A Borrowed Man
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 $19.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Kevin T. Collins
-
By:
-
Gene Wolfe
About this listen
A Borrowed Man: a new science fiction novel from Gene Wolfe, the celebrated author of the Book of the New Sun series.
It is perhaps a hundred years in the future, our civilization is gone, and another is in place in North America, but it retains many familiar things and structures. Although the population is now small, there is advanced technology, there are robots, and there are clones.
E. A. Smithe is a borrowed person. He is a clone who lives on a third-tier shelf in a public library, and his personality is an uploaded recording of a deceased mystery writer. Smithe is a piece of property, not a legal human. A wealthy patron, Colette Coldbrook, takes him from the library because he is the surviving personality of the author of Murder on Mars. A physical copy of that book was in the possession of her murdered father, and it contains an important secret, the key to immense family wealth. It is lost, and Colette is afraid of the police. She borrows Smithe to help her find the book and to find out what the secret is. And then the plot gets complicated.
©2015 Gene Wolfe (P)2015 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Litany of the Long Sun
- Book of the Long Sun, Books 1 and 2
- By: Gene Wolfe
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 22 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Litany of the Long Sun contains the full texts of Nightside the Long Sun and Lake of the Long Sun that together make up the first half of The Book of the Long Sun. This great work is set on a huge generation starship in the same future as the classic Book of the New Sun (also available in two volumes from Orb).
-
-
Utterly brilliant in it’s tedium
- By John on 04-14-22
By: Gene Wolfe
-
On Blue’s Waters
- Book of the Short Sun, Book 1
- By: Gene Wolfe
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On Blue's Waters is the start of a new work by Gene Wolfe which takes place in the years after Wolfe's four-volume Book of the Long Sun. Horn, the narrator of the earlier work, now tells his own story. Though life is hard on the newly settled planet of Blue, Horn and his family have made a decent life for themselves. But Horn is the only one who can locate the great leader Silk and convince him to return to Blue and lead them all to prosperity. So Horn sets sail in a small boat, on a long and difficult quest across the planet Blue in search of the now legendary Patera Silk.
-
-
Getting the hang of Wolfe
- By Patrick DeWind on 09-20-24
By: Gene Wolfe
-
Soldier of the Mist
- Latro, Book 1
- By: Gene Wolfe
- Narrated by: Gregory Connors
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The first volume of Gene Wolfe's powerful story of Latro, a Roman mercenary who received a head injury that deprived him of his short-term memory. In return it gave him the ability to converse with supernatural creatures, gods, and goddesses who invisibly inhabit the ancient landscape.
-
-
Read Gates of Fire first for context
- By Amazon Customer on 07-17-22
By: Gene Wolfe
-
The Knight
- The Wizard Knight Series, Book One
- By: Gene Wolfe
- Narrated by: Dan Bittner
- Length: 16 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A young man in his teens is transported from our world to a magical realm that contains seven levels of reality. Very quickly transformed by magic into a grown man of heroic proportions, he takes the name Able and sets out on a quest to find the sword that has been promised to him, a sword he will get from a dragon, the one very special blade that will help him fulfill his life ambition to become a knight and a true hero. Inside, however, Able remains a boy, and he must grow in every sense to survive the dangers and delights that lie ahead in encounters with giants, elves, and wizards.
-
-
Confusing as hell.
- By Zachary on 09-26-18
By: Gene Wolfe
-
The Dying Earth
- Tales of the Dying Earth, Book 1
- By: Jack Vance
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 6 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The stories in The Dying Earth introduce dozens of seekers of wisom and beauty, lovely lost women, wizards of every shade of eccentricity with their runic amulets and spells. We meet the melancholy deodands, who feed on human flesh and the twk-men, who ride dragonflies and trade information for salt. There are monsters and demons. Each being is morally ambiguous: The evil are charming, the good are dangerous. All are at home.
-
-
A Decadent and Hopeful Dying Earth
- By Jefferson on 06-27-10
By: Jack Vance
-
Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe
- By: Thomas Ligotti, Jeff VanderMeer - foreword
- Narrated by: Jon Padgett, Linda Jones
- Length: 21 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thomas Ligotti’s debut collection, Songs of a Dead Dreamer, and his second, Grimscribe, permanently inscribed a new name in the pantheon of horror fiction. Influenced by the strange terrors of Lovecraft and Poe and by the brutal absurdity of Kafka, Ligotti eschews cheap, gory thrills for his own brand of horror, which shocks at the deepest, existential, levels.
