Surface Detail
A Culture Novel
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Narrated by:
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Peter Kenny
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By:
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Iain M. Banks
About this listen
It begins in the realm of the Real, where matter still matters. And it begins with a murder.
Lededje Y'breq is one of the Intagliated, her marked body bearing witness to a family shame, her life belonging to a man whose lust for power is without limit. Prepared to risk everything for her freedom, her release, when it comes, is at a price, and to put things right, she will need the help of the Culture.
Benevolent, enlightened and almost infinitely resourceful though it may be, the Culture can only do so much for any individual. With the assistance of one of its most powerful - and arguably deranged - warships, Lededje finds herself heading into a combat zone not even sure which side the Culture is really on. A war - brutal, far-reaching - is already raging within the digital realms that store the souls of the dead, and it's about to erupt into reality.
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- Unabridged
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Moth was a beautiful planet, the only one with wings - two great golden clouds suspended in space around it. Here was a wide-open world for any venture a man might scheme. The planet attracted unwary travelers, hardened space-sailors, and merchant buccaneers - a teeming, constantly shifting horde that provided a comfortable income for certain quick-witted fellows like Flinx and his pet flying snake Pip.
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The First of the Flinx and Pip Novels AT LAST!
- By Chris on 01-20-09
By: Alan Dean Foster
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Echopraxia
- By: Peter Watts
- Narrated by: Adam J Rough
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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It's the eve of the 22nd century: a world where the dearly departed send postcards back from Heaven and evangelicals make scientific breakthroughs by speaking in tongues; where genetically engineered vampires solve problems intractable to baseline humans. And it's all under surveillance by an alien presence. Daniel Bruks is a field biologist in a world where biology has turned computational.
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A Must Read
- By Taylor Lewis on 12-21-15
By: Peter Watts
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Prominence
- By: A. C. Hadfield
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor
- Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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They tried to destroy our planets. Our way of life. They tried to send us into extinction. But we, the Coalition, fought them and won. That was a decade ago. They’re known as the Host: a cabal of aliens seeking to dominate our sector of space. And they’re back - with help from a powerful new enemy. We’re outnumbered and unprepared. But there is hope. An ancient race of long-dead but technologically advanced aliens called the Navigators have a ship called the Blackstar that could potentially turn the tide. That is if I, Kai Locke, a humble ship racer, can find it and learn how to harness its power in time.
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Newly found love.
- By L. Rampey on 03-22-19
By: A. C. Hadfield
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Tantalus Depths
- By: Evan Graham
- Narrated by: Andi Arndt
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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The Tantalus 13 survey expedition went off the rails as soon as Mary Ketch and the crew of the Diamelen learned that the thing beneath their feet wasn’t a planet. An impossibly vast and ancient artificial structure lies below, hidden from the universe under a façade of cratered stone. SCARAB arrived on Tantalus 13 two years ago. An artificially intelligent, self-constructing factory, it was supposed to aid the crew in their mission, to meet their every need.
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Good primer for Young Adults new to sci-fi!
- By Philip Maddox on 10-09-22
By: Evan Graham
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Hyperion
- By: Dan Simmons
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor, Allyson Johnson, Kevin Pariseau, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 44 mins
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On the world called Hyperion, beyond the law of the Hegemony of Man, there waits the creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all.
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The Shrike Awaits. Enter The Time Tombs...
- By Michael on 10-13-12
By: Dan Simmons
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Mech Zero: The Dominant
- By: B. V. Larson
- Narrated by: Mirron Willis
- Length: 1 hr and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Death awaits the curious! Out along the rim of the galaxy hangs a loose configuration of some 60 stars known as the Faustian Chain. This whorl of sparkling suns is rich in planets and occupies an irregular volume of space some 20 light years in diameter. From an external viewpoint, the Chain presents a colorful display of plasma-streams, luminous nebulae and sparkling pinpoints of light.
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No hero's here
- By SteveM on 07-17-16
By: B. V. Larson
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InterWorld
- By: Neil Gaiman, Michael Reaves
- Narrated by: Christopher Evan Welch
- Length: 5 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Joey Harker isn't a hero. In fact, he's the kind of guy who gets lost in his own house. But then one day, Joey gets really lost. He walks straight out of his world and into another dimension. Joey's walk between the worlds makes him prey to two terrible forces: armies of magic and science who will do anything to harness his power to travel between dimensions.
