Summertide Audiobook By Charles Sheffield cover art

Summertide

The Heritage Universe, Book 1

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Summertide

By: Charles Sheffield
Narrated by: Geoffrey Howard
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It was just before Summertide, the time when the twin planets, Opal and Quake, would orbit closest to their sun, subjecting both - Quake in particular - to vast tidal forces. It was to be the most violent Summertide ever, creating something that only happened every 350,000 years.

Access to the unstable Quake was supposed to be prohibited, but some very insistent travelers were determined to make the trip. Professor Darya Lang, who studied artifacts left by the long-vanished aliens called the Builders, had a hunch that she might find the Builders themselves. Louis Nenda and the Cecropian Atvar H'sial had their own interests in Quake, and would do anything to get there. And Councilor Julius Graves was hunting murderers - if they were hiding on Quake, he would find them.

Planetary Administrators Hans Rebka and Max Perry had no choice but to go to Quake - risking their lives to protect the others - and to learn, just maybe, the secret of Summertide and the Builders.

©1990, 1991, 1992, and 1997 Charles Sheffield (P)2002 Blackstone Audiobooks Adventure Fantasy Fiction Science Fiction

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This novel has great ideas and really scratch that itch for ancient alien mysterious artifacts. It feels a little dated, but not too much. Since the whole concept of the novel is waiting for a specific event to happen, the whole plot can seem a bit unnecessary because you are just waiting for what is going to happen in the end. However, the characters are interesting in themselves and even though this novel is fairly short, it still gives a great sense of a much bigger universe and timeline.

Great ideas

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If you could sum up Summertide in three words, what would they be?

Good but careful

Any additional comments?

Be careful, the book (and for the most part, the series) is good. But the ending to the series is pretty darn disappointing.

Warning: End to the series is disappointing

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This story was hard to carry through it it kept jumping and you didn't really know what was going on it wasn't until the last 3 chapters that I called a gifts of what was going on and then I got interested in it so I'm a read the next one

hard

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The story was pretty good, but the world building is where it is at. I want a book of just descriptions of builder artifacts.

World building is great

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Many Sci-Fi Writers simply take everyday events and give them strange names, or name a planet after a town and tell an average story substituting "guns" for Lasers, etc.

This series of books is different. The author writes HARD sci-fi. He spends a lot of time describing (in detail) the technologies, aliens, etc.

If you like Hard sci-fi, this is an excellent series.. the narration is very good also. Each book is better than the last.

Hard Sci-fi

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I really liked this one. Style and story done a lot like Peter F. Hamilton's Pandora's Star, one of mny favorites. Good characters, especially the aliens!! Can't wait to download the next in the series!

Actually quite good - recommended

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As a sci-fi fan of many years I found this book to be very enjoyable, easy to follow in the audio format, and an excellent story. I plan to get all four in the series.

Good Story and Good Reader

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Fortunately, this is only the first volume of the Heritage Universe series. There are three more. I wanted to listen to this book because it's a classic. And it is well deserved. We are left with enigma of the Others, until the end (will have to read the next book to know more about that) but something does happen -- not unexpectedly -- at the end. While the background and indeed the whole intrigue of the book is tapestried on the Artifacts left by an ancient and disappeared civilization, the whole story is really about these five or six characters that pursue the enigma by being at the right place at the right time, a fact noticed by only the experts or by chance for some. It is a very serious story, there is not much humor in it. It's elaborate, consistent (scientifically and literarily), and has a nice ending point that at once concludes the current story and opens vast possibilities for the next three volumes. However, I wouldn't recommend this book if you're not ready to listen to the next three...

In passing, I should mention another old classic that treats exactly the same theme with slightly different point of view, and is a LOT more fun, in that it's written very wittily and funnily. It's the Heechee saga by Frederik Pohl (Gateway, Beyond the Blue Event Horizon, Hechee Rendez-Vous, and Annals of the Hechee). Now those are books that I would treasure in audio format. If you've enjoyed that one, this Summertide will feel a bit austere and just a bit belabored sometimes. But it's still good science fiction.

Intriguing and leaving you wanting for more...

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I think this book could have used a different narrator. There was no real difference between character voices except gender which made it hard to follow unless one gender was speaking to another.
I gave up after chapter 3.

Straight reading

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A well crafted story with good characters and an original premise made "Summertide" a great read. This one made the miles go by so painlessly I hate to have to wait for the next segment. Without Audible I'm sure I would have missed this one and I'm very glad that I didn't.

Great new sci-fi

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