
Saturn's Children
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Narrated by:
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Bianca Amato
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By:
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Charles Stross
About this listen
In Saturn's Children, Freya is an obsolete android concubine in a society where humans haven't existed for hundreds of years. A rigid caste system keeps the Aristos, a vindictive group of humanoids, well in control of the lower, slave-chipped classes. So when Freya offends one particularly nasty Aristo, she's forced to take a dangerous courier job off-planet.
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"Good fun... Heinlein himself would've liked this." ( San Diego Union-Tribune)
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Story
In a moving story of sacrifice and triumph, human scientists establish a relationship with intelligent lifeforms - the cheela-living on Dragon's Egg, a neutron star where one Earth hour is equivalent to hundreds of their years. The cheela culturally evolve from savagery to the discovery of science, and for a brief time, men are their diligent teachers.
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Classic Hard Science Fiction
- By Daniel Cascaddan on 01-12-18
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Blood Music
- By: Greg Bear
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 10 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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An amazing breakthrough in genetic engineering made by Vergil Ulam is considered too dangerous for further research, but rather than destroy his work, he injects himself with his creation and walks out of his lab, unaware of just how his actions will change the world.
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THOUGHT UNIVERSE
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 08-01-15
By: Greg Bear
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Lord of Light
- By: Roger Zelazny
- Narrated by: Matt Godfrey
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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How could a performance be so wrong?
- By 1st World Problems on 05-29-22
By: Roger Zelazny
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Consider Phlebas
- By: Iain M. Banks
- Narrated by: Peter Kenny
- Length: 16 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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The war raged across the galaxy. Billions had died, billions more were doomed. Moons, planets, the very stars themselves, faced destruction, cold-blooded, brutal, and worse, random. The Idirans fought for their Faith; the Culture for its moral right to exist. Principles were at stake. There could be no surrender. Within the cosmic conflict, an individual crusade. Deep within a fabled labyrinth on a barren world, a Planet of the Dead proscribed to mortals, lay a fugitive Mind. Both the Culture and the Idirans sought it....
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Visionary but half-cooked intro to Culture 'verse
- By Ryan on 07-20-13
By: Iain M. Banks
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Constituent Service
- A Third District Story
- By: John Scalzi
- Narrated by: Amber Benson
- Length: 2 hrs and 30 mins
- Original Recording
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Ashley Perrin is fresh out of college and starting a job as a community liaison for the Third District–the city’s only sector with more alien residents than humans. Ashley’s barely found where the paper clips are kept when she’s beset with constituent complaints–from too much noise at the Annual Lupidian Celebration Parade to a trip-and-fall chicken to a very particular type of alien hornet that threatens the very city itself. And if that’s not terrifying enough, Ashley is next up at the office karaoke night.
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Short and fun!
- By Andrew on 10-04-24
By: John Scalzi
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Midnight Riot
- Rivers of London, Book 1
- By: Ben Aaronovitch
- Narrated by: Kobna Holdbrook-Smith
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Probationary constable Peter Grant dreams of being a detective in London's Metropolitan Police. Too bad his superior plans to assign him to the Case Progression Unit, where the biggest threat he'll face is a paper cut. But Peter's prospects change in the aftermath of a puzzling murder, when he gains exclusive information from an eyewitness who happens to be a ghost. Peter's ability to speak with the lingering dead brings him to the attention of Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale....
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I LOVE this Book!
- By Nancy J on 02-26-13
By: Ben Aaronovitch
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Ancillary Justice
- By: Ann Leckie
- Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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On a remote, icy planet, the soldier known as Breq is drawing closer to completing her quest. Once, she was the Justice of Toren - a colossal starship with an artificial intelligence linking thousands of soldiers in the service of the Radch, the empire that conquered the galaxy. Now, an act of treachery has ripped it all away, leaving her with one fragile human body, unanswered questions, and a burning desire for vengeance.
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Has some redeeming value, but is deeply flawed
- By Matthew J. Mimnaugh on 08-07-19
By: Ann Leckie
Narrator is amazing, Stross at the top of his game
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imaginative erotic sci fi, outstanding narration
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Some of you may like listening to an android having sex sith her tranport system, then lewd conversations with her hotel.
Not for me.
Stopped at Ch3 due to smuttiness
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The narrator Bianca Amato did a very good job of handling all of the voice. Though she speaks with a bit of an English accent, she is pleasant and brisk with her narration.
