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The Second Sleep

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The Second Sleep

By: Robert Harris
Narrated by: Roy McMillan
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

THE LATEST NOVEL FROM ROBERT HARRIS: chosen as a Book of the Year by The Times, Sunday Times, Guardian, Telegraph, Mail on Sunday, and Express

WHAT IF YOUR FUTURE LIES IN THE PAST?
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'One word: wonderful. Two words: compulsive reading. Three words: buy it tomorrow. Four words: tonight, if possible.' STEPHEN KING
'A thoroughly absorbing, page-turning narrative.' SUNDAY TIMES
'Genuinely thrilling.' DAILY TELEGRAPH
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Dusk is gathering as a young priest, Christopher Fairfax, rides across a silent land.

It's a crime to be out after dark, and Fairfax knows he must arrive at his destination - a remote village in the wilds of Exmoor - before night falls and curfew is imposed.

He's lost and he's becoming anxious as he slowly picks his way across a countryside strewn with the ancient artefacts of a civilisation that seems to have ended in cataclysm.

What Fairfax cannot know is that, in the days and weeks to come, everything he believes in will be tested to destruction, as he uncovers a secret that is as dangerous as it is terrifying ...
_____________________________________
'[Harris] takes us on a thrilling ride while serving up serious food for thought.' SUNDAY EXPRESS

'A truly surprising future-history thriller. Fabulous, really.' EVENING STANDARD

'The book's real power lies in its between-the-lines warning that our embrace of the internet represents some kind of sleepwalk into oblivion. It's a provocative, tub-thumping sci-fi of which H. G. Wells might have been proud.' DAILY MAIL

'Harris' latest work intelligently warps historical fiction and tackles issues of religion, science and the apocalypse in the process. As he flexes his imagination, you will be left pondering as often as you are page-turning.' HERALD

'A brilliantly imaginative thriller' READER'S DIGEST

LOOK OUT FOR ROBERT'S NEW THRILLER, V2 - COMING AUTUMN 2020

© Robert Harris 2019 (P) Penguin Audio 2019

 Historical Mystery Suspense Thriller & Suspense Fiction Exciting

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Critic reviews

A thoroughly absorbing, page-turning narrative in which the author, with his customary storytelling skills, pulls us ever deeper into the imaginative world he has created. It [also] poses challenging questions about the meaning of the past, the idea of progress and the stability of civilisation. It is a fine addition to Harris’s diverse body of work.
A return to the type of high-concept novel that made his name . . . [T]he writing is elegant and pacy. The characters are fleshed out and the plot zips along.
A truly surprising future-history thriller. Fabulous, really.
Harris is rightly praised as the master of the intelligent thriller. Genuinely thrilling, wonderfully conceived and entirely without preaching, it probes the nature of history, of collective memory and forgetting, and exposes the fragility of modern civilisation.
Harris's bleak imagined world issues a clarion call to the present, urging us to recognise the value of progress, the importance of woolly concepts like liberalism and the rule of law, and all the other ideals we’ve spent generations fighting for yet seem prepared to sacrifice on the altar of populism. For make no mistake, this novel [is] very much about the here and now . . . Harris is a master of plotting and, in elegant, understated third-person prose, he ratchets the tension ever upwards . . . this is nothing if not a page-turner.
Reading Robert Harris’s historical thrillers feels like attending a Simon Schama lecture on a roller-coaster – you come away with a new perspective on history while feeling dizzy with excitement . . . In The Second Sleep he takes us on a thrilling ride while serving up serious food for thought . . . I doubt there is a living writer who is better at simultaneously making readers’ adrenaline pump while their brains whirr.
When Harris is at his best — and here he is — he writes with a skill and ingenuity that few other novelists can match. In this case, the usual page turning pleasures are joined by something else: a sense that, through his historical-futuristic setting, Harris has found a unique vantage point to comment on the present . . . This is a novel that not only makes you smile at its author’s brilliance, but induces a shiver of dread at how real it all seems.
With a story of forbidden love joining larger themes, this vividly imagined, brilliantly clever novel is – as you’d expect from the author of Fatherland and Archangel – an absolutely class act.
Harris . . . is a fearless writer. The Second Sleep races along at breakneck speed. The prose is pure, elegant, never tricky and his imagination knows no bounds.
It is a strange premise for a thriller, but Robert Harris is such a wily old hand that it is a pleasure to accompany him on his time travels.
All stars
Most relevant
Whatever this author chooses as a subject it is invariably a well-researched and always a gripping read. The denouement seemed a little rushed however, with an almost deus ex machina finish.

Typical Harris- a well-researched page turner

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Very easy to listen to, completely engrossing. Thought-provoking, however often those thoughts are to do with the premise of the book being set in a future with no (obvious) material evidence of the past and so the reader is being asked to suspend belief to get through the story.

Thought Provoking

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Really enjoyed this but it's dark and gets darker... The ending leaves you thinking, and then you work out who did what to whom and you feel angry and disappointed at the stupidity of human kind. Proper piece of writing worthy of classic status, if they ever make a film god help us, they'll ruin it, so much of the story is in the head not the page, so much that the protagonists do not know but that we can. Recommended.

Grown up storytelling in antithesis of YA

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Great idea, narrated very well. McMillan did a fantastic job portraying each character and really allowed them to come alive. The story started well and paced itself steadily for the first half... then it just seemed to unravel.

It really felt like the story was cut in half and an ending was hastily and clumsily tacked on, even to the point where I thought this was a cliffhanger for a second part to later be released but disappointingly, that isn't the case (so far)!

I've decided to give it a 3 star rating which may seem generous considering what I've just written, but I was entertained and engaged. The premise really has got me thinking deeply about what really would happen if there was a complete systematic failure of all modern technology. Also, as stated earlier, Roy McMillan's narration was fantastic and really has saved this from a lower score.

The world and lore that has been built so far has so much room to expand on, I feel like the book has done it a bit of a disservice and a series could EASILY be developed around it. Let's hope this isn't the last we've heard of Christopher Fairfax!

Should've been 5 stars but sadly fell short.

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I haven't read any Robert Harris before but was attracted by the premise. The story is okay but very very thin once you get away from the central deceit. There is little or nothing in the way of sub plot and my instincts are it would made a cracking short story or novella but there isn't enough meat one the bones to stretch to a full novel. A reasonable yarn but lacking in depth and any real sense of satisfaction or resolution.

This would have made a great short story

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