crafted with great care. Its well balanced and I cannot find anything negative to say about it which is surprising since I usually leave negative comments. I feel only appreciation. Thank you Adam Roberts!
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- Emma Hooper
- 09-01-22
funny and thoughtful
Great book, loved it! Philosophical, space opera, cyberpunk. A witty take on Hegel that nods to just about every SF trope on it's way.
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- Michael Linehan
- 09-26-24
EXCEPTIONAL SCI-FI
There is a certain kind of book with complexity that seems like unnecessary padding. This book is NOT that. This complexity is that of multiple interlocking threads, which keep the interest and are thought-provoking. I was pretty much always engaged, interested and wondering what was going to happen. Thoroughly enjoyed it.
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