Listen free for 30 days
-
Ancestral Night
- Narrated by: Nneka Okoye
- Series: White Space, Book 1, Ancestral Night Series, Book 1
- Length: 16 hrs and 48 mins
- Categories: Science Fiction & Fantasy, Science Fiction
People who bought this also bought...
-
Velocity Weapon
- The Protectorate
- By: Megan E. O'Keefe
- Narrated by: Joe Jameson
- Length: 18 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The last thing Sanda remembers is her gunship exploding. She expected to be recovered by salvage medics and to awaken in friendly hands, patched up and ready to rejoin the fight. Instead she wakes up 230 years later, on a deserted enemy starship called The Light of Berossus - or, as he prefers to call himself, 'Bero'. Bero tells Sanda the war is lost. That the entire star system is dead. But is that the full story? After all, in the vastness of space, anything is possible.
-
-
Long, mostly engaging story with a lot of twists
- By DebB on 22-08-19
-
World Engines
- Destroyer
- By: Stephen Baxter
- Narrated by: Penelope Rawlins, Christopher Ragland
- Length: 17 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Baxter continues to deliver the goods.
- By C. Hampson on 11-10-19
-
Revenger
- By: Alastair Reynolds
- Narrated by: Clare Corbett
- Length: 14 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The galaxy has seen great empires rise and fall. Planets have shattered and been remade. Amongst the ruins of alien civilisations, building our own from the rubble, humanity still thrives. And there are vast fortunes to be made, if you know where to find them.... Captain Rackamore and his crew do.
-
-
Terrible book made worse by woeful narration
- By Clare on 30-04-17
-
The Quantum Magician
- By: Derek Kunsken
- Narrated by: T. Ryder Smith
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Belisarius is a quantum man, an engineered Homo quantus who fled the powerful insight of dangerously addictive quantum senses. He found a precarious balance as a con man, but when a client offers him untold wealth to move a squadron of warships across an enemy wormhole, he must embrace his birthright to even try. In fact, the job is so big that he'll need a crew built from all the new sub-branches of humanity. If he succeeds, he might trigger an interstellar war, but success might also point the way to the next step of Homo quantus evolution.
-
-
Excellent story
- By Amazon Customer on 14-10-19
-
Semiosis
- By: Sue Burke
- Narrated by: Caitlin Davies, Daniel Thomas May
- Length: 14 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Escaping conflict on Earth, an idealistic group of settlers arrive on a distant planet - Pax - with plans for a perfect society. The world they discover is rich with life, but this is not the Eden they were hoping for. The plants on Pax are smart - smart enough to domesticate, and even slaughter, its many extraordinary animals. To survive, the colonists realise that they must strike bargains of their own. But if they are to make Pax their home, they must go further, searching for a way to communicate and coexist with these utterly alien intelligences.
-
-
Good concept
- By Rosemary White on 06-09-19
-
The Saints of Salvation
- The Salvation Sequence
- By: Peter F. Hamilton
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 17 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Humanity welcomed the Olyix and their utopian technology. But mankind was tricked. Now these visitors are extracting a terrible price. For two years, the Olyix have laid siege to Earth, harvesting its people for their god. One by one, cities are falling to their devastating weaponry. And while millions have fled to seek refuge in space, others continue to fight an apparently unwinnable war.
-
-
Same Old, But Less Engaging...
- By Mark H on 02-11-20
-
Velocity Weapon
- The Protectorate
- By: Megan E. O'Keefe
- Narrated by: Joe Jameson
- Length: 18 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The last thing Sanda remembers is her gunship exploding. She expected to be recovered by salvage medics and to awaken in friendly hands, patched up and ready to rejoin the fight. Instead she wakes up 230 years later, on a deserted enemy starship called The Light of Berossus - or, as he prefers to call himself, 'Bero'. Bero tells Sanda the war is lost. That the entire star system is dead. But is that the full story? After all, in the vastness of space, anything is possible.
-
-
Long, mostly engaging story with a lot of twists
- By DebB on 22-08-19
-
World Engines
- Destroyer
- By: Stephen Baxter
- Narrated by: Penelope Rawlins, Christopher Ragland
- Length: 17 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Baxter continues to deliver the goods.
- By C. Hampson on 11-10-19
-
Revenger
- By: Alastair Reynolds
- Narrated by: Clare Corbett
- Length: 14 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The galaxy has seen great empires rise and fall. Planets have shattered and been remade. Amongst the ruins of alien civilisations, building our own from the rubble, humanity still thrives. And there are vast fortunes to be made, if you know where to find them.... Captain Rackamore and his crew do.
