The Thousand Earths
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Narrated by:
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Caitlin Shannon
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David Monteith
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By:
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Stephen Baxter
About this listen
In 2145AD John Hackett's adventure is just beginning.
In Year 30, Mela's story is coming to a close.
Hackett, in his trusty ship the Perseus, is not just a space traveller - beginning his travels with an expedition to Neptune and back - but, thanks to the time-dilation effect, a time traveller as well. His new mission will take him to Andromeda, to get a close-up look at the constellation which will eventually crash into the Milky Way, and give humanity a heads-up about the challenges which are coming.
A mission which will take him five million years to complete.
Not only is Hackett exploring unknown space, but he will return to a vastly different time.
Mela's world is coming to an end. Erosion is eating away at the edges of every landmass - first at a rate of ten metres a year, but fast accelerating, displacing people and animals as the rising Tide destroys everything in its path. Putting more and more pressure on the people - and resources - which remain.
She and her people have always known that this long-predicted end to their home, one of the Thousand Earths, is coming - but that makes their fight to survive, to protect each other, no less desperate . . . and no less doomed.
A beautiful story which interweaves the tale of these two characters, separated by both space and time, in a hopeful exploration of humanities' future, this is Stephen Baxter at his best.
©2022 Stephen Baxter (P)2022 GollanczListeners also enjoyed...
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Veiled Alliances
- A Prequel Novella to the Saga of Seven Suns
- By: Kevin J. Anderson
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 4 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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This audiobook shows the origin of the green priests on Theroc, the first Roamer skymining operations on a gas-giant planet, the discovery of the Klikiss robots entombed in an abandoned alien city, the initial Ildiran expedition to Earth, the rescue of the generation ship Burton and the tragedy that leads to sinister breeding experiments. Veiled Alliances is an excellent starting point for readers new to the Saga, as well as an unforgettable adventure for fans of the series.
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Start with Book One
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 06-05-14
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The Engines of God
- By: Jack McDevitt
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 14 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Humans call them Monument-Makers. An unknown race, they left stunning alien statues scattered on distant planets throughout the galaxy, encoded with strange inscriptions that defy translation. Searching for clues about the Monument-Makers, teams of 23rd century linguists, historians, engineers and archaeologists have been excavating the enigmatic alien ruins on a number of planets, uncovering strange, massive false cities made of solid rock. But their time is running out.
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Conceptually intriguing, but uneven writing style
- By Michael G Kurilla on 05-12-11
By: Jack McDevitt
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Coyote
- A Novel of Interstellar Exploration
- By: Allen Steele
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim, Allen Steele
- Length: 17 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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The crime of the century begins without a hitch. On July 5th, 2070, as it's about to be launched, the starship Alabama is hijacked - by her captain and crew. In defiance of the repressive government of The United Republic of Earth, they replace her handpicked passengers with political dissidents and their families. These become Earth's first pioneers in the exploration of space...
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Poorly read
- By Amazon Customer on 09-09-08
By: Allen Steele
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Time Salvager
- By: Wesley Chu
- Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins
- Length: 15 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Convicted criminal James Griffin-Mars is no one's hero. In his time, Earth is a toxic, abandoned world, and humans have fled into the outer solar system to survive, eking out a fragile, doomed existence among the other planets and their moons. Those responsible for delaying humanity's demise believe time travel holds the key, and they have identified James, troubled though he is, as one of a select and expendable few ideally suited for the most dangerous job in history.
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Thrilling time-traveling adventure full of twists.
- By Daniel on 11-13-15
By: Wesley Chu
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Expendable
- League of Peoples, Book 1
- By: James Alan Gardner
- Narrated by: Christine Marshall
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Under the benevolent leadership of the League of Peoples, there is no war, little crime, and life is sacred...unless you're an Explorer. The ugly, the flawed, the misfit, the deformed, they are the unwanted, flung to the farthest corners of the galaxy to investigate hostile planets and strange, vicious creatures. Out there, there are a thousand different - and terrible - ways to die.
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FU@@ING EXPLORERS
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 03-06-15
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The Tar-Aiym Krang
- A Pip & Flinx Adventure
- By: Alan Dean Foster
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- 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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Up Against It
- By: M. J. Locke
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 16 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Geoff and his friends live in Phocaea, a distant asteroid colony on the Solar System's frontier. They're your basic high-spirited young adults, enjoying such pastimes as hacking matter compilers to produce dancing skeletons that prance through the low-gee communal areas, using their rocket-bikes to salvage methane ice shrapnel that flies away when the colony brings in a big (and vital) rock of the stuff, and figuring out how to avoid the ubiquitous surveillance motes.
