
Moonbound
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Gabra Zackman
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By:
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Robin Sloan
About this listen
Long-listed, Audible.com Best of the Year, 2024
Robin Sloan expands the Penumbraverse to new reaches of time and space in a rollicking far-future adventure.
In Moonbound, Robin Sloan has written a novel with the full scope and ambitious imagination of the very books that lit the engines of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore: an epic quest as only Sloan could conceive it, mixing science fiction, fantasy, good old-fashioned literary storytelling, and unrivaled enthusiasm for what’s next.
It is eleven thousand years from now . . . A lot has happened, and yet a lot is still very familiar. Ariel is a boy in a small town under a wizard’s rule. Like many adventurers before him, Ariel is called to explore a world full of unimaginable glories and challenges: unknown enemies, a mission to save the world, a girl. Here, as they say, be dragons. But none of this happens before Ariel comes across an artifact from an earlier civilization, a sentient, record-keeping artificial intelligence that carries with it the perspective of the whole of human history—and becomes both Ariel’s greatest ally and the narrator of our story.
Moonbound is an adventure into the richest depths of Story itself. It is a deeply satisfying epic of ancient scale, blasted through the imaginative prism one of our most forward-thinking writers. And this is only the beginning.
A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
©2024 Robin Sloan (P)2024 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Interview: Robin Sloan goes high science fantasy in his wildly imaginative "Moonbound"
Editorial Review
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- A Novel
- By: Riley August
- Narrated by: Robyn Holdaway, Ayesha Antoine, Chris Thompson
- Length: 5 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Scout is an Archivist who scours the dead worlds of the cosmos for their last gifts: interesting technology, cultural rituals–anything left behind that might be useful to Home and their survival. During an excavation on a lifeless planet, Scout unearths something unbelievable: a surviving message from an alien who witnessed the world-ending entity thousands of years ago.
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Underwhelming
- By Geoff Calhoun on 10-18-24
By: Riley August
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What We Fed to the Manticore
- By: Talia Lakshmi Kolluri
- Narrated by: Nikki Massoud, Neil Shah
- Length: 4 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Through nine emotionally vivid stories, all narrated from animal perspectives portraying the complexity of their lives and relationships, WHAT WE FED TO THE MANTICORE explores themes of environmentalism, conservation, identity, belonging, loss, and family with resounding heart and deep tenderness, and ultimately places the listener under the rich canopy of the tree of life.
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Annie Bot
- A Novel
- By: Sierra Greer
- Narrated by: Jennifer Jill Araya
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Annie Bot was created to be the perfect girlfriend for her human owner Doug. Designed to satisfy his emotional and physical needs, she has dinner ready for him every night, wears the pert outfits he orders for her, and adjusts her libido to suit his moods. True, she’s not the greatest at keeping Doug’s place spotless, but she’s trying to please him. She’s trying hard.
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Good, but not great
- By Katie Ramey on 03-25-24
By: Sierra Greer
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Annabel Scheme
- By: Robin Sloan
- Narrated by: Robin Sloan
- Length: 3 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Annabel Scheme is a detective story set in an alternate San Francisco where the digital and the occult live side-by-side. It's a short listen, perfect for people who like Sherlock Holmes, Douglas Adams, ghosts and/or the Internet. In Scheme's San Francisco, an indie rocker's new tracks are climbing the charts, even though the rocker herself is long dead. A devout gamer has gone missing, and the only trace of him that remains is inside his favorite game, the blockbuster MMORPG called World of Jesus. And the richest man in the city, the inventor of the search engine called Grail, might just have made a deal with a devil.
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It could have been better
- By Juana Peralta on 11-21-19
By: Robin Sloan
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Someone You Can Build a Nest In
- By: John Wiswell
- Narrated by: Carmen Rose
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Shesheshen is a shapeshifter, who happily resides as an amorphous lump at the bottom of a ruined manor. When her rest is interrupted by hunters intent on murdering her, she constructs a body using a metal chain for a backbone, borrowed bones for limbs, and a bear trap as an extra mouth. However, the hunters chase Shesheshen out of her home and off a cliff. Badly hurt, she's found and nursed back to health by Homily, a warmhearted human, who has mistaken Shesheshen as a fellow human
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Weird, but good
- By Kris Rudin on 12-08-24
By: John Wiswell
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Hollow Kingdom
- By: Kira Jane Buxton
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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S.T., a domesticated crow, is a bird of simple pleasures: hanging out with his owner Big Jim, trading insults with Seattle's wild crows (i.e. "those idiots"), and enjoying the finest food humankind has to offer: Cheetos®. Then Big Jim's eyeball falls out of his head, and S.T. starts to think something isn't quite right. Even the slobbering affection of Big Jim's loyal but dim-witted dog, Dennis, fails to cure Big Jim's debilitating malady. S.T. is left with no choice but to abandon his old life and venture out into a wild and frightening new world with his trusty steed Dennis.
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Original, Funny, Unputdownable
- By Victor @ theAudiobookBlog dot com on 05-08-20
By: Kira Jane Buxton
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Bubbles in Space: Complete Series, Books 1-5
- By: S.C. Jensen
- Narrated by: Jennifer Blom
- Length: 42 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Blade Runner meets The Fifth Element in this eccentric cyber-noir thriller series about a bleak world ravaged by corrupt leaders, mega-corporations, and crime lords… and the washed-up cyborg detective who might be the only one crazy enough to take them on.