-
-
Terrible book made worse by woeful narration
- By Clare on 30-04-17
-
The Quantum Magician
- By: Derek Kunsken
- Narrated by: T. Ryder Smith
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Belisarius is a quantum man, an engineered Homo quantus who fled the powerful insight of dangerously addictive quantum senses. He found a precarious balance as a con man, but when a client offers him untold wealth to move a squadron of warships across an enemy wormhole, he must embrace his birthright to even try. In fact, the job is so big that he'll need a crew built from all the new sub-branches of humanity. If he succeeds, he might trigger an interstellar war, but success might also point the way to the next step of Homo quantus evolution.
-
-
Excellent story
- By Amazon Customer on 14-10-19
-
Semiosis
- By: Sue Burke
- Narrated by: Caitlin Davies, Daniel Thomas May
- Length: 14 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Escaping conflict on Earth, an idealistic group of settlers arrive on a distant planet - Pax - with plans for a perfect society. The world they discover is rich with life, but this is not the Eden they were hoping for. The plants on Pax are smart - smart enough to domesticate, and even slaughter, its many extraordinary animals. To survive, the colonists realise that they must strike bargains of their own. But if they are to make Pax their home, they must go further, searching for a way to communicate and coexist with these utterly alien intelligences.
-
-
Good concept
- By Rosemary White on 06-09-19
-
The Saints of Salvation
- The Salvation Sequence
- By: Peter F. Hamilton
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 17 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Humanity welcomed the Olyix and their utopian technology. But mankind was tricked. Now these visitors are extracting a terrible price. For two years, the Olyix have laid siege to Earth, harvesting its people for their god. One by one, cities are falling to their devastating weaponry. And while millions have fled to seek refuge in space, others continue to fight an apparently unwinnable war.
-
-
Same Old, But Less Engaging...
- By Mark H on 02-11-20
-
The Eden Paradox
- The Eden Paradox, Book 1
- By: Barry Kirwan
- Narrated by: Edward Mitchell
- Length: 15 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2063, Earth's overheated climate and war-ravaged cities are near breaking point. A new habitable planet is discovered within reach, but the first two missions have failed to return. This is the story of the third mission to Eden. What really awaits the crew of four as they make the long journey to this supposedly uninhabited virgin planet, and what is the link to the secret 900-year-old sect known as Alicians back on Earth? While Blake leads the Eden mission, a young researcher named Micah discovers a terrible truth that threatens the very existence of humanity.
-
-
decent story ruined by appalling audio production
- By El presidente on 23-10-19
-
The Doors of Eden
- By: Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Narrated by: Sophie Aldred
- Length: 18 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lee thought she’d lost Mal, but now she’s miraculously returned. But what happened that day on the moors? And where has she been all this time? Mal’s reappearance hasn’t gone unnoticed by MI5 officers either, and Lee isn’t the only one with questions. Julian Sabreur is investigating an attack on top physicist Kay Amal Khan. This leads Julian to clash with agents of an unknown power - and they may or may not be human. His only clue is grainy footage showing a woman who supposedly died on Bodmin Moor.
-
-
Super-woke Brexit allegory
- By Johari on 21-08-20
-
Bear Head
- By: Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Narrated by: Laurence Bouvard, Nathan Osgood, William Hope
- Length: 12 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mars. The red planet. A new frontier for humanity: a civilisation where humans can live in peace, lord and master of all they survey. But this isn't Space City from those old science-fiction books. It's more like Hell City, built into and from a huge crater. There's a big silk canopy over it, feeding out atmosphere as we generate it, little by little, because we can't breathe the air here. I guess it's a perfect place to live, if you want to live on Mars. At some point I must have wanted to live on Mars, because here I am.
-
-
A fine sequel
- By paul sparks on 08-01-21
-
A Hole in the Sky
- Arkship Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Peter F. Hamilton
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Klett
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sixteen-year old Hazel lives in the Daedalus, a starship that is flying in search of a new world. The ship has been traveling for 500 years, searching for a world to settle in after having to abandon its last world. Everyone on board Daedalus lives a very simple existence in farming villages. The age of machines supplying their needs was lost during a mutiny 500 years ago.
-
-
Derivative story read without dramatic range
- By Nick GB on 19-03-21
-
Legacy
- Stellar Heritage, Book 1
- By: Bob Mauldin
- Narrated by: Mark Boyett
- Length: 19 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
It's not working for me
- By Alexander Jibb on 29-10-20
-
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars
- By: Christopher Paolini
- Narrated by: Jennifer Hale
- Length: 32 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During a routine survey mission on an uncolonized planet, Kira finds an alien relic. At first she’s delighted, but elation turns to terror when the ancient dust around her begins to move. As war erupts among the stars, Kira is launched into a galaxy-spanning odyssey of discovery and transformation. First contact isn’t at all what she imagined, and events push her to the very limits of what it means to be human. While Kira faces her own horrors, Earth and its colonies stand upon the brink of annihilation. Now, Kira might be humanity’s greatest and final hope....