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Very old school SF, in ways good and bad
- By A reader on 06-19-12
By: M. J. Locke
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Hyperion
- By: Dan Simmons
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor, Allyson Johnson, Kevin Pariseau, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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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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Ringworld
- By: Larry Niven
- Narrated by: Tom Parker
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Welcome to Ringworld, an intermediate step between Dyson Spheres and planets. The gravitational force created by a rotation on its axis of 770 miles per second means no need for a roof. Walls 1,000 miles high at each rim will let in the sun and prevent much air from escaping. Larry Niven's novel, Ringworld, is the winner of the 1970 Hugo Award for Best Novel, the 1970 Nebula Award for Best Novel, and the 1972 Ditmars, an Australian award for Best International Science Fiction.
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Genuinely Creative
- By Kennet on 05-25-03
By: Larry Niven
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Bright of the Sky
- The Entire and the Rose, Book 1
- By: Kay Kenyon
- Narrated by: Christian Rummel
- Length: 17 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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In a landlocked galaxy that tunnels through our own, the Entire is a bizarre and seductive mix of long-lied quasi-human and alien beings gathered under a sky of fire, called the "bright". A land of wonders, the Entire is sustained by monumental storm walls and an exotic, never-ending river. Over all, the elegant and cruel Tarig rule supreme. Into this rich milieu is thrust Titus Quinn, former star pilot.
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8 hours in, and going no further
- By A reader on 10-02-08
By: Kay Kenyon
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Building Harlequin's Moon
- By: Larry Niven, Brenda Cooper
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 15 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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The first interstellar ship, John Glenn, fled a solar system populated by rogue AIs and machine/human hybrids, threatened by too much nanotechnology, and rife with political dangers. The John Glenn’s crew intended to terraform the nearly pristine planet Ymir in hopes of creating a utopian society that will limit intelligent technology, but by some miscalculation they have landed in the wrong system.
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Excellent - but needed to be twice as long
- By DAVID on 10-11-12
By: Larry Niven, and others
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No Sense of Conclusion
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Kinda wraps up Manifold...
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I expected better from these two
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Not a bad idea for a story.
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Borrrring
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No Sense of Conclusion
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Kinda wraps up Manifold...
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Almost stopped listening. Glad I didn't.
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good story but slow burn and a bit anticlimactic
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Not sure what the point was [Spoilers]
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When Seeing All is not Understanding All
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What happened?
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Beyond the Hallowed Sky
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Loved how it came together
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Salvation
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In 2204, humanity is expanding into the wider galaxy in leaps and bounds. Cutting-edge technology of linked jump gates has rendered most forms of transportation - including starships - virtually obsolete. Every place on Earth, every distant planet humankind has settled, is now a step away from any other. And all seems wonderful - until a crashed alien spaceship of unknown origin is found on a newly located world 89 light-years from Earth, carrying a cargo as strange as it is horrifying. To assess the potential of the threat a high-powered team is dispatched to investigate. But one of them may not be all they seem....
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Wait For Book 2
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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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Incredible
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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
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The Mote in God's Eye
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The Mote In God's Eye is their acknowledged masterpiece, an epic novel of mankind's first encounter with alien life that transcends the genre. No lesser an authority than Robert A. Heinlein called it "possibly the finest science fiction novel I have ever read".
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A great read!
- By J. Rhoderick on 02-12-10
By: Larry Niven, and others
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The Forever Ship
- Starship Omega, Book 1
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When the Ornu came, they took Earth in a single night. Humanity never stood a chance. Now, they force us to crew their ships and fight their wars for them. They hold Earth hostage, and if we refuse to do their bidding, they’ll lay waste to our precious blue marble. Slaughtering the billions who live there. But when Captain Bill Henderson is sent to claim a small moon for his masters, he finds something they never accounted for. An ancient warship – a behemoth abandoned for millennia by a species that reached its peak at the dawn of the universe.
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Another home run!
- By David Perry on 05-26-24
By: Scott Bartlett, and others
What listeners say about The Thousand Earths
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Michael G Kurilla
- 11-27-22
Two tales coming together after a long time
Stephen Baxter's The Thousand Earths tells two tales that come together at the end of time. In the first, a crew on a five million year mission to the Andromeda galaxy is sabotaged with only a single survivor. He returns to Earth finding a very different humanity where his sense of exploration is at odds with current mores. He then proceeds to go further into the future, now into billions of years. At the same time, the other tale is the basis of the title. On one of those 'earths,' the world is coming to an end in less than 30 years. While a bit more primitive than today, their culture wars play out between two opposing factions. What ensues is a gradual immigrant / asylum seeker morality play as their world slowly disintegrates. Eventually, at the end the two strands come together.
Baxter really extends the timelines with humanity surviving for billions of years with the result being post-biological consciousness and boredom. The thousand earths is seen as a sort of science project where one of the worlds takes it all too seriously and polarizes the culture into two camps. It is almost as if humanity itself creates life as a simulation for idle pleasure.
The narration is well done with a wise decision to engage two narrators for the separate strands.
