The State of the Art
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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
From New York Times bestselling and modern master of science fiction, Iain M. Banks, The State of the Art is the acclaimed collection of Banks's short fiction.
“Banks is a phenomenon...writing pure science fiction of a peculiarly gnarly energy and elegance.”–William Gibson
This is a striking addition to the body of Culture lore, and adds definition and scale to the previous works by using the Earth of 1977 as contrast. The stories in the collection range from science fiction to horror, dark-coated fantasy to morality tale. All bear the indefinable stamp of Iain Banks's staggering talent.
“Few of us have been exposed to a talent so manifest and of such extraordinary breadth.”–New York Review of Science Fiction
“[Banks] can summon up sense-of-wonder Big Concepts you've never seen before and display them with narration as deft as a conjuror's fingers."–scifi.com
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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-
Story
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
By: Iain M. Banks
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The Algebraist
- Culture
- By: Iain M. Banks
- Narrated by: Peter Kenny
- Length: 19 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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
- By Ryan on 05-19-24
By: Iain M. Banks
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Matter
- By: Iain M. Banks
- Narrated by: Toby Longworth
- Length: 5 hrs and 33 mins
- Abridged
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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
- By Jim Sabshin on 05-06-12
By: Iain M. Banks
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The Bridge
- By: Iain Banks
- Narrated by: Peter Kenny
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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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
- By Moore Creative on 07-25-18
By: Iain Banks
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Espedair Street
- By: Iain Banks
- Narrated by: Peter Kenny
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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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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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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Transition
- By: Iain M. Banks
- Narrated by: Peter Kenny
- Length: 13 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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
By: Iain M. Banks
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The Algebraist
- Culture
- By: Iain M. Banks
- Narrated by: Peter Kenny
- Length: 19 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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
- By Ryan on 05-19-24
By: Iain M. Banks
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Matter
- By: Iain M. Banks
- Narrated by: Toby Longworth
- Length: 5 hrs and 33 mins
- Abridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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
- By Jim Sabshin on 05-06-12
By: Iain M. Banks
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The Bridge
- By: Iain Banks
- Narrated by: Peter Kenny
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
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
- By Moore Creative on 07-25-18
By: Iain Banks
-
Espedair Street
- By: Iain Banks
- Narrated by: Peter Kenny
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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 Quarry
- By: Iain M. Banks
- Narrated by: Peter Kenny
- Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Eighteen-year-old Kit is weird: big, strange, odd, socially disabled, on a spectrum that stretches from "highly gifted" at one end, to "nutter" at the other. At least Kit knows who his father is; he and Guy live together in a decaying country house on the unstable brink of a vast quarry. His mother's identity is another matter. Now, though, his father's dying, and old friends are gathering for one last time.
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By Iain Banks, not Iain M. Banks
- By Reader X on 05-19-18
By: Iain M. Banks
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Canal Dreams
- By: Iain Banks
- Narrated by: Lisa Coleman
- Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Hisako Onoda, world famous cellist, refuses to fly. And so she travels to Europe as a passenger on a tanker bound through the Panama Canal. But Panama is a country whose politics are as volatile as the local freedom fighters. When Hisako's ship is captured, it is not long before the atmostphere is as flammable as an oxy-acetylene torch, and the tension as sharp as the spike on the cello....
By: Iain Banks
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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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Revelation Space
- By: Alastair Reynolds
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 22 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Nine hundred thousand years ago, something annihilated the Amarantin civilization just as it was on the verge of discovering space flight. Now one scientist, Dan Sylveste, will stop at nothing to solve the Amarantin riddle before ancient history repeats itself. With no other resources at his disposal, Sylveste forges a dangerous alliance with the cyborg crew of the starship Nostalgia for Infinity. But as he closes in on the secret, a killer closes in on him because the Amarantin were destroyed for a reason.
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Defeated
- By Eoin on 07-15-12
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Alien Clay
- By: Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Narrated by: Ben Allen
- Length: 13 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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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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Could have been a short story
- By Dixy on 12-05-24
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Diaspora
- By: Greg Egan
- Narrated by: Adam Epstein
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Behold the orphan. Born into a world that is not a world. A digital being grown from a mind seed, a genderless cybernetic citizen in a vast network of probes, satellites, and servers knitting the Solar System into one scape, from the outer planets to the fiery surface of the Sun. Since the Introdus in the 21st century, humanity has reconfigured itself drastically. Most chose immortality, joining the polises to become conscious software.