-
-
Incredible!
- By Erik McHatton on 02-27-23
By: Thomas Ligotti, and others
-
Litany of the Long Sun
- Book of the Long Sun, Books 1 and 2
- By: Gene Wolfe
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 22 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Litany of the Long Sun contains the full texts of Nightside the Long Sun and Lake of the Long Sun that together make up the first half of The Book of the Long Sun. This great work is set on a huge generation starship in the same future as the classic Book of the New Sun (also available in two volumes from Orb).
-
-
Utterly brilliant in it’s tedium
- By John on 04-14-22
By: Gene Wolfe
-
On Blue’s Waters
- Book of the Short Sun, Book 1
- By: Gene Wolfe
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On Blue's Waters is the start of a new work by Gene Wolfe which takes place in the years after Wolfe's four-volume Book of the Long Sun. Horn, the narrator of the earlier work, now tells his own story. Though life is hard on the newly settled planet of Blue, Horn and his family have made a decent life for themselves. But Horn is the only one who can locate the great leader Silk and convince him to return to Blue and lead them all to prosperity. So Horn sets sail in a small boat, on a long and difficult quest across the planet Blue in search of the now legendary Patera Silk.
-
-
Getting the hang of Wolfe
- By Patrick DeWind on 09-20-24
By: Gene Wolfe
-
Soldier of the Mist
- Latro, Book 1
- By: Gene Wolfe
- Narrated by: Gregory Connors
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The first volume of Gene Wolfe's powerful story of Latro, a Roman mercenary who received a head injury that deprived him of his short-term memory. In return it gave him the ability to converse with supernatural creatures, gods, and goddesses who invisibly inhabit the ancient landscape.
-
-
Read Gates of Fire first for context
- By Amazon Customer on 07-17-22
By: Gene Wolfe
-
The Knight
- The Wizard Knight Series, Book One
- By: Gene Wolfe
- Narrated by: Dan Bittner
- Length: 16 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A young man in his teens is transported from our world to a magical realm that contains seven levels of reality. Very quickly transformed by magic into a grown man of heroic proportions, he takes the name Able and sets out on a quest to find the sword that has been promised to him, a sword he will get from a dragon, the one very special blade that will help him fulfill his life ambition to become a knight and a true hero. Inside, however, Able remains a boy, and he must grow in every sense to survive the dangers and delights that lie ahead in encounters with giants, elves, and wizards.
-
-
Confusing as hell.
- By Zachary on 09-26-18
By: Gene Wolfe
-
The Dying Earth
- Tales of the Dying Earth, Book 1
- By: Jack Vance
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 6 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The stories in The Dying Earth introduce dozens of seekers of wisom and beauty, lovely lost women, wizards of every shade of eccentricity with their runic amulets and spells. We meet the melancholy deodands, who feed on human flesh and the twk-men, who ride dragonflies and trade information for salt. There are monsters and demons. Each being is morally ambiguous: The evil are charming, the good are dangerous. All are at home.
-
-
A Decadent and Hopeful Dying Earth
- By Jefferson on 06-27-10
By: Jack Vance
-
Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe
- By: Thomas Ligotti, Jeff VanderMeer - foreword
- Narrated by: Jon Padgett, Linda Jones
- Length: 21 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thomas Ligotti’s debut collection, Songs of a Dead Dreamer, and his second, Grimscribe, permanently inscribed a new name in the pantheon of horror fiction. Influenced by the strange terrors of Lovecraft and Poe and by the brutal absurdity of Kafka, Ligotti eschews cheap, gory thrills for his own brand of horror, which shocks at the deepest, existential, levels.
-
-
Incredible!
- By Erik McHatton on 02-27-23
By: Thomas Ligotti, and others
-
Collected Fictions
- By: Jorge Luis Borges, Andrew Hurley - translator
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 5 hrs and 14 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From his 1935 debut with "The Universal History of Iniquity", through his immensely influential collections Ficciones and The Aleph, these enigmatic, elaborate, imaginative inventions display Borges' talent for turning fiction on its head by playing with form and genre and toying with language.