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- beta
- 10-10-23
Rich world, significant plot and pacing issues
I enjoyed The Thousand Earths and think it is worth a credit. The universe Baxter has created not without issue, but is nonetheless rich and lingered in my mind long after I stopped listening.
I had to remove 2 stars, though:
1. Several significant characters in the story have few, if any, redeeming qualities. I felt zero sympathy for them and struggled to understand their motives. At least one character in the story is simply pure evil. These characters feel flat.
2. The primary plot is significantly trivialized by the end of the novel due to additional information the listener is aware of. It is simply too long and too monotonous, and at many points I was screaming in my head "I've known how this ends for hours of listening! Just get it over with!"
Despite these grievances, I found The Thousand Earths engaging. It is one of the better sci-fi listens I have had in the past couple of years.
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- Jeff Koeppen
- 11-09-22
Another Epic Hard Sci-Fi Novel from Baxter
Stephen Baxter is probably my favorite writer of hard science fiction so I was excited to see that he was releasing his new book in September 2022, and I grabbed it on Audible the minute it was available. Baxter is a master at writing about human struggles in a dystopian future, with plots supported by speculative and known science, on an epic scale and in incredible settings. If you are looking for deeply developed characters you might be disappointed. Big mind-boggling near and far-future concepts and human trials and tribulations take the forefront like in so many of his other stories.
In this novel, we have two separate plots each centered around a main character which eventually come together (not a spoiler as the chapter sections named after each of the characters eventually include both of their names). On one hand we have a fellow named John Hackett who in 2145 AD travels with his crew on a forty year mission from Earth to the Andromeda Galaxy (which will eventually collide with our galaxy (really)) and back in an advanced ramscoop ship the Perseus to study its nature and look for intelligent life. Since they will be traveling at extremely fast speeds the crew knows that the earth will have aged millions of years during the mission due to time dilation. After an accident takes the lives of Hackett’s crewmates he becomes a sole explorer and returns to the far future Earth on his own. He decides to back out and his next journey begins.
In the second storyline we have a young person named Mela who lives with millions of other humans on a far-future engineered planetoid modeled after Earth. From her vantage point she can see thousands of such “earths” in the night sky, each with their own mini sun. Unfortunately for Mela and the rest of the inhabitants living on this planetoid, it is gradually disintegrating and the scientists determine that the entire world will succumb to this process in 30 years or so. Despite living in the far-future on a seemingly advanced and highly engineered planet, Mela’s society has devolved in to a sort of medieval hierarchy, ruled by the powerful and violent. Mela and her family are aware of their ultimate fate, and Mela goes through life knowing that her lifespan is limited. Her storyline basically covers her life from a child to the end of the 30 year period.
The mysteries in this novel therefore are: what is going on with Mela’s world and her solar system, and what will become of her and its inhabitants; and, what will John Hackett find in his travels, which end up spanning billions of years with repeated stops at future Earths. And finally, how do Hackett and Mela’s timelines eventually converge?
This is a chunky book- about 17.5 hours of audio. I was hooked from minute one. It was narrated by British actors Caitlin Shannon (Mela’s story) and David Monteith (Hackett’s story). They were both excellent narrators but the one quibble I have is that David’s voice sounded too young for the Hackett story (Rudnicki! Rudnicki! Rudnicki!). But nothing in production could damper my enjoyment of this epic tale. This is one of my favorites of his novels.
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- Carl
- 11-29-22
Pretty darn good.
this book turned out to be quite a pleasant read, I highly recommend it.
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- Anon
- 05-15-23
Seriously excellent
One of the best Sci-fi novels I've listened to in a long time. Seriously excellent.
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- Lord Rahl
- 10-10-22
Not Baxter's best but worth a listen
I have read/listened to all of Mr Baxter's books and for the most part enjoyed them all. His favorite book of mine is Evolution for which unfortunately I am unable to find an audio book version of. Would love to see Audible bring that wonderful book to audio for us!
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- David
- 12-11-22
Long, Involved, Sweeping Story Half Entertaining
Pretty amazing story encompassing more sci-fi than I've probably ever seen. But it's really two separate stories in one book - one amazing and one dull. The book would have been top 5 ever if the dull story had been told in just a few chapters.
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- Bob Conrod
- 12-29-23
Suspenseful and imaginative
Fantastic. One of those books that keeps you guessing the whole way through the story about just how this all ties together Suspenseful and imaginative end to end
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- Chad McBride
- 04-29-24
Long and tedious
Somewhat interesting overall idea weighed down by long tedious details. The 2 main characters are unlikable, especially Mela. Many of the supporting characters are stupid and simple to the point of disbelief. By the end, I just continued hoping they would be killed off. So many unbelievable things in this story that are described in such long-winded and boring detail that it's a testament to the reader or listener's perseverance if they make it to the end. And if they do, they will find a most disappointing ending indeed. It seems like the author got bored of his own rambling story and just stopped mid-thought.
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