-
-
Very good, surprisingly
- By NumptyDoo on 04-02-21
-
Salvation
- By: Peter F. Hamilton
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 19 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
AD 2204. An alien shipwreck is discovered on a planet at the very limits of human expansion - so Security Director Feriton Kayne selects a team to investigate. The ship’s sinister cargo not only raises bewildering questions but could also foreshadow humanity’s extinction. It will be up to the team to bring back answers, and the consequences of this voyage will change everything. Back on Earth, we can now make deserts bloom and extend lifespans indefinitely, so humanity seems invulnerable. We therefore welcomed the Olyix to Earth when they contacted us. But were the Olyix a blessing or a curse?
-
-
Great book let down by the narration
- By Peter Kuehne on 28-06-19
-
All Systems Red
- By: Martha Wells
- Narrated by: Kevin R. Free
- Length: 3 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
All Systems Red is the tense first science fiction adventure novella in Martha Wells' series The Murderbot Diaries. For fans of Westworld, Ex Machina, Ann Leckie's Imperial Raadch series, or Iain M. Banks' Culture novels. The main character is a deadly security droid that has bucked its restrictive programming and is balanced between contemplative self-discovery and an idle instinct to kill all humans.
-
-
Well written & narrated, but short for 1 credit
- By D. Marsh on 14-05-18
-
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
- Wayfarers, Book 1
- By: Becky Chambers
- Narrated by: Patricia Rodriguez
- Length: 15 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Firefly meets Mass Effect in this thrilling self-published debut! When Rosemary Harper joins the crew of the Wayfarer, she isn't expecting much. The Wayfarer, a patched-up ship that's seen better days, offers her everything she could possibly want: a small, quiet spot to call home for a while, adventure in far-off corners of the galaxy, and distance from her troubled past. But Rosemary gets more than she bargained for with the Wayfarer.
-
-
Well intentioned but uninvolving
- By Jonathan on 07-05-16
-
Cage of Souls
- By: Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Narrated by: David Thorpe
- Length: 23 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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, 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, survivor. This is his testament, an account of the journey that took him into the blazing desolation of the western deserts and into the labyrinths and caverns of the underworld.
-
-
Surprised by a good book
- By Matt on 22-06-19
-
Renegade
- Spiral Wars, Book 1
- By: Joel Shepherd
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 17 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One thousand years after Earth was destroyed in an unprovoked attack, humanity has emerged victorious from a series of terrible wars to assure its place in the galaxy. But during celebrations on humanity’s new Homeworld, the legendary Captain Pantillo of the battle carrier Phoenix is court-martialed then killed, and his deputy, Lieutenant Commander Erik Debogande, the heir to humanity’s most powerful industrial family, is framed with his murder.
-
-
Excellent
- By Peter Richardson on 05-02-16
-
The Soldier
- By: Neal Asher
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 16 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A hidden corner of space is swarming with lethal alien technology, a danger to all sentient life. It's guarded by Orlandine, who must keep it contained at any cost - as it has the power to destroy entire civilizations. She schemes from her state-of-the-art weapons station, with only an alien intelligence to share her vigil. But she doesn't share everything with Dragon....
-
-
Answers some questions from previous books
- By Jamie on 29-05-18
Summary
A space salvager and her partner make the discovery of a lifetime that just might change the universe in this wild, big-ideas space opera from multi-award-winning author Elizabeth Bear.
Haimey Dz thinks she knows what she wants.
She thinks she knows who she is.
She is wrong.
A routine salvage mission uncovers evidence of a terrible crime and relics of a powerful ancient technology, just as Haimey and her small crew run afoul of pirates at the outer limits of the Milky Way and find themselves both on the run and in possession of ancient, universe-changing technology.
When the authorities prove corrupt, it becomes clear that Haimey is the only one who can protect her galaxy-spanning civilisation from its potential power - and from the revolutionaries who want to use it to seed terror and war. But doing so will take her from the event horizon of the super-massive black hole at the galaxy's core to the infinite, empty spaces at its edge. Along the way, she'll have to uncover the secrets of ancient intelligences lost to time as well as her own lost secrets, which she will wish had remained hidden from her forever....
Energetic and electrifying, Ancestral Night is a dazzling new space opera, sure to delight fans of Alastair Reynolds, Iain M. Banks and Peter F. Hamilton.