-
-
Good but incomplete
- By Aaron on 12-17-18
By: Jorge Luis Borges, and others
-
Forge of Darkness
- Kharkanas Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Steven Erikson
- Narrated by: Daniel Philpott
- Length: 31 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Forge of Darkness takes listeners to Kurald Galain, the warren of Darkness, and tells of a realm whose fate plays a crucial role in the fall of the Malazan Empire and surrounds one of the Malazan world’s most fascinating and powerful characters, Anomander Rake. It’s a conflicted time in Kurald Galain, where Mother Dark reigns above the Tiste people. But this ancient land was once home to many a power...and even death is not quite eternal. The commoners’ great hero, Vatha Urusander, longs for ascendency and Mother Dark’s hand in marriage, but she has taken another Consort, Lord Draconus.
-
-
A Precursor Epic Fantasy - A Rewarding Beginning!
- By Michael on 11-08-12
By: Steven Erikson
-
Lord of Light
- By: Roger Zelazny
- Narrated by: Matt Godfrey
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Earth is long since dead. On a colony planet, a band of men has gained control of technology, made themselves immortal, and now rule their world as the gods of the Hindu pantheon. Only one dares oppose them: he who was once Siddhartha and is now Mahasamatman. Binder of Demons, Lord of Light.
-
-
How could a performance be so wrong?
- By 1st World Problems on 05-29-22
By: Roger Zelazny
-
Elric of Melniboné
- Volume 1: Elric of Melnibone, The Fortress of the Pearl, The Sailor on the Seas of Fate, and The Weird of the White Wolf
- By: Michael Moorcock, Neil Gaiman
- Narrated by: Samuel Roukin
- Length: 24 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Michael Moorcock began chronicling the adventures of the albino sorcerer Elric, last king of decadent Melniboné, and his sentient vampiric sword, Stormbringer, he set out to create a new kind of fantasy adventure, one that broke with tradition and reflected a more up-to-date sophistication of theme and style. The result was a bold and unique hero: a rock-and-roll antihero who would channel all the violent excesses of the '60s into one enduring archetype.
-
-
Skip the first chapter, it's not Moorcock.
- By Ted C. on 02-17-22
By: Michael Moorcock, and others
-
The Star King
- The Demon Princes Series, Book 1
- By: Jack Vance
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Five intergalactic criminal masterminds raid the tranquil world of Mount Pleasant, leaving behind only ruin and slaughter - and the orphaned child Kirth Gersen, who comes to manhood swearing to take bloody revenge. Now Gersen roams the galaxy, bringing vengeance to the Demon Princes one by one, in Jack Vance's classic series of hardboiled space opera.
-
-
A longtime favorite, perfectly narrated
- By Gan on 03-05-22
By: Jack Vance
-
Neuromancer
- By: William Gibson
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twenty years ago, it was as if someone turned on a light. The future blazed into existence with each deliberate word that William Gibson laid down. The winner of Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick Awards, Neuromancer didn't just explode onto the science fiction scene - it permeated into the collective consciousness, culture, science, and technology.Today, there is only one science fiction masterpiece to thank for the term "cyberpunk," for easing the way into the information age and Internet society.
-
-
Story? Classic. Narrator? Ugh.
- By Sage on 11-11-14
By: William Gibson
-
The Professor and the Madman
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Part history, part true-crime, and entirely entertaining, listen to the story of how the behemoth Oxford English Dictionary was made. You'll hang on every word as you discover that the dictionary's greatest contributor was also an insane murderer working from the confines of an asylum.
-
-
Perfect example of a quality audible book.
- By Jerry on 07-07-03
By: Simon Winchester
-
Altered Carbon
- By: Richard K. Morgan
- Narrated by: Todd McLaren
- Length: 17 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the 25th century, humankind has spread throughout the galaxy, monitored by the watchful eye of the U.N. While divisions in race, religion, and class still exist, advances in technology have redefined life itself. Now, assuming one can afford the expensive procedure, a person's consciousness can be stored in a cortical stack at the base of the brain and easily downloaded into a new body (or "sleeve") making death nothing more than a minor blip on a screen.
-
-
Altered Carbon
- By Jake Williams on 09-22-07
-
Thunderstruck
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Bob Balaban
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Thunderstruck, Erik Larson tells the interwoven stories of two men: Hawley Crippen, a very unlikely murderer, and Guglielmo Marconi, the obsessive creator of a seemingly supernatural means of communication. Their lives intersect during one of the greatest criminal chases of all time.
-
-
Reader cannot read
- By Bob on 12-08-07
By: Erik Larson
-
Dune: The Butlerian Jihad
- By: Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 23 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Frank Herbert's Dune is one of the grandest epics in the annals of imaginative literature. Now Herbert's son, Brian, working with Kevin J. Anderson and using Frank Herbert's own notes, reveals a pivotal epoch in the history of the Dune universe: the Butlerian Jihad, the war that was fought ten thousand years before the events of Dune - the war in which humans wrested their freedom from "thinking machines."
