
The Algebraist
Culture
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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
As complex, turbulent and spectacular as the gas giant on which it is set, this novel from Iain M. Banks is space opera on a truly epic scale.
“An enormously enjoyable book, full of wonderful aliens, a sense of wonder and subtle political commentary on current events.” –Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
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.
The Nasqueron Dwellers inhabit a gas giant on the outskirts of the galaxy, in a system awaiting its wormhole connection to the rest of civilization. In the meantime, they are dismissed as decadents living in a state of highly developed barbarism, hoarding data without order, hunting their own young and fighting pointless formal wars.
Seconded to a military-religious order he's barely heard of—part of the baroque hierarchy of the Mercatoria, the latest galactic hegemony—Fassin Taak has to travel again amongst the Dwellers. He is in search of a secret hidden for half a billion years. But with each day that passes a war draws closer—a war that threatens to overwhelm everything and everyone he's ever known.
“Banks is a phenomenon...writing pure science fiction of a peculiarly gnarly energy and elegance.” –William Gibson
“Banks writes with a sophistication that will surprise anyone unfamiliar with modern science fiction.” –The New York Times
For More from Iain M. Banks, check out:
The Culture series:
Consider Phlebas
The Player of Games
Use of Weapons
The State of the Art
Excession
Inversions
Look to Windward
Matter
Surface Detail
The Hydrogen Sonata
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Critic reviews
“An enormously enjoyable book, full of wonderful aliens, a sense of wonder and subtle political commentary on current events.”—Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) on The Algebraist
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- By: Iain Banks
- Narrated by: Peter Kenny
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Daniel Weir used to be a famous - not to say infamous - rock star. Maybe still is. At thirty-one he has been both a brilliant failure and a dull success. He's made a lot of mistakes that have paid off and a lot of smart moves he'll regret forever (however long that turns out to be). Daniel Weir has gone from rags to riches and back, and managed to hold onto them both, though not much else. His friends all seem to be dead, fed up with him or just disgusted - and who can blame them? And now Daniel Weir is all alone.
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Almost really really great
- By David Shear on 01-28-14
By: Iain Banks
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The Medusa Chronicles
- By: Stephen Baxter, Alastair Reynolds
- Narrated by: Peter Kenny
- Length: 12 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Howard Falcon almost lost his life in an accident as the first human astronaut to explore the atmosphere of Jupiter - and a combination of human ingenuity and technical expertise brought him back. But he is no longer himself. Instead he has been changed into an augmented human: part man, part machine, and exceptionally capable.
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Almost stopped listening. Glad I didn't.
- By cek on 08-21-16
By: Stephen Baxter, and others
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Walking On Glass
- By: Iain Banks
- Narrated by: Peter Kenny
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Her eyes were black, wide as though with some sustained surprise, the skin from their outer corners to her small ears taut. Her lips were pale, and nearly too full for her small mouth, like something bled but bruised. He had never seen anyone or anything quite so beautiful in his life. Graham Park is in love. But Sara Fitch is an enigma to him, a creature of almost perverse mystery. Steven Grout is paranoid - and with justice. He knows that They are out to get him.
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Outstanding Stories - Dead End
- By Michael Fuchs on 09-24-21
By: Iain Banks
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Galilee
- By: Clive Barker
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 23 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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The Barbarossa family’s roots are far more ancient and ethereal, but they are bound to the Gearys by a shared history of murder, insanity, and adultery. When Rachel Geary and Galilee, the seductive prince of the Barbarossa clan, fall in love, they unleash powerful enmities that could destroy both dynasties. Shorter and more conventional than some of Barker’s other work, this novel is especially rich with complex, passionate, three-dimensional characters, lush settings, and elegant language.
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An Audiophile's Dream
- By Joseph on 09-01-11
By: Clive Barker
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Stonemouth
- A Novel
- By: Iain Banks
- Narrated by: Peter Kenny
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Stewart Gilmour is back in Stonemouth. After five years in exile his presence is required at the funeral of patriarch Joe Murston, and even though the last time Stu saw the Murstons he was running for his life, staying away might be even more dangerous than turning up. An estuary town north of Aberdeen, Stonemouth, with its five mile beach, can be beautiful on a sunny day. On a bleak one it can seem to offer little more than seafog, gangsters, cheap drugs and a suspension bridge irresistible to suicides.
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Pretty Offensive Stuff
- By MJ on 10-20-12
By: Iain Banks
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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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A Fire Upon the Deep
- By: Vernor Vinge
- Narrated by: Peter Larkin
- Length: 21 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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A Fire Upon the Deep is the big, breakout book that fulfills the promise of Vinge's career to date: a gripping tale of galactic war told on a cosmic scale. Thousands of years hence, many races inhabit a universe where a mind's potential is determined by its location in space, from superintelligent entities in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths, where only simple creatures and technology can function.
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What a wild, wacky, awesome book!
