
Transcendence
Book 3 of The Heritage Universe
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Narrated by:
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Geoffrey Howard
About this listen
The search for the Builders, the legendary alien race whose unfathomable constructs continue to perplex scholars and explorers alike, has led Builder expert Darya Lang, adventurer Hans Rebka, and treasure hunters Louis Nenda and Atvar H'sial to an unknown Builder artifact far outside the spiral arm. There they find the Zardalu, once the greatest menace ever known to the worlds of the spiral arm, enslaving entire races and exterminating others, guided by the unswerving belief in their own supremacy.
The only chance to eliminate the Zardalu threat is to find them all and wipe them out before they have time to breed back up to strength and once again threaten civilized beings everywhere. But the way will not be easy. Even if they manage to locate the Zardalu, they still have the Builders to deal with. For the closer they get to their quarry, the clearer it becomes that the Zardalu and their world are closely entwined with the fate, and the plans, of the Builders themselves.
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Critic reviews
"Sheffield's narrative is smooth, and the joys, pitfalls and dangers of exploration are conveyed well." (Publishers Weekly)
Bad rip
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Dry Initially But Gets Better
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This installment has less "mystery" and less exploration of aliens/Builders... it's more an action-adventure book than a sci-fi exploration book (though the action all occurs on an alien planet). There are some hard sci-fi explanations of various techy things, but you don't really have to follow the science to follow the story.
All in all, it was my least favorite of the 3 so far (a 3.5 instead of a 4), but I will be reading the next (final) book in the series because the characters are interesting and fun to follow - and I'm curious what Louis and Ant will get up to... (though it is not a cliff-hanger ending).
The narration is very good. There is no sex or foul language and not much in the way of violence either. I'd suggest you don't start with this book though - start with the first book because the story would probably not make much sense on its own - in particular, the humor and some of the suspense requires you be familiar with the characters.
More action-adventure than sci-fi
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Kinda starts to pick up after the 2nd or 3rd book
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Like the books by Anne Rice, whose work after "Queen of the Damned", in 'the Witching Hour" as an example just went on and on in endless rambling, that were in themselves several separate books.
This book series began like another century long Anne Rice novel....but suddenly it began to draw me in.
This book "Transcendence" is really good.
As is it's predecessor. I am looking forward to another book in the series, though I understand these book were written in the early 90's.
Anyway. enjoy!
Surprisingly good.
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So many characters
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The author, is not only tops in the sci-fi field, but is a well educated scientest..in physics, quantum mechanics, theoritacal phsyics.(cosmology to quantum mysteries and on) AND he incorporates this universal understanding and level of knowledge into his works!!!..Sci fi readers...read ...and beg the author for more!!
Prof. D.T.K (retired)
The Heritage Universe series..THE BEST IN SCI-FI
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Several times I found myself wishing it would move a bit faster, but then I realized it just because the story was so good I wanted to find out what happened next!
The Heritage series is probably not for people that like "light" Sci-fi, Sheffield wrote HARD sci-fi with a lot of detail and explanation about his Characters, planets, aliens, technology, etc.
The series is for intelligent adults, not the kiddies.
I just finished burning book 4 (Convergence, the final book in the series) and can't wait to listen to it... so I'm cutting this review short ;)
The narration, as always with this series, is VERY well done.
Even better than book 2
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really excellent
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Production Quality
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