-
-
Full of Sound and Fury....signifying nothing
- By William on 02-01-03
By: Brian Herbert, and others
-
Dancer's Lament
- Path to Ascendancy, Book 1
- By: Ian C. Esslemont
- Narrated by: John Banks
- Length: 16 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Esslemont's all-new prequel trilogy takes readers deeper into the politics and intrigue of the New York Times bestselling Malazan Empire. Dancer's Lament focuses on the genesis of the empire, and features Dancer, the skilled assassin, who, alongside the mage Kellanved, would found the Malazan empire.
-
-
FISH
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 01-05-17
By: Ian C. Esslemont
-
H.P. Lovecraft: The Complete Omnibus Collection, Volume I: 1917-1926
- By: H. P. Lovecraft, Finn J.D. John
- Narrated by: Finn J.D. John
- Length: 23 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is volume one of a two-volume omnibus set comprising the complete fictional works of Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Every story written for publication under his own name is included in this set, from 1917 through 1935. (Poems, ghostwritten material, and stories written in collaboration with other writers are not included.)
-
-
I really enjoyed this collection
- By J.J. on 09-26-16
By: H. P. Lovecraft, and others
Related to this topic
-
The Land Across
- By: Gene Wolfe
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An American writer of travel guides in need of a new location chooses to travel to a small and obscure Eastern European country. The moment Grafton crosses the border he is in trouble, much more than he could have imagined. His passport is taken by guards, and then he is detained for not having it. He is released into the custody of a family, but is again detained. It becomes evident that there are supernatural agencies at work.
-
-
Give the man a (dead) hand
- By Tango on 11-29-13
By: Gene Wolfe
-
Trust Your Eyes
- By: Linwood Barclay
- Narrated by: Ken Marks, Rick Holmes
- Length: 14 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thomas Kilbride is a map-obsessed schizophrenic so affected that he rarely leaves the self-imposed bastion of his bedroom. But with a computer program called Whirl360.com, he travels the world while never so much as stepping out the door. He pores over and memorizes the streets of the world. He examines every address, as well as the people who are frozen in time on his computer screen. Then he sees something that anyone else might have stumbled upon - but has not - in a street view of downtown New York City: an image in a window. An image that looks like a woman being murdered.
-
-
One of 2013's best!
- By karen on 09-07-13
By: Linwood Barclay
-
The Ritual Bath
- The First Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus Novel
- By: Faye Kellerman
- Narrated by: Mitchell Greenberg
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Detective Peter Decker of the LAPD is stunned when he gets the report. Someone has shattered the sanctuary of a remote yeshiva community in the California hills with an unimaginable crime. One of the women was brutally raped as she returned from the mikvah, the bathhouse where the cleansing ritual is performed.
-
-
Good Read
- By Eva Gannon on 08-21-08
By: Faye Kellerman
-
Treasure Box
- By: Orson Scott Card
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A shattering childhood tragedy left Quentin Fears devastated. But the wealthy, enigmatic recluse has experienced the extraordinarily unexpected: love at first sight, with Madeleine. Now he must meet his new wife's family. A bizarre, dysfunctional collection of extreme characters, they are guarding a secret both shocking and terrifying, as is Madeleine herself. And suddenly Quentin Fears must prevent his dream woman from unleashing an ageless malevolence intent on ruling the world.
-
-
OSC at his best!!!
- By KaHef on 01-13-07
By: Orson Scott Card
-
Short Squeeze
- By: Chris Knopf
- Narrated by: Deanna Hurst
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meet smart-aleck Southampton attorney Jackie Swaitkowski. Her business relies on constant movement of Hamptons' real estate market. After making an odd request to evict his sister-in-law from his home, one of her clients turns up dead. Jackie would have expected that to be the end of it, but an envelope found on the corpse contains an item so unusual that she finds herself working on something bigger, and more dangerous, than real estate.
-
-
Great Listen - Good Series
- By Patricia on 02-15-10
By: Chris Knopf
-
If Walls Could Talk
- Haunted Home Renovation, Book 1
- By: Juliet Blackwell
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Melanie Turner has made quite a name for herself remodeling historic houses in the San Francisco Bay Area. But now her reputation may be on the line. At her newest project, a run-down Pacific Heights mansion, Mel is visited by the ghost of a colleague who recently met a bad end with power tools. Mel hopes that by nailing the killer, she can rid herself of the ghostly presence of the murdered man - and not end up a construction casualty herself....
