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World Engines
- A post climate change high concept science fiction odyssey
- Narrated by: Penelope Rawlins, Christopher Ragland
- Length: 17 hrs and 21 mins
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Publisher's summary
In the year 2570, a sleeper will wake....
In the mid-21st century, the Kernel, a strange object on a 500-year-orbit, is detected coming from high above the plane of the solar system. Could it be an alien artefact?
In the middle of climate-change crises, there is no mood for space-exploration stunts - but Reid Malenfant, elderly, once a shuttle pilot and frustrated would-be asteroid miner, decides to go take a look anyway. Nothing more is heard of him. But his ex-wife, Emma Stoney, sets up a trust fund to search for him the next time the Kernel returns....
By 2570 Earth is transformed. A mere billion people are supported by advanced technology on a world that is almost indistinguishable from the natural, with recovered forests, oceans, ice caps. It is not an age for expansion; there are only small science bases beyond the Earth. But this is a world you would want to live in: a Star Trek without the stars.
After 500 years the Kernel returns, and a descendant of Stoney, who Malenfant will call Emma II, mounts a mission to see what became of Malenfant. She finds him still alive, cryo-preserved....
His culture-shock encounter with a conservative future is entertaining....
But the Kernel itself turns out to be attached to a kind of wormhole, through which Malenfant and Emma II, exploring further, plummet back in time, across five billion years....
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Liam Saunders-Chang is one of the last humans left on Mars. The son of two scientists who have been racing against time to create technology vital to humanity's survival, Liam, along with his friend Phoebe, will be on the last starliner to depart before Mars, like Earth before it, is destroyed. Or so he thinks. Because before this day is over, Liam and Phoebe will make a series of profound discoveries about the nature of time and space and find out that the human race is just one of many in our universe locked in a dangerous struggle for survival.
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Great story, great narrator
- By Allie-Lex Funk on 01-17-21
By: Kevin Emerson
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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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Legacy
- Stellar Heritage, Book 1
- By: Bob Mauldin
- Narrated by: Mark Boyett
- Length: 19 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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When Simon and Katherine Hawke stumble upon an alien shuttle that has landed on earth, it’ll not only change the course of their lives, but of the entire world. Taking the shuttle into orbit, they discover a much larger ship left adrift with no one on board. Commandeering it, they confirm that we’re not alone in the universe and must prepare the human race for what is about to come. Recruiting from all over the world, they begin to expand their fleet and build a federation to give humans a foothold in the galaxy.
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Childish Writer Rant
- By Brutis on 10-25-20
By: Bob Mauldin
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Beyond Kuiper
- The Galactic Star Alliance
- By: Matthew Medney, John Connelly
- Narrated by: Kyle Perrin, Dylan Sprouse, George C. Romero
- Length: 13 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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The Galactic Star Alliance has been alive and well for millions of Earth years. Hundreds of thousands of worlds and trillions of beings move across the many home worlds of the Alliance. This revelation invites many questions: How is faster-than-light speed travel possible, and could cohesive, interstellar civilizations exist without it? Is it conceivable to govern a coalition not of different countries but of different species?
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Dirstracting Sound effects.
- By adam on 11-12-20
By: Matthew Medney, and others
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Apollo 11
- The Inside Story
- By: David Whitehouse
- Narrated by: Simon Mattacks
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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In the most authoritative book ever written about Apollo, David Whitehouse reveals the true drama behind the mission, telling the story in the words of those who took part - based around exclusive interviews with the key players. This enthralling book takes us from the early rocket pioneers to the shock America received from the Soviets' launch of the first satellite, Sputnik; from the race to put the first person into space, through President Kennedy's enthusiasm and later doubts, to the astronauts' intense competition to leave the first footprint.
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Space Race Revivalism
- By Doug on 06-14-19
By: David Whitehouse
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Star Trek: Discovery: Desperate Hours
- By: David Mack
- Narrated by: Susan Eisenberg
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Aboard the Starship Shenzhou, Lieutenant Michael Burnham, a human woman raised and educated among Vulcans, is promoted to acting first officer. But if she wants to keep the job, she must prove to Captain Philippa Georgiou that she deserves to have it.
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Could Have Been Great
- By Rick on 11-13-17
By: David Mack
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The Best of Us
- By: Karen Traviss
- Narrated by: Fred Tatasciore
- Length: 18 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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The West has been devastated by epidemics, bio-terrorism, war, and famine. Asia has shut its borders to keep the threats at bay, and some with power and influence have already abandoned Earth. Now an escape route a century in the making - the Nomad mission - finally offers hope to a small town and a secret research centre hidden in a rural American backwater. Shrouded in lies and concealed even from the research centre's staff, Nomad is about to fulfil its long-dead founder's vision of preserving the best of humanity to forge a new future. But who decides who's worthy?
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what the hell? not galaxys edge. total retcon.