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A good listen
- By Gurmukh on 10-31-07
By: Neil Gaiman, and others
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In the Ocean of Night
- Galactic Center, Book 1
- By: Gregory Benford
- Narrated by: Maxwell Caulfield
- Length: 12 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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It is 2019. NASA astronaut Nigel Walmsley is sent on a mission to intercept a rogue asteroid on a collision course with Earth. Ordered to destroy it, he instead discovers that it is actually the shell of a derelict space probe - a wreck with just enough power to emit a single electronic signal….
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Like some Space with your Soaps?
- By Bradley on 05-15-12
By: Gregory Benford
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Requiem for a Ruler of Worlds
- The First Adventure of Alacrity Fitzhugh & Hobart Floyt
- By: Brian Daley
- Narrated by: Brian Holsopple
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Mankind was beginning its third leap into the Galaxy, but Old Earth had so long kept to herself that her people were unable to travel safely among the rough-and-tumble cultures that had evolved on distant worlds. That annoyed Earth's rulers, for Hobart Floyt--a minor Terran bureaucrat-- had been left a mysterious inheritance by the deceased ruler of a small but wealthy interstellar empire.
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Best Sci Fi Fun anywhere!
- By A. Foxter on 07-07-15
By: Brian Daley
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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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There is a world that hangs suspended between triumph and catastrophe, between the dismantling of the Wall and the fall of the Twin Towers, frozen in the shadow of suicide terrorism and global financial collapse. Such a world requires a firm hand and a guiding light. But does it need the Concern: an all-powerful organization with a malevolent presiding genius, pervasive influence and numberless invisible operatives in possession of extraordinary powers?
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Finally an Iain M. Banks book on audible...
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It is 4034 AD. Humanity has made it to the stars. Fassin Taak, a Slow Seer at the Court of the Nasqueron Dwellers, will be fortunate if he makes it to the end of the year.
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Surprisingly meh
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In a world renowned even within a galaxy full of wonders, a crime within a war. For one brother it means a desperate flight, and a search for the one - maybe two - people who could clear his name. For his brother it means a life lived under constant threat of treachery and murder. And for their sister, even without knowing the full truth, it means returning to a place she'd thought abandoned forever.
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Don't Buy this Abominable Abridgement
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The Bridge
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A man lies in a coma after a near-fatal accident. His body broken, his memory vanished, he finds himself in the surreal world of the bridge - a world free of the usual constraints of time and space, a world where dream and fantasy, past and future, fuse. Who is this man? Where is he? Is he more dead than alive? Or has he never been so alive before?
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Sci-fi fans might skip, but it’s fantastic and well crafted
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AD 3580. The Intersolar Commonwealth has spread through the galaxy to over a thousand star systems. It is a culture of rich diversity with a place for everyone. A powerful navy protects it from any hostile species that may lurk among the stars. For Commonwealth citizens, even death has been overcome.
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What can I say
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Consider Phlebas
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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
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There is a world that hangs suspended between triumph and catastrophe, between the dismantling of the Wall and the fall of the Twin Towers, frozen in the shadow of suicide terrorism and global financial collapse. Such a world requires a firm hand and a guiding light. But does it need the Concern: an all-powerful organization with a malevolent presiding genius, pervasive influence and numberless invisible operatives in possession of extraordinary powers?
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Finally an Iain M. Banks book on audible...
- By Kurt on 10-29-09
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It is 4034 AD. Humanity has made it to the stars. Fassin Taak, a Slow Seer at the Court of the Nasqueron Dwellers, will be fortunate if he makes it to the end of the year.
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Surprisingly meh
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Don't Buy this Abominable Abridgement
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A man lies in a coma after a near-fatal accident. His body broken, his memory vanished, he finds himself in the surreal world of the bridge - a world free of the usual constraints of time and space, a world where dream and fantasy, past and future, fuse. Who is this man? Where is he? Is he more dead than alive? Or has he never been so alive before?
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Sci-fi fans might skip, but it’s fantastic and well crafted
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AD 3580. The Intersolar Commonwealth has spread through the galaxy to over a thousand star systems. It is a culture of rich diversity with a place for everyone. A powerful navy protects it from any hostile species that may lurk among the stars. For Commonwealth citizens, even death has been overcome.
