Excellent narration but too many alien 'extras'!

David Thorpe's characterisation is excellent and nearly worth listening to just for that! But as others have said, the story does jump around a bit, there are lots of alien races and names that you feel you need to track. But some just pop in to add depth and disappear again, others hang around for longer. My advice is to sit back and enjoy the story. Don't worry about all the smaller detail as it does settle and the main threads are strong and interesting. I've just downloaded the second book now but when I first started on book 1 I couldn't image I would.

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tedious..

if you need to know what shirt button he got done up , enjoy endless description of things that really do not need you might like this. I think that he had so little story that he feels the need to pad it out so it looks like an epic.

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pleasant surprise

Excellent story, superb narration: Enjoy it.

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3 people found this helpful

avoid

This is the first ever audio book that i am seriously thinking of giving up on...If you thought war and peace was unnecessarily longwinded with a story that was complicated unnecessarily then you will hate this. The narrator is excellent, and I guess it is his energy that keeps me listening ...I would suggest that anyone else dosen't bother to even start!

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Very difficult listening... I gave up

Bombardment of really long descriptive words that didn’t allow the listener any time to digest or pause to reflex before the next bombardment.
Was really looking forward to this after Peter F Hamilton sage books and was utterly disappointed.
I lost count how many times I had to rewind to fully comprehend what was being conveyed and still had difficulty following the plot. And I work in computer programming, writing endless subroutines and procedures.
When I got to about chapter 17 ( plodded on to get my moneys worth ), I found I had no empathy for any of the characters and gave up as a book should not be this difficult to follow and enjoy.

Only wish I could get my credit back.

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1 person found this helpful

Dreadful narration

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

A better narrator such as John Lee.

What could Michael Cobley have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

I'm not sure as I threw in the towel after 90 minutes.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Dreadful Scottish accents. In fact all the accents were bad.

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1 person found this helpful

Inventive...I'll give you that....

The missing link to this inventiveness was the need to engage the reader; I simply lost interest and ditched it during part 2, appalled that it was going to go on and on.......

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Will you care?

Bought this on the strength of the Iain M Banks testimonial. Rather wish I hadn't.
The narration is not bad - the accents are not as poor as other reviewers have suggested - but I'm 1/2 way through and still struggling to comprehend why no-one at Audible thought to demonstrate to the chap how the word Hegemony is actually pronounced! (there are other pronunciation howlers, but The Hedgemony is the name of one of the space empires and so it's fairly critical that it should be pronounced correctly really).
As for the plot...after just 150 years the colony have been able to build complicated cities and have so much leisure time that they can fund extensive archaeological investigations and have a fully functioning cell-phone system. They also have space travel and a thriving media network...but have seemingly managed to miss finding out that Earth dodged the bullet on annihilation shortly after they left and no-one from earth gave enough of a hoot to launch one of the 147 ships left behind to catch up and tell them...
hardly worth the effort really.

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1 person found this helpful

Lacking in many ways - Story and Narrator

First off, I refrained from giving this 1 star as maybe this is the sort of thing people like. However, not me - here's why.

The story first, then I'll get onto the narration.

For me, a good saga needs both breadth and depth. What do I mean by this? Well, breadth I think comes from the number of characters, worlds and civilisations whereas depth comes from objects (e.g. technology) back-story and the interaction between everything. The story lacks depth. It gives the illusion of breadth by introducing lots of characters and places, with complex names - I say illusion because I feel nothing is thought through - lots of civilisations are mentioned once, just for the sake of it. There is also a lot of unnecessary flowery language. All this just creates a distraction rather than real breadth and I feel it's just there to try and make a weak story feel better than it really is.

Also, the story doesn't weave together in a way that grips you. It's all very serial (nothing spans) and predictable.

It's a far cry from the breadth and depth of Peter F Hamilton's Nights Dawn saga for instance.

As for the narration - many people have had a dig at the accents. I get that, but at least there was an effort to differentiate characters. Where David Thorpe really lets the storytelling down is with his intonation while not speaking character dialog - it's far too light, making every statement sound like a question, lacks pace while needed and lends no gravitas to the story.

Sorry - I'll not be buying the other books in this series.

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DONT BOTHER

What would have made Seeds of Earth better?

Better editing. Plus tighter plot. Avoid racial stereotyping which I think many Russian, Chinese and some Scottish listeners may find offensive.

The author has an "irritating annoying" tendency to use double verbs at any opportunity. This has a role to play when used for effect sparingly to create atmosphere but gets plain infuriating when used at any opportunity. I am sure it is not but it seems that way due to the high frequency of its use.

What will your next listen be?

The new Peter F Hamilton book or the new Richard K Morgan book.

What does David Thorpe bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?

He does a good job giving a depth of character that is lacking in the prose.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Seeds of Earth?

There are too many to mention. Unfortunately I have listened to the entire trilogy and can see a great deal of irrelevances and padding in the story.

Any additional comments?

I bought the entire trilogy of which this is the first before completion of the first book. I have read and enjoyed worse when I was young and new to Science Fiction so can see why this will be okay listen for some. But once used to the quality storytelling of Iain Banks, Peter Hamilton and Richard Morgan you raise your expectations.

I found after the first book I really could not care about the fate of many of the characters.

I usually listen to the books only when I am on the exercise bicycle or going jogging. This motivates me to do the exercise as I want to know what happens next. Sadly with this trilogy I have put on a lot of weight due to a reduced exercise programme.

If you are new to Science Fiction you may enjoy this if you can put up with the prose style and lack of depth of characterisation . If you are not new to science fiction then there is nothing new for you in this or the following books.

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4 people found this helpful