Critic reviews
Praise for Elizabeth Bear: "Gripping, perfectly balanced, and highly recommended." (Kirkus)
"Like the best of speculative fiction, Bear has created a fascinating and complete universe that blends high-tech gadgetry with Old World adventure and political collusion." (Publishers Weekly)
More from the same
Author
What listeners say about Ancestral Night
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- stephen carrigg
- 18-03-19
Great space ideas , internalizing main character
I really wanted to like this book alot , some of the sci fi ideas are great and I couldnt wait for them to be expanded on ...... it didnt happen .
The narrator did a decent job , although I thought the first few hours she just sounded like she was reading a book to me . I just couldnt get into the characters she was doing because of that .
Some of it felt like being sat in a ethics class , or some sort of self help group talking about your feelings and it was more that than sci fi which in the end left me with a bad taste .
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- jonb@armslength.co.uk
- 21-12-19
Dismal Brontean sci fi schlock
Oh wow. I wanted to like this. Great title, great cover. Unfortunately that's as far as it goes.
Bear's universe is a dismal paper thin wokesphere, in which her antagonists are as cardboard thin and stereotyped as her heroes. I'm a strongly left leaning progressive, but this made me want to run screaming to join the resistance. Everytime you think some level of complexity or moral ambuguity might ve addressed, she immediately backs away on favour of reasserting the rightness of her protagonists POV. Given that said protagonist hails from a civilization that uses brain manipulation to ensure conformity, it's not a great look.
tallying of the protagonist, the whole thing is narrated first person, in what it slowly dawned on me is an attempt to pastiche the style of Charlotte Bronte. I kept thinking there might be some smart reveal waiting down the line as to why, but, no, it's just an unnecessary stylistic choice. The result is a tiresome and self indulgent narrator.
The choice of style is merely one of the many things that emphasise how clever the author thinks she is being. If some of the effort invested in cleverness were invested in plots or characters that actually made sense, or had greater depth than a shadow puppet, this could have been enjoyable. It's not. I cared so little for any character in this book that when Bear tries to shock with Character deaths, i just found myself shrugging and listening on in bland resignation.
The whole book is a string of science magic assisted deus ex machina events. If you want a sharp, nuanced and imaginative take on liberal culture taken to logical extremes in space, read Ian M Banks. If you want cracking, fast paved space opera with well written political back and forth, read the Expanse novels. If you want sharp feminist and progressive sci fi, read Le Guin, Atwood or Naomi Alderman. This doggerel is oh the same dismal category as the woefully awful Ready Player One. If you want a poorly rendered mash up of Cline and Bronte, this is a must read. otherwise, avoid like the plague.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- S R Stennett Author of Architect
- 06-07-19
Slow and steady.
This book at no stage raised my heart beat above a gentle stroll. Well written, it just never got into the realm of I can't put this down. Like I said, slow and steady.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Paul Cudmore
- 02-04-19
Good sci fi, great vision and story telling.
Really enjoyed this. I was invested in the characters. It had a good story arc and lots of interesting novel sci if ideas.
If you like Alastair Reynolds I would recommend a listen.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- iBloke
- 20-12-19
Sadly un-listenable
Narrators are a personal choice, but for such a complex story pace and clarity are essential and after I had to "rewind" the first 5 mins of the story three times, the final at 0.75 speed and still find I was unable to follow the story - I sadly gave up. I'm not sure how much of this is the narrators style, the audio production or the use of language in the book, but it's not for me. Great that Audible allows you to return audiobooks.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Matthew Crighton
- 25-03-20
Great story
Loved the story, although it would have been better if it was a little more pacy. For me the narrator really let this book down. But if you can get past that then it’s a really enjoyable listen.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- carlo
- 21-02-20
Honestly I tried
I tried really hard to like this one, the plot seemed interesting and at first it was, but the internal dialog of the main character was just so depressing long periods of whining, my mind just drifted off on to other things and when audible send you and e-mail reminding you to listen to it you know something is wrong!
-
Overall
- Anonymous User
- 16-12-19
Thesaurus and colour chart required...
This book was hard work with all the made up words. And many of the real words i haven't heard since leaving school 20 plus years ago. Even got a thesaurus out for a few . Colours... As a man in my 40's i had never heard of 90% of them and had to ask Google .
To me this is a English literature come psychology student way of justifying there years at university. To myself it 8 hours of so so sci fi and 8 hours of pretentious psycho babble. Sigmund Freudesk salvage engineer of space and a story with very little meat to. And the narrator was found lacking very dry with random gaps everywhere...
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 04-12-19
an internal experience of an astroengineer
Amazing journey. A whirlwind of galactic travel through space in search of lost selves. Intelligently and heartfully read.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- tete
- 29-10-19
Good but a little long winded at times.
This was a good listen. I switched off halfway through but got back into it again. Would recommend it cautiously to my spacefaring friends.