- By Ethomas on 12-06-19
By: Karen Traviss
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Rebel Stars: Books 0-2
- By: Edward W. Robertson
- Narrated by: Ray Chase
- Length: 20 hrs
- Unabridged
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A thousand years ago, an alien invasion set humanity back to the Iron Age. Slowly, we recovered, colonizing the Solar System in peace. And discovered that an unknown force is stopping us from exploring any farther. But before the cause can be discovered, a slow-burning conspiracy threatens to explode into System-wide war. With enemies at home and in the darkness beyond, a team of unlikely heroes-a janitor, a mercenary, an asteroid miner, and a pirate-are the only ones who can avert a second apocalypse. This set includes the first three books of the newly-finished REBEL STARS series.
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Fun and entertaining.
- By Shirley on 01-04-18
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Gateway
- By: Frederik Pohl
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman, Robert J. Sawyer
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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When prospector Bob Broadhead went out to Gateway on the Heechee spacecraft, he decided he would know which was the right mission to make him his fortune. Three missions later, now famous and permanently rich, Robinette Broadhead has to face what happened to him and what he is...in a journey into himself as perilous and even more horrifying than the nightmare trip through the interstellar void that he drove himself to take!
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A human-focused SF classic
- By Ryan on 12-05-13
By: Frederik Pohl
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Beyond the Aquila Rift
- By: Alastair Reynolds
- Narrated by: Tom Dheere
- Length: 1 hr and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Beyond the Aquila Rift: It's shorthand for the trip no one ever hopes to make by accident. The one that will screw up the rest of your life, the one that creates the ghosts you see haunting the shadows of company bars across the whole Bubble. Men and women ripped out of time, cut adrift from families and lovers by an accident of an alien technology we use but rarely comprehend.
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Great story, mediocre audio book.
- By Amazon Customer on 04-17-12
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Apollo 13
- By: Jim Lovell, Jeffrey Kluger
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 16 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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In April 1970, during the glory days of the Apollo space program, NASA sent Navy Captain Jim Lovell and two other astronauts on America's fifth mission to the moon. Only 55 hours into the flight of Apollo 13, disaster struck: a mysterious explosion rocked the ship, and soon its oxygen and power began draining away. Written with all the color and drama of the best fiction, Apollo 13 (previously published as Lost Moon) tells the full story of the moon shot that almost ended in catastrophe.
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Great story but a terrible narrator
- By Nicci on 01-29-20
By: Jim Lovell, and others
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Not Baxter's best but worth a listen
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The very far future: The galaxy is a drifting wreck of black holes, neutron stars, and chill white dwarfs. The age of star formation is long past. Yet there is life here, feeding off the energies of the stellar remnants, and there is mind, a tremendous galaxy-spanning intelligence each of whose thoughts lasts a hundred thousand years. And this mind cradles memories of a long-gone age when a more compact universe was full of light... The 27th century: Proxima Centauri, an undistinguished red dwarf star, is the nearest star to our sun. How would it be to live on such a world?
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An epic saga of America’s might-have-been, Voyage is a powerful, sweeping novel of how, if President Kennedy had lived, we could have sent a manned mission to Mars in the 1980s. Imaginatively created from the true lives and real events, Voyage returns to the geniuses of NASA and the excitement of the Saturn rocket and includes historical figures from Neil Armstrong to Ronald Reagan who are interwoven with unforgettable characters whose dreams mirror the promise of a young space program that held the world in thrall.
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Borrrring
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By the middle of the 21st century, humanity has managed to overcome a series of catastrophic events and maintain some sense of stability. Space exploration has begun again. Science has led the way. But then one day, the sun goes out. Solar panels are useless, and the world begins to freeze. Earth begins to fall out of its orbit. The end is nigh. Someone has sent us a sign.
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Not a bad idea for a story.
- By CJ on 10-26-21
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Time's Eye
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I expected better from these two
- By Kennet on 06-04-08
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When Rab was a baby, his mother made a decision which would change his life. She feared he would be sent to work in the hellish mines of Mercury, to eke out his life until he was worn out, all in the name of maintaining the defense of the Solar System. But when her desperate attempt to flee with her 2 year old failed, she took a desperate step to save him. She cut off his hand. Decades later, Rab has been spared the physical hardships he can no longer endure, and is now based on the Mask, the all-encompassing structure which hides the Solar System from alien eyes.
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Not Baxter's best but worth a listen
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No Sense of Conclusion
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Borrrring
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Not a bad idea for a story.
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What listeners say about World Engines
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Mario Cole
- 06-09-23
Baxter is improving with characters
Good listen. All the fanciful world building that I love Baxter for but this time the characters were fun too. They won’t stay with you but they aren’t actively annoying. If you like the Three Body Problem series the only author who has such scope would be Baxter I think and with this series at least the characters are less wooden.
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- Bob Conrod
- 02-24-24
The first four fifths was ok
Most of it was Fine, but then it just fizzled out completely unsatisfying. Then to make it matters worse There was more than one narrator and they didn’t stick to the same characters. If you’re going to do two narrators, then each one should have their voices to do and the others don’t overlap. So it was a mess you couldn’t keep track of who the character was by their voice because one person would make that character‘s voice completely different than the other narrator would. I’ve read quite a few of Steven Baxter’s works and always enjoyed them, but not so much this time
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- Anon
- 07-21-22
Great listen.