-
-
A Nice Change
- By Carole T. on 06-15-15
By: Juliet Blackwell
-
The Land Across
- By: Gene Wolfe
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An American writer of travel guides in need of a new location chooses to travel to a small and obscure Eastern European country. The moment Grafton crosses the border he is in trouble, much more than he could have imagined. His passport is taken by guards, and then he is detained for not having it. He is released into the custody of a family, but is again detained. It becomes evident that there are supernatural agencies at work.
-
-
Give the man a (dead) hand
- By Tango on 11-29-13
By: Gene Wolfe
-
Trust Your Eyes
- By: Linwood Barclay
- Narrated by: Ken Marks, Rick Holmes
- Length: 14 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thomas Kilbride is a map-obsessed schizophrenic so affected that he rarely leaves the self-imposed bastion of his bedroom. But with a computer program called Whirl360.com, he travels the world while never so much as stepping out the door. He pores over and memorizes the streets of the world. He examines every address, as well as the people who are frozen in time on his computer screen. Then he sees something that anyone else might have stumbled upon - but has not - in a street view of downtown New York City: an image in a window. An image that looks like a woman being murdered.
-
-
One of 2013's best!
- By karen on 09-07-13
By: Linwood Barclay
-
The Ritual Bath
- The First Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus Novel
- By: Faye Kellerman
- Narrated by: Mitchell Greenberg
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Detective Peter Decker of the LAPD is stunned when he gets the report. Someone has shattered the sanctuary of a remote yeshiva community in the California hills with an unimaginable crime. One of the women was brutally raped as she returned from the mikvah, the bathhouse where the cleansing ritual is performed.
-
-
Good Read
- By Eva Gannon on 08-21-08
By: Faye Kellerman
-
Treasure Box
- By: Orson Scott Card
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A shattering childhood tragedy left Quentin Fears devastated. But the wealthy, enigmatic recluse has experienced the extraordinarily unexpected: love at first sight, with Madeleine. Now he must meet his new wife's family. A bizarre, dysfunctional collection of extreme characters, they are guarding a secret both shocking and terrifying, as is Madeleine herself. And suddenly Quentin Fears must prevent his dream woman from unleashing an ageless malevolence intent on ruling the world.
-
-
OSC at his best!!!
- By KaHef on 01-13-07
By: Orson Scott Card
-
Short Squeeze
- By: Chris Knopf
- Narrated by: Deanna Hurst
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meet smart-aleck Southampton attorney Jackie Swaitkowski. Her business relies on constant movement of Hamptons' real estate market. After making an odd request to evict his sister-in-law from his home, one of her clients turns up dead. Jackie would have expected that to be the end of it, but an envelope found on the corpse contains an item so unusual that she finds herself working on something bigger, and more dangerous, than real estate.
-
-
Great Listen - Good Series
- By Patricia on 02-15-10
By: Chris Knopf
-
If Walls Could Talk
- Haunted Home Renovation, Book 1
- By: Juliet Blackwell
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Melanie Turner has made quite a name for herself remodeling historic houses in the San Francisco Bay Area. But now her reputation may be on the line. At her newest project, a run-down Pacific Heights mansion, Mel is visited by the ghost of a colleague who recently met a bad end with power tools. Mel hopes that by nailing the killer, she can rid herself of the ghostly presence of the murdered man - and not end up a construction casualty herself....
-
-
A Nice Change
- By Carole T. on 06-15-15
By: Juliet Blackwell
-
Charlie's Bones
- By: L. L. Thrasher
- Narrated by: Stephanie Brush
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
All former truck-stop waitress/new heiress Lizbet really wanted was a swimming pool. What she got was a skeleton, suspicious cops...and Charlie. While digging the hole for the pool, workmen discover a human skeleton. Suddenly Lizbet's backyard becomes the focus of the cops, the FBI, and the media. And if that isn't enough, 30 minutes later, Charlie, the skeleton's owner, shows up in ghost form dressed as a sexy, young hippie type, and asks Lizbet to help him find out who murdered him back in 1969.
-
-
Great performance
- By Jily on 11-21-20
By: L. L. Thrasher
-
Goodnight, Irene
- An Irene Kelly Novel
- By: Jan Burke
- Narrated by: Eliza Foss
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The morning after Irene says goodnight to her old journalist friend O'Connor, he is killed suddenly upon opening a letter bomb. As the smoke clears, a devastated Irene determines to find the mail-bomber by tracing threads of an unsolved crime from 1955 - the same cold case O'Connor had been obsessed with.