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Pretty sci-fi noir for having an MC named Bubbles
- By 🔥 Phx17 🔥 on 04-21-25
By: S.C. Jensen
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Blackheart Man
- By: Nalo Hopkinson
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Veycosi, in training as a griot (an historian and musician), hopes to sail off to examine the rare Alamat Book of Light and thus secure a spot for himself on Chynchin’s Colloquium of scholars. However, unexpected events prevent that from happening. Fifteen Ymisen galleons arrive in the harbor to force a trade agreement on Chynchin. Veycosi tries to help, hoping to prove himself with a bold move, but quickly finds himself in way over his head.
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magical!!
- By samar on 01-29-25
By: Nalo Hopkinson
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A Sorceress Comes to Call
- By: T. Kingfisher
- Narrated by: Eliza Foss, Jennifer Pickens
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Cordelia knows her mother is . . . unusual. Their house doesn’t have any doors between rooms—there are no secrets in this house—and her mother doesn't allow Cordelia to have a single friend. Unless you count Falada, her mother's beautiful white horse. The only time Cordelia feels truly free is on her daily rides with him. But more than simple eccentricity sets her mother apart. Other mothers don’t force their daughters to be silent and motionless for hours, sometimes days, on end. Other mothers aren’t sorcerers.
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Brilliantly creepy
- By Joella Berkner on 08-14-24
By: T. Kingfisher
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The Raven Tower
- By: Ann Leckie
- Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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For centuries, the kingdom of Iraden has been protected by the god known as the Raven. He watches over his territory from atop a tower in the powerful port of Vastai. His will is enacted through the Raven's Lease, a human ruler chosen by the god himself. His magic is sustained via the blood sacrifice that every Lease must offer. And under the Raven's watch, the city flourishes. But the power of the Raven is weakening. A usurper has claimed the throne. The kingdom borders are tested by invaders who long for the prosperity that Vastai boasts.
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A Unique Perspective and an Intriguing Mystery
- By Amazon Customer on 05-15-19
By: Ann Leckie
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Cuckoo
- By: Gretchen Felker-Martin
- Narrated by: Amy Landon, Avi Roque, Grace Rolek, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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In the summer of 1995, seven queer kids abandoned by their parents at a remote conversion camp came face to face with it. They survived—but at Camp Resolution, everybody leaves a different person. Sixteen years later, only the scarred and broken survivors of that terrible summer can put an end to the horror before it's too late. The fate of the world depends on it.
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Beautiful authentic queer characters
- By Ember on 07-09-24
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The Topeka School
- A Novel
- By: Ben Lerner
- Narrated by: Nancy Linari, Peter Berkrot, Tristan Wright
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Adam Gordon is a senior at Topeka High School, class of ’97. His mother, Jane, is a famous feminist author; his father, Jonathan, is an expert at getting "lost boys" to open up. They both work at a psychiatric clinic that has attracted staff and patients from around the world. Adam is a renowned debater, expected to win a national championship before he heads to college. He is one of the cool kids, ready to fight or, better, freestyle about fighting if it keeps his peers from thinking of him as weak.
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Strong novel about 1990s
- By citizen, jazzmania on 01-11-20
By: Ben Lerner
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The Stardust Grail
- A Novel
- By: Yume Kitasei
- Narrated by: Katharine Chin
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Maya Hoshimoto was once the best art thief in the galaxy. For ten years, she returned stolen artifacts to alien civilizations—until a disastrous job forced her into hiding. Now she just wants to enjoy a quiet life as a graduate student of anthropology, but she’s haunted by persistent and disturbing visions of the future. Then an old friend comes to her with a job she can’t refuse: find a powerful object that could save an alien species from extinction. Except no one has seen it in living memory, and they aren’t the only ones hunting for it.
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Pronouns are out of control
- By C P on 09-11-24
By: Yume Kitasei
Great world building but ...
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favorite book of 2024
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I love books that somehow believably intermingle all the genres, science fiction and fantasy, comedy and mystery, adventure and even a hint of romance.
I love love love this book and hope to meet the author some day... probably in his beloved SF.
Now one of my favorite books
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Story with a capital ‘S’
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If you loved a wrinkle in time as a kid you are in for a treat
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Wow! Wow! Wow!
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Magnificent!
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All about story
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This would be accurate, but not useful. The book is the opposite: useful but not accurate. Which is why I love it.
This is post climate emergency fiction married to Arthurian metatext dancing with enormous space opera barely glimpsed in the tear of the veil of dust around earth, making saucy eyes at eldritch horrors of our own design, obeying our own ineluctable rules of narrative. Itt is a carneval of the weird (and the wyrd), laugh out loud funny in the least explainable manner, it ping pong a between weighty myth-making language and snarky almost post modernism flavored inappropriate and yet so appropriate Twitterisms. It does so rarely, which makes it slap more.
I love this. I will read it again. It will live in my brain forever, like a friendly symbiotic yeast starter in a mech suit.
This book is my new obsession
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Tenuous and hard to understand.
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