Narration by Penelope Rawlins was brilliant.
The were a few chapters that Ragland narrated. It wasn't clear why the full book wasn't narrated by Rawlins only, or Ragland as his style was great too.
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- Amazon Customer
- 02-20-24
Promising concept but dismal execution
The strangest narration decisions I've seen. A very good female narrator for most of the book - that has a male main character. A male narrator would have made more sense. Unexplicable switching between female and male narrators. Just bizarre.
The story was very disappointing. I was very surprised that the story ended where it did. I was sure it would continue with what happened with the second Phobos trip. But bizarrely, no. All in all, very disatisfying.
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- R. Carlson
- 07-04-24
Kinda wraps up Manifold...
(applies to "Creator" and "Destroyer")
This will likely be my last Baxter book. Xeelee Vengeance and Redemption were bad enough, I was hoping for a return to better days, but it was not to be. So many issues!
First let's start with the good stuff: It's "high concept", its multiverse, mysterious world destroying engineers, it's Malenfant from the Manifold. In fact, this wraps up the Manifold Trilogy (Time/Space/Origin), making it a …”Pentalogy”! (but see below) It offers some closure to those of us who scratched our heads over Manifold/ORIGIN and the Red Moon, which seemed to have actually been part of a larger storyline – sooooooo Yay?
What's not to like?
Unfortunately, quite a bit
Let's start with the narration. It’s a trainwreck. In the first book there’s two narrators, in the second there's four, but they trade off some parts, like one of the main characters, Malenfant. At least in World Engines Destroyer, there were just two of them. Also, they don't necessarily split the narration according to character. You can figure it out, but it's disconcerting when Malenfant's voice just changes for no reason, depending on who he's talking to. Also, Penelope Rawlins' Malenfant is abominable - cringy and hard to listen to. There’s also only so many hours you can listen to a sardonic robot as a main character (he's no "Bender"). Also, no one in the US pronounces it “mee-thane”. It’s “meth-ane”… or Gee-sers…it's Guy-sers!
Next, there's the characters -- there's way too many of them. Emma seems to have almost no point and no relationship until almost the very end. They seem to kill off some characters, like the Brits, or forget about them, like the Denisovans (Neanderthals?). Also, there's little linkage back to the Manifold books (which you might have read 25 years ago). Sure, they mention a fact or two from them, but these guys all come from a different universe, so...
Then, there's the exposition. Book 1 (Destroyer) spends 3/4 of the book describing post-climate change economics in a world where Armstrong dies on the moon and Nixon invents guaranteed basic income. Sure, at the very end we discover the Multiverse, try to move a planet (not very successfully), and jaunt off to find the engineers. In Book 2 (Creator) we spend the first half in a "Robinson Caruso on Mars" scenario as everyone tries to understand what is pretty much evident from the start - Persephonie is a zoo. Throw in some very evident “mysteries” (the mistreatment of the sub-humans) and a LOT of rocket engineering and you’re now about 3/4 ‘s of the way through.
Answers come in the last 45 minutes or so. Through exposition, of course….
--------------------------- Danger: Spoilers Ahead -------------------
OK, time to wrap up the prior Manifold Trilogy (sorry, Tetralogy… I guess Phase Space, a short story, is sometimes included(?) so now a Hexology!). Spoilers -- it’s the Downstreamers – (remember them from Manifold TIME -- 1999? 25 years ago?) basically, humans from the end of time, back when there was no multiverse. They’re bored. Reruns of “Happy Days” are just not doing it for them. They simply ran out of time and resources, so they sent a message back in time to a generation of children and had them build a device to create the vacuum catastrophe. In doing so, they created a series of universes, a multiverse, a MANIFOLD. At least some of the kids (including “Michael”) jumped into portals before the catastrophe and became immortal beings whose job is to tinker with the construction of various versions of the solar system, like a big billiards game. Oh yeah, and they spread Earth Life (because it’s basically the only game in town). Oh YEAH – remember the red moon from Manifold ORIGIN (from the Manifold Trilogy)? Finally explained, tied up – it was Michael cross breeding hominids across the universes! (And that's why there's duplicates of most of the characters in some of the multiverse worlds....huh?)
Eventually, the blue children will report to Downstreamer central….(wherever that’s supposed to be -- if the vacuum disaster wiped out the original timeline, then Where TF is “Michael” supposed to report to in the end? Nevermind... )
Why?
Who knows…I can hear Baxter screaming “Well just reread the damn books!!!” (the Manifold Series, which were already pretty incoherent 25 years ago...).
Malenfant and Emma decide to stay in “reality IV” and build a life together on a Mars that’s only a little more habitable than ours. Dierdre decides to join the AI/Blue Child “Michael” and travel downstream to the end. Col. Lighthill decides he needs to establish a Titanic to service the Multiverse (and seems not to see the irony in this… Ahhh.. the British Empire in Space!).
Like I said, this is my last Baxter.
If you LOVE Baxter and absolutely NEED to have "Manifold" wrapped up a bit more AND you can tolerate exquisitely bad narration, then have a go. Otherwise, look for better product.
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