-
-
Welcome Irene
- By Anonymous User on 04-29-08
By: Jan Burke
-
Dating Dead Men
- By: Harley Jane Kozak
- Narrated by: Deanna Hurst
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Los Angeles greeting-card artist Wollie Shelley is dating 40 men in 60 days as research for a radio talk show host's upcoming book. Wollie is meeting plenty of eligible bachelors but not falling in love, not until she stumbles over a dead body en route to Rio Pescado - a state-run mental hospital - and is taken hostage by a charismatic "doctor" who is on the run from the Mob.
-
-
Another Stephanie Plum
- By Don on 08-30-12
-
March Violets
- By: Philip Kerr
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hailed by Salman Rushdie as a "brilliantly innovative thriller-writer", Philip Kerr is the creator of taut, gripping, noir-tinged mysteries set in Nazi-era Berlin that are nothing short of spellbinding. The first book of the Berlin Noir trilogy, March Violets introduces listeners to Bernie Gunther, an ex-policeman who thought he'd seen everything on the streets of 1930s Berlin - until he turned freelance and each case he tackled sucked him further into the grisly excesses of Nazi subculture.
-
-
Brilliant Nazi Era Mystery
- By Constance on 05-04-12
By: Philip Kerr
-
God Save the Mark
- A Novel of Crime and Confusion
- By: Donald E. Westlake
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What, you ask, is a Fred Fitch? Well, for one thing, Fred Fitch is the man with the most extensive collection of fake receipts, phony bills of sale, and counterfeit sweepstakes tickets in the Western hemisphere, and possibly in the entire world. For another thing, Fred Fitch may be the only New York City resident in the twentieth century to buy a money machine.
-
-
American Gods for the Grifter set!
- By William R. on 09-06-11
-
Aphrodite
- By: Russell Andrews
- Narrated by: Buck Schirner
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It looked for all the world like a terrible, tragic accident. Susanna Morgan had gotten up in the middle of the night, tripped, fallen, and broken her neck. Yet when detective Justin Westwood inspects the victim's apartment, he can't help noticing that the details don't quite add up. The glass on the bedside table is knocked over but there are no cuts on her body. The scrape on her knee looks suspiciously fresh. And then a terrified witness comes forward, confirming his worst fear.
-
-
Just Works - Wonderfully
- By Ted on 05-03-12
By: Russell Andrews
-
Baltimore Blues
- Tess Monaghan, Book 1
- By: Laura Lippman
- Narrated by: Deborah Hazlett
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Unemployed at 29, Tess Monaghan is willing to take any freelance job to pay the rent—including a bit of unorthodox snooping for her rowing buddy, Darryl "Rock" Paxton. In a city where someone is murdered almost every day, attorney Michael Abramowitz's death should be just another statistic. But the slain lawyer's notoriety—and his noontime trysts with Rock's fiancée—make the case front page news...and point to Rock as the likely murderer. But trying to prove her friend's innocence could prove costly to Tess.
-
-
I'm on #8 - This series is almost unique
- By connie on 02-19-12
By: Laura Lippman
-
The Man from Primrose Lane
- By: James Renner
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 13 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A mind-bending, genre-twisting debut novel. In West Akron, there lived a reclusive elderly man who always wore mittens, even in July. He had no friends and no family; all over town, he was known only as The the Man from Primrose Lane. And on a summer day in 2008, someone murdered him.
-
-
Good read, despite, not because of sci fi twist
- By Lulu W. on 07-18-12
By: James Renner
-
The Deep Blue Good-By
- A Travis McGee Novel, Book 1
- By: John D. MacDonald
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 6 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
He's a self-described beach bum who won his houseboat in a card game. He's also a knight errant who's wary of credit cards, retirement benefits, political parties, mortgages, and television. He only works when his cash runs out, and his rule is simple: he'll help you find whatever was taken from you, as long as he can keep half.
-
-
Before the A-Team, there was Travis McGee
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 11-12-16
-
Dead Eyes
- A Novel
- By: Stuart Woods
- Narrated by: Tony Roberts
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
First there were roses and the notes in her mailbox signed simply, "Admirer". Then the accident. One minute Chris Callaway was one of Hollywood's brightest rising stars, starting a new picture that could send her career skyrocketing; the next she was falling from the unfinished deck of her beautiful new Malibu beach house...waking up blind, uncertain whether she would ever see again.