- By Noah Smith on 06-20-10
By: Vernor Vinge
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Pushing Ice
- By: Alastair Reynolds
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 19 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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2057. Humanity has raised exploiting the solar system to an art form. Bella Lind and the crew of her nuclear-powered ship, the Rockhopper, push ice. They mine comets. And they're good at it. The Rockhopper is nearing the end of its current mission cycle, and everyone is desperate for some much-needed R & R, when startling news arrives from Saturn: Janus, one of Saturn's ice moons, has inexplicably left its natural orbit and is now heading out of the solar system at high speed.
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Proof that a good story doesn't require a trilogy
- By Jesse on 01-14-12
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The Quantum Thief
- By: Hannu Rajaniemi
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Jean le Flambeur is a post-human criminal, mind burglar, confidence artist, and trickster. His origins are shrouded in mystery, but his exploits are known throughout the Heterarchy - from breaking into the vast Zeusbrains of the Inner System to stealing rare Earth antiques from the aristocrats of Mars. Now he’s confined inside the Dilemma Prison, where every day he has to get up and kill himself before his other self can kill him.
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Starts Confusing, Gets Exciting, Ends Awesome
- By Matthew on 10-21-11
By: Hannu Rajaniemi
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Embassytown
- By: China Mieville
- Narrated by: Susan Duerden
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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China Miéville doesn’t follow trends, he sets them. Relentlessly pushing his own boundaries as a writer - and in the process expanding the boundaries of the entire field - with Embassytown, Miéville has crafted an extraordinary novel that is not only a moving personal drama but a gripping adventure of alien contact and war. In the far future, humans have colonized a distant planet, home to sentient beings famed for a language unique in the universe, one that only a few altered human ambassadors can speak....
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must hear to fully appreciate.
- By Don Gilbert on 01-05-12
By: China Mieville
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Permafrost
- By: Alastair Reynolds
- Narrated by: Natasha Soudek
- Length: 4 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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2080: At a remote site on the edge of the Arctic Circle, a group of scientists, engineers, and physicians gather to gamble humanity’s future on one last-ditch experiment. Their goal: to make a tiny alteration to the past, averting a global catastrophe while at the same time leaving recorded history intact. To make the experiment work, they just need one last recruit: an ageing schoolteacher whose late mother was the foremost expert on the mathematics of paradox. 2028: A young woman goes into surgery for routine brain surgery.
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Not your father's SciFi!
- By Charles M. on 08-23-19
What listeners say about The Algebraist
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Mule
- 05-26-24
World building escape from reality
First off Peter Kenny is amazing as always!! Thank you for bringing this Mr. Banks story back to the light. While not a Culture book it possesses the same deep thinking inner motivations of species and the same heavy sci-fi space ship whoop ass. Be patient, read it twice, you’ll find it a masterwork in the Banks world!!
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- John
- 08-17-24
It wasn’t for me
The story concept was bigger than the story itself. Not my favorite book on dealing with aliens from gas giants. The characters seemed rather one dimensional. The “big reveal” didn’t feel like a payoff for slogging through the story.
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- D Davies
- 05-15-24
a modern Sci Fi classic
Although written back in 2004, the Algebraist (nominated for Hugo) is already a classic.
From the pen of the late Iain M Banks, creator of the culture novels, comes one of 3 novels not based in his envisioned world.
This book a stand alone novel deftly entwines political, religious divides in the backdrop of a sci fi world that only Iain M Banks could achieve.
If you are new to Iain M Banks, I would encourage you to start with the culture novels, not in any order, for it is there that Mr Banks gave the world a fascinating series of books amd it is also there that Mr Banks achieved a greatness to be named among the greats of recent Sci Fi authors.
The story here moves swiftly albeit the sci fi in this novel is what the genre would label Hard Sci Fi, the depth and imagination involved in this or indeed any other of the authors scope takes root from page 1 until.the end.
The release of this audio book, comes at a very good time, When mediocrity in sci fi is accepted as the norm in recent years ( save a few authors ) and reminds us that this form of sci fi still exists,
The narrator does an absolute stupendous justice to the written word and brings to life the characters by using nuance within his voice to make every characters identity clear at the same time making this audio book approchable to a new audience.
I cannot recommend this book or indeed the narrators part highly enough, indeed if you are new to Mr Banks, be prepared for a bibliography of fascinating literature.
Sadly the author passed away but nor before leaving us with a treasure trove of some of the most enthralling and entertaining sci fi ever written.
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- Patricia
- 06-01-24
The performer spoke so fast that I couldn’t understand
After the introduction I slowed the narrative to .7
The story line makes The Three Body book seem crystal clear, and I had to listen to that book more than once,
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- Ryan
- 05-19-24
Surprisingly meh
Strong start. Then 15 hrs of verbal diarrhea with a strong finish. Not a culture book. I started to listen again just in case I missed something. I must have as this guy doesn’t do boring. I couldn’t do it. Given the wait… total disappointment. But still interesting, and better than most. I’ll try again some other day. Hopefully they’ll release the rest of his works. Audible UK can access these, but I haven’t found a workaround for the US. We’ll have to wait.
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3 people found this helpful