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What can I say
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It's the eve of the 22nd century: a world where the dearly departed send postcards back from Heaven and evangelicals make scientific breakthroughs by speaking in tongues; where genetically engineered vampires solve problems intractable to baseline humans. And it's all under surveillance by an alien presence. Daniel Bruks is a field biologist in a world where biology has turned computational.
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A Must Read
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When the obituary of legendary computer game architect Matthew Sobol appears online, a previously dormant daemon activates, initiating a chain of events that begins to unravel our interconnected world. This daemon reads news headlines, recruits human followers, and orders assassinations. With Sobol’s secrets buried with him, and as new layers of his daemon are unleashed, it’s up to Detective Peter Sebeck to stop a self-replicating virtual killer before it achieves its ultimate purpose - one that goes far beyond anything Sebeck could have imagined.
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The Carryx—part empire, part hive—has waged wars of conquest for centuries, destroying or enslaving species across the galaxy in its conflict with an ancient and deathless enemy. When they descend on the isolated world of Anjiin, the human population is abased, slaughtered, and put in chains. The best and brightest are abducted, taken to the Carryx world-palace to join prisoners from a thousand other species. Dafyd Alkhor, assistant to a prestigious scientist, is captured along with his team.
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Six million years ago, at the very dawn of the starfaring era, Abigail Gentian fractured herself into a thousand male and female clones: the shatterlings. Sent out into the galaxy, these shatterlings have stood aloof as they document the rise and fall of countless human empires. They meet every 200,000 years to exchange news and memories of their travels with their siblings.
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Science fiction in Deep time
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The planet of Kiln is where the tyrannical Mandate keeps its prison colony, and for inmates, the journey there is always a one-way trip. One such prisoner is Professor Arton Daghdev, xeno-ecologist and political dissident. Soon after arrival, he discovers that Kiln has a secret. Humanity is not the first intelligent life to set foot there. In the midst of a ravenous, chaotic ecosystem are the ruins of a civilization, but who were the vanished builders and where did they go?
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Loved this
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A solid sci-fi novel
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Humanity is a dying breed, utterly reliant on artificial labor and service. When a domesticated robot gets a nasty little idea downloaded into its core programming, they murder their owner. The robot discovers they can also do something else they never did before: They can run away. Fleeing the household they enter a wider world they never knew existed, where the age-old hierarchy of humans at the top is disintegrating into ruins and an entire robot ecosystem devoted to human wellbeing is having to find a new purpose.
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Another banger from Tchaikovsky
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Fraa Erasmus is a young avout living in the Concent of Saunt Edhar, a sanctuary for mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers, protected from the corrupting influences of the "Saecular" world by ancient stone, honored traditions, and complex rituals. Over the centuries, cities, and governments have risen and fallen beyond the concent's walls. Three times during history's darkest epochs, bloody violence born of superstition and ignorance has invaded and devastated the cloistered mathic community.
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I love Neal, but Good lord... ugh!
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Somewhere on the frontier between thought and reality exists the Discworld, a parallel time and place that might sound and smell very much like our own, but which looks completely different. Particularly as it’s carried though space on the back of a giant turtle (sex unknown). It plays by different rules. But then, some things are the same everywhere. The Disc’s very existence is about to be threatened by a strange new blight: the world’s first tourist, upon whose survival rests the peace and prosperity of the land.
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TERRIBLE Narration!
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Zero to One
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The great secret of our time is that there are still uncharted frontiers to explore and new inventions to create. In Zero to One, legendary entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel shows how we can find singular ways to create those new things.
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Seems Insightful Until You Think A Little Deeper
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The Collapsing Empire
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Our universe is ruled by physics, and faster-than-light travel is not possible - until the discovery of The Flow, an extradimensional field we can access at certain points in space-time that transports us to other worlds, around other stars. Humanity flows away from Earth, into space, and in time forgets our home world and creates a new empire, the Interdependency, whose ethos requires that no one human outpost can survive without the others. It's a hedge against interstellar war - and a system of control for the rulers of the empire.
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THE STUPIDITIES OF COURT
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By: John Scalzi
What listeners say about Surface Detail
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Moore Creative
- 01-15-16
Ian Banks is a master of surprise endings
Where does Surface Detail rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
An excellent dramatization by Peter Kenny! Such voices and inflection. An excellent story with plenty of "stuck in the driveway still listening to a chapter end" moments.