This novel will appeal to a listener who is interested in rooting for all sides. You root for one thing, then another and another. By the time you finish you reassess they story and reflect. From this point of view, the novel make you think, think about a world humans created but are not manifest. I recommend this book – it is different than I thought it would be; but I am still happy I listened.
Pleasent, Complicated Space Opera - Very Enjoyable
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Weird
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Fascinating Story, superb Reading
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Androids picking up the pieces of extinct humanity
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In the future of Charles Stross’ Saturn’s Children, humans have somehow managed to kill themselves off. But, before they did, they developed an array of artificial intelligence machines to serve them. Some were sent out to explore and settle the galaxy. The universe now contains all sorts of robots and cyborgs. They’ve set up a class-structured society with “aristo” robots owning those that humans had fitted with loyalty-inducing slave-chips. This strange new feudal society carries on with normal business, free from the oversight and lordship of humans.
Freya is one of these cyborgs. She was designed to be a “companion” (to put it nicely) for humans, so she is humanoid in appearance and exhibits most human emotions and motivations. She was spawned from a “mother” named Rhea and has numerous “sisters” whose “soul chips” can be downloaded and uploaded to new bodies. Freya used to be a slave, but her “family” has purchased her freedom.
As a femmebot, Freya was designed to fall in love with human men, but she has never met one because she was activated after they had all died out. In this new world, there is no one for her to love and serve. Now obsolete, she lives a lonely existence in a modified shipping container on Venus, eking out a living by doing odd jobs. At the beginning of the story, she manages to enrage another android and needs to leave Venus quickly, so she takes a job escorting a biological sample from Mercury to Mars. Freya doesn’t know what she’s protecting, but she soon discovers that there are many androids who want to get their hands on it. Many are worried that this specimen will overturn the android way of life and, somehow, Freya’s siblings and her crazy mother are also involved. Everyone seems to be chasing Freya.
The best part of Saturn’s Children is the post-human setting. Most post-apocalyptic stories imagine a universe devoid of intelligent life after we kill ourselves off, but Stross’ world is teeming. Freya leads us on a fascinating tour of this strange universe which includes slutty space capsules, museums featuring the skeletons of dinosaurs and homo sapiens side-by-side, the city of Cinnabar which perpetually rolls on rails around the equator of Mercury, a Martian memorial to the humans who could never manage to colonize the red planet, and a galaxy-wide butler service run by robots who all use the name “Jeeves.”
Also entertaining are a few philosophical discussions. The robots in this far future think of homo sapiens as their Creator and argue about whether robots evolved from mutation or were manufactured by their intelligent designers. Freya complains that followers of “the holy doctrine of Evolution” are dogmatic and close-minded, and this is very funny. Stross also explores the concepts of empathy, freedom and slavery, free will and determinism. Freya’s kind feel like they are not truly free because of the conditioning their creators instilled in them.
Saturn’s Children is a fun adventurous tour around a post-human galaxy. The pace rarely slows down for Freya, who’s in danger and on the run the entire time. Some parts of the plot go on too long and sometimes it’s hard to follow because Freya rarely understands what’s going on, whose side she’s on, and what she’s running from. The plot is constantly turning and twisting, which sometimes makes for a bewildering reading experience. In addition, the characters, being robots, are not easy to emphasize with, though I did find them more relatable than the characters in the companion novel, Neptune’s Brood.
Charles Stross has said that Saturn’s Children is a tribute to Robert A. Heinlein’s novel Friday. Look for additional nods to Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and John Scalzi. Saturn’s Children was nominated for the Hugo, Locus, and Prometheus Awards.
I listened to Bianca Amato narrate Recorded Books’ 14 hour long audio version of Saturn’s Children. She is simply wonderful. I love her lovely English accent, her tone, and her pace. I recommend this version of Saturn’s Children.
Fun and adventure in a post-human galaxy
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Loved it, Sept 2017, one of Stross' best
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What made the experience of listening to Saturn's Children the most enjoyable?
OK, this is a good to excellent novel but that's not really the point. Bianca Amato's performance is stellar (intentional joke). In a story about a robot geisha left without any humans to love, she gives everyone a separate and delicious English accent.She's FABULOUS
I mean, the book is great and all but her read is incredible.
What a voice
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