Eon
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 30 days of Premium Plus free
Buy Now for £21.99
-
Narrated by:
-
Stefan Rudnicki
-
By:
-
Greg Bear
About this listen
Perhaps it wasn't from our time, perhaps it wasn't even from our universe, but the arrival of the 300-kilometer long stone was the answer to humanity's desperate plea to end the threat of nuclear war. Inside the deep recesses of the stone lies Thistledown: the remnants of a human society, versed in English, Russian and Chinese. The artifacts of this familiar people foretell a great Death caused by the ravages of war, but the government and scientists are unable to decide how to use this knowledge. Deeper still within the stone is the Way. For some the Way means salvation from death, for others it is a parallel world where loved ones live again. But, unlike Thistledown, the Way is not entirely dead, and the inhabitants hold the knowledge of a present war, over a million miles away, using weapons far more deadly than any that mankind has ever conceived.
©1985 Greg Bear (P)2012 Audible, Inc.brilliant
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Very good.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Words, unusual names and concepts are thrown at you like a seemingly neverending rainstorm. I have to admit, I did try to take it all in.... until I couldn't and I just let it all wash over me. More recent sci-fi authors do it better, knowing that they risk losing their audience otherwise. Thank goodness I haven't bought the sequel....oh hang on....😬
Was that it?
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
And despite thinking I knew the story inside out, this performance of it did bring a new depth to the story. Yes in my head I've had pictures of what Patricia, Mirsky, Olmy and Gary look like, but until now they never had there own voices, it was always my voice I heard while reading them. Now after Stefan Rudnicki's excellent performance they all have proper, distinct voices to me.
As normal the scenes describing the death and it's aftermath got to me, gave me the shivers and made my cry (slightly embarrassing when sitting on the bus listening to the story, but I do like to 'feel' the stories I read). And listening to the words did give me a chance to build clearer pictures of the strange worlds and beings described.
Overall I can't recommend this highly enough, it is the best story I've ever read, preformed in a way which made it come live in new ways inside my head.
My all time favourite novel heard in a new light
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Interestingly, what really dates this is that it's so very rooted in the Cold War, clash of great powers mentality of the mid 80s. We see a 21st century Soviet Union and the threat of global war in a way which seems ironic given the changes that would occur just 4 years after this book's publication.
It's also a child of ours time in other ways. After the hard science fiction of the opening chapters, it gives way to more conventional thriller territory and you can see the influence of the emerging 80s on thriller genre.
Ultimately I found this unsatisfying. Once we establish what's actually going on in the stone the matador shifts to a fairly uninspired political thriller where the supposedly advanced future civilisation reveals itself to be easily fooled and out-thought in ways that don't seem plausible. The entire second half of the plot feels like it's lifted from a different, inferior, novel and the denouement falls to engage.
It feels a little as if a shorter, better novel was edited and passed out into something which the publisher thought would sell better, losing its punch on the way.
drags a bit
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.