-
-
Great
- By Richard Bell on 05-08-16
By: Stuart Woods
-
The Book of Air and Shadows
- A Novel
- By: Michael Gruber
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 18 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jake Mishkin's seemingly innocent job as an intellectual property lawyer has put him at the center of a deadly conspiracy and a chase to find a priceless treasure involving William Shakespeare. As he awaits a killer (or killers) unknown, Jake writes an account of the events that led to this deadly endgame, a frantic chase that began when a fire in an antiquarian bookstore revealed the hiding place of letters containing a shocking secret, concealed for 400 years.
-
-
Not your average story.
- By Nicholas Winn on 06-02-07
By: Michael Gruber
-
For Whom The Minivan Rolls
- Aaron Tucker Mystery, Book 1
- By: Jeffrey Cohen
- Narrated by: Damon Abdallah
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Aaron Tucker isn't a detective. So he's baffled when the richest guy in his New Jersey town insists that Aaron, and Aaron alone, investigate the disappearance of his wife, who has inexplicably vanished from their home in the middle of the night. Funny, down-to-earth, lovable, and resourceful, Aaron Tucker, family man and freelance writer, reluctantly says yes, and continuously wishes he hadn't.
-
-
Funny, Great Narration, Weak Mystery
- By Karen K on 07-16-15
By: Jeffrey Cohen
What listeners say about A Borrowed Man
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sam Ryan
- 05-10-17
Meh
Generally I love Gene Wolfe, but maybe I've grown out of him. Normally I feel her had an uncanny sense of how technology reveals the monsters hiding in our humanity - or visa versa, but this felt more like a short story packed or to fill a novel. The motives of the characters flail wildly between obvious and completely disjointed from the story.
When all was said and done I was left thinking that there were some nifty ideas presented, but they were never played with to any degree to that made the predictable storyline seem worth it.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jen Heers
- 06-05-23
Not Wolfe's best work, but solidly entertaining
A Borrowed Man is perhaps my least favorite Gene Wolfe novel I've read to date, but even then I still found it quite enjoyable. While my first reading has left me with the impression that it's much less nuanced than the Solar Cycle, Wolfe's is known for narratives that require close scrutiny to be fully understood. A lot of the more negative reviews criticize the audiobook's stilted narration as if it's a matter of poor workmanship, but a number of lines in the book suggest it mimics the narrating character's actual cadence of speech (a fact he finds infuriating). I'd recommend sampling this book before you buy because some people find it grating, but at its worst it is an overzealous artistic choice. The story itself is a very character-forward spin on a hardboiled narrative with Wolfe's trademark of veiled worldbuilding, leading to a dystopian setting with just enough details to spark the reader's imagination. If you haven't read anything by Wolfe before you may not find this novel particularly appealing, but fans of his style should be satisfied.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Alex Levine
- 10-27-15
Great Gene Wolfe Concept, Distracting Narration
The idea of a borrowed man, and with it the speculative premise that drives this story, are certainly worthy of Wolfe's genius. The protagonist and first-person narrator admits from the outset that, in fact as in law, he is not fully human. The story bears this judgment out in various interesting and poignant ways, but despite the limitations built into him, he's a very appealing character. His story has a good arc, too, though it suffers from a number of the sorts of continuity errors that drive me to distraction.
The narrator's intensity level ranges from breathless fascination to near panic, and listening to him for any length of time is exhausting. All of the character voices are equally over the top, either stentorian or histrionic. Chill out, dude.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
15 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Kindle Customer
- 04-23-16
a rock solid detective story
just wow! I'm liking this blend of wolfe's style with the detective story.Voice acting was a little wooden and lacking emotion but it didnt bother me after a while. still, i may have enjoyed reading it more. This is my favorite of his books so far.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Knowinglee
- 07-12-22
Monotone narrator
Couldn't really keep interest with the narrator's cadence, story seems great as most Gene Wolfe's stories are.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Melisa
- 10-24-15
Annoying Narration
I can't really give a fair review of the story because I found the narrator so irritating that I didn't make it past the 4th chapter. He over enunciates everything and inserts awkward pauses after every 3 or 4 words. It was somewhat like listening to someone read something in a language they were just learning. It was so distracting that I couldn't even follow the story. I might try this one again in print, but there's no way I can finish the audible version.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
9 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Zachary
- 11-04-16
A great listen and one of the author's best
Part murder mystery, part classic gene wolf, part critique of modern society, class and identity in society.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amanda Nargi
- 05-11-21
Another Great Story by Gene Wolfe
I loved this story, but the narration was difficult for me. I didn't enjoy the voice acting for this one. In my opinion, it's better read on paper.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Timberbee
- 09-15-24
Manu fique!