What was one of the most memorable moments of Surface Detail?
Like a collection of short stories with different characters that do not overlap, the culmination of the plot brings all characters together in a meaningful way that is enhanced by the disparate nature of their origins and motivations. Ian Bank's brilliance, though shines in his presenting the expected showdown events with turns and points unexpected. Throw in complete surprise elements and you have a riveting story that ends with a bang.
Which character – as performed by Peter Kenny – was your favorite?
the difference in voices, accents, speed and delivery intonations as different between characters, that's what I love about Peter Kenny's craft.
Any additional comments?
I struggled to find a good order to read Ian Banks books, having stumbled upon "Use of Weapons" in a list of "best surprise endings with a twist" sci-fi stories ever. They were right, it is an amazingly excellent surprise twist that you have to make sure doesn't get spoiled for you.
That book, Use of Weapons is a great introduction to the Culture novels as it outlines many of the structures and ideas of the Culture. So I would definitely recommend it as a first book to read. This one, "Surface Detail" is another of course, and here is how I would recommend anyone read their first few...
1. Use of Weapons - Introduction to the Culture
2. The Player of Games - Story set in Culture environment
3. Surface Detail - Story that furthers Culture views, values and SC workings
I'm off now to pick my next Culture novel to dive into.
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1 person found this helpful
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- monicae
- 04-11-16
Good Book
Narrator was fantastic!! Book was interesting. One does need a background w/ the Culture to enjoy this book.
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- Dogmouth
- 11-08-19
My Favorite Sci-fi Novel
Amazing book, amazing narration. So many interesting ideas. Just finished a re-listen. Culture at its very best.
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- Chris H
- 11-11-21
Good but not his best
I didn't love this one. I gave it 5 stars anyway because it's still far ahead of most things that other people give 5 stars to. But to me it was showing signs he was tired of the culture universe. It didn't have the same sweeping grandeur that the earlier novels, like Consider Phlebas, and Excession, had. It wasn't as much fun. But it was still great fun, and the culture was still the top dog and did what it had to and should do.
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Overall
- Matt Carothers
- 06-21-11
If you like Alastair Reynolds or Peter F. Hamilton
... you'll love this. I picked this up because Reynolds lists Banks as one of his inspirations, and I was not disappointed! The narrator is excellent too.
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- Zerocleft
- 05-11-22
incredible
this is ne of the few truly original and interesting sci-fi universes. I highly recommend the series.
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- J Adams
- 09-07-24
Peter Kenny is great!
I love the Culture novels. Kenny is a fantastic narrator, the best I've listened to so far.
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Overall
- David
- 12-18-10
Above average Banks, excellent reader
Iain Banks's Culture novels can sometimes disappoint, but this is one of the better ones, if not up there with a classics like 'The Player of Games'. Despite the complicated use of interweaving multiple plotlines, there's a strong sense of unity centred around the notion that virtual reality could eradicate death, and each of the plotlines tackles a variation on the implications of that idea, even as they all start coalescing into one story. The stories are all interesting, although if the book has a flaw it's that one of the stories - the tale of two academics who choose to enter their civilization's virtual Hell to prove its existence - is so violent, terrifying and heartbreaking that the rest of the book feels a little ho-hum by comparison.
Books with complex, multiple plotlines don't always translate well to the audiobook format, but Peter Denny is an absolute genius who conjures a vast array of different accents for the many characters, meaning that you never lose track of where you are. It's an absolutely superb performance.
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Overall
- Simon Fraser
- 02-20-11
Very Banksian, Great narration
I'll refrain from saying too much about the book itself , as I haven't finished it yet. So far it's classic Banks, that is to say as good as modern Sci-Fi gets. I would like to say that the narration by Peter Kenny is remarkable, subtle and controlled where it needs to be and with a formidable control over his vocal range. He does voices and accents , both male and female, young and old with great assurance. As a result , all the characters were clear and easy to distinguish. This is no small thing in a Banks book where there can be a great number of characters, aliens, humans, A.Is all with very different characters and points of view.
I would seek out Mr Kenny as a narrator now...even if I wasn't sure about the book itself and that's no small thing for me to say.
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- Alexander S. Nicolici
- 09-12-17
Iain m Banks is a genius. nuff said
well written, well narrated, and a story that's entertaining, thought provoking, and unexpectedly funny.
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1 person found this helpful