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Fabulous Story, Disappointing Performance
- By Ben on 12-08-13
By: Greg Egan
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Guns of the Dawn
- By: Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Narrated by: Emma Newman
- Length: 21 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Guns of the Dawn is a pacey, gripping fantasy of war and magic from Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author Adrian Tchaikovsky. The first casualty of war is truth.... First, Denland's revolutionaries assassinated their king, launching a wave of bloodshed after generations of peace. Next they clashed with Lascanne, their royalist neighbour, pitching war machines against warlocks in a fiercely fought conflict.
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Stand alone book
- By M. McCormick on 01-27-18
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Perdido Street Station
- By: China Mieville
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 24 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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The metropolis of New Crobuzon sprawls at the center of the world. Humans and mutants and arcane races brood in the gloom beneath its chimneys, where the river is sluggish with unnatural effluent and foundries pound into the night. For a thousand years, the Parliament and its brutal militias have ruled over a vast economy of workers and artists, spies and soldiers, magicians, crooks, and junkies. Now a stranger has arrived, with a pocketful of gold and an impossible demand. And something unthinkable is released.
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Brilliant, wonderful book -- horrible recording
- By James on 08-19-09
By: China Mieville
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Cage of Souls
- By: Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Narrated by: David Thorpe
- Length: 23 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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The sun is bloated, diseased, dying perhaps. Beneath its baneful light, Shadrapar, last of all cities, harbours fewer than 100,000 human souls. Built on the ruins of countless civilisations, Shadrapar is a museum, a midden, an asylum, a prison on a world that is ever more alien to humanity. Bearing witness to the desperate struggle for existence between life old and new is Stefan Advani: rebel, outlaw, prisoner, survivor.
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Slow Start, Strong Finish
- By Jacob McCollum on 05-01-23
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Legacy
- A Prequel to Eon
- By: Greg Bear
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 15 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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In this prequel to Eon, Greg Bear continues to explore the possibilities presented by the asteroid Thistledown, a remnant of a lost human civilization. The Way is a tunnel through space and time that leads to other worlds, some more like planet Earth than Earth itself. It is perhaps the most formidable discovery in Thistledown and with it come disputes as to the nature of the Way and how it should be used. The Way can be reached only through Axis City, the only space station of Thistledown.
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Barely related to Eon and Eternity
- By David A. Kingston on 02-21-15
By: Greg Bear
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House of Suns
- By: Alastair Reynolds
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 18 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
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
- By A reader on 05-12-10
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Columbus Day
- Expeditionary Force, Book 1
- By: Craig Alanson
- Narrated by: R.C. Bray
- Length: 16 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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We were fighting on the wrong side of a war we couldn't win. And that was the good news. The Ruhar hit us on Columbus Day. There we were, innocently drifting along the cosmos on our little blue marble, like the native Americans in 1492. Over the horizon come ships of a technologically advanced, aggressive culture, and BAM! There go the good old days, when humans only got killed by each other. So, Columbus Day. It fits. When the morning sky twinkled again, this time with Kristang starships jumping in to hammer the Ruhar, we thought we were saved.
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WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 01-04-17
By: Craig Alanson
What listeners say about The State of the Art
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Rob
- 04-29-24
not the best of the culture novels.
read the other ones over this this entry in b the series. ok, but eh.
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- Tyler
- 08-30-24
Terrible compared to the preceding books
Disappointing to say the least. Narration is great but storyline is all over the place and not in a good way.
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- Daniel Handley
- 07-11-24
some good. some eh!
some stories not very good. probably not my best purchase. other full length books much better
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- Scott
- 04-19-24
Great(but missing final chapter)
Great reading of a fantastic collection of short stories.. BUT the final chapter of the book is left out - which is a huge oversight as the final chapter is probably the most important offering in the whole book... it is in fact the whole reason I had pre ordered this when they announced it on Audible, so that is really unfortunate.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Mule
- 04-06-24
Great read by a great narrator
I’ve always enjoyed this book and can’t thank Peter Kenny enough for the spot on narration - the Drone
ps. can’t wait to hear The Algebraist all over again!!
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- Aaron Hill
- 04-13-24
Audio is too quiet
For some reason this book seems like it’s half as loud as normal. Even with my volume up all the way it’s hard to hear sometimes and sounds like the reader is practically whispering
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1 person found this helpful
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- Will
- 04-19-24
Finally
Can we get the rest of the Culture series now? The work itself is great, a short story collection.
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- paris1230
- 05-24-24
Brilliant
What can’t the imagination of Mr Banks encompass and expose? Superb narration as always by Mr Kenny.
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- Vicente Buritica
- 06-08-24
Short story format was great!
I wasn't sure i was going to like it, but definitely at the top with Banks other books.
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- Amazon Customer
- 12-13-24
Awesome- now give us Excesion in US !
Excellent narration. Just waiting for all of the series to be available in the us - hopefully soon!
-the Drone
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