I don't know how to rate this book. Not really.
My first Gene Wolfe book since I was a teenager, wasLitany of the Long Sun, and I didn't remember it at all.
For me, E. A. Smithe, of, A Borrowed Man, and, Patera Silk from, Litany of the Long Sun, are such similar characters.
At first, my reaction to Patera Silk was standoffish, I wanted him to be a fighter, to be strong, and, when knocked down, to get back up and give them what for!
But, he wasn't. He wasn't strong like that, but, he was iron in a far different way. He was clever, but so truthful, and, so persistent. Failure did not seem to represent any true setback, merely, something which occurred and, had to be worked around, and, though he could lie, and, dissemble, he was a creature who was true, and, utterly honest with,
himself.
So,
I was prepared for the character of E. A. Smithe, a character who had little to no control over the most intimate and fundamental aspects of his own life, including, when and how it would end (Something central to the story, and, at times, very jarring).
E. A. Smithe and Patera Silk are such similar characters.
And, one key element of both characters, and, both settings, is precisely that lack of control, that, personal freedom we all take so much for granted in what we call, the "Civilized" world.
Both characters shine, and display such strength, resilience, and self - reliance, self - determination, in what others would see as utterly oppressive.
Gene Wolfe acted to shift my vision of strength, and, indeed,
Freedom.
There is no freedom, without sacrifice.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Doug D. Eigsti
- 11-09-15
Check Him Out
Gene Wolfe becomes a different writer depending on the story he wants to tell. Here he wants to involve us in a Mystery set in a Science Fiction universe. The mystery starts out as “what happened to the money” and then becomes “who done it?” The SF element is flying cars and androids who think they are Mystery writers and poets. The android Mystery writer Ernest Smithe character is wonderful, just wonderful. Pay close attention to the contrast between his gritty pulp crime-novel thoughts and his third person Mystery writer speech pattern. Wolfe makes this internal war of words inside Smithe’s head an on-going gag throughout the novel and is very enjoyable to follow. Smithe—being an android reconstruction of a famous Mystery writer—should behave just like the real Ernest Smithe would have; the fact that he does not, provides much of the intrigue in the book. Just when you think you have Ern figured out, he will do something surprising. Trying to explain his motivations kept my interest level high throughout the novel.
I did a Power Read™ on this new Gene Wolfe novel using the Kindle version. I use this term to indicate reading the text of the book while listening to the audiobook. I can recommend this as the best way to assimilate a new novel. It provides two discrete information pathways into the brain occurring in parallel. It is akin to reading the book twice. I find that I read faster than the narrator speaks so my mind has time to process the material just before I hear the narrator speaking the same words into my ear. This does two things: First, it forces me to slow down and look at each word—vitally important in a Gene Wolfe book. Secondly, hearing the narrator forces me to process the words through the auditory part of my brain and merge then with what I am reading. Often the narrator will employ a slightly different pronunciation of a word causing that particular word to receive an extra measure of mental attention. This method does require a great deal of concentration but every time I have done this I have had a fantastic experience and was able to comprehend the book being read for the first time as if I had read it twice.
Kevin T. Collins is the narrator and seems to me to be a poor choice for the material. He read much too slowly for my taste and I found his exaggeratedly precise diction to be more of a curse than a blessing. But there were some blessings. I can honestly compliment Collins for his accurate reading of the text. In one place one of the character names is misspelled and Collins reads the misspelled name verbatim. This level of accuracy does help with proof-reading, and I did manage to find several slight discrepancies between the Kindle version and the Audible, thanks in part to Collin’s precision. His reading is so earnest as to be distracting. He does speak in a slightly different voice for some of the different characters and these help in differentiating the speaker. This book seems to be written in a sort of tongue-in-cheek style and could really benefit from a more dramatic performance. The only way I can recommend Collins’ narration is to read along with the text while listening. Listening alone to this book would detract from the overall experience. All the sarcasm and Mystery writer voice-over grittiness is completely absent from Collins’ narration. You would get more of the true feel of the book by reading it than by listening to Collins read it to you.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
7 people found this helpful