Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier

I'm very hesitant to give Space Chronicles a low rating because I like Dr. Tyson as a television host, and I love the subject matter of this book. Plus, I was entertained while listening to it. The problem is that I wasn't very educated by it. I've known 95% of the material covered by it for many years, and that's just from watching the Discovery and History channels. In fact, you would have to be extremely novice on the subject to not have heard it before.<br/><br/>To be fair, I did learn some things about NASA's budget and the government politics that can make or break a NASA project...<br/><br/>...but that's about it.<br/><br/>Another thing you should know before purchasing this book is that it's really more of a collection of articles than an actual book. Due to this fact the same material is covered over and over using the exact same words and phrases over and over (seriously, over and over... Dozens of times in some cases). Honestly, it could have been edited down to about two hours and there would have been no material loss. <br/><br/>Something else that bothered me is how Dr. Tyson inserts his tweets into the narrative. They wouldn't be so bad at the ends of the chapters or something, but they are randomly scattered throughout the book and break up the train of thought in many places. Trust me, it gets very annoying.<br/><br/>Mirron Willis is the narrator. At first I didn't like his voice, (nothing in particular, I just didn't like it) but he's a very competent reader and after a while he grew on me. <br/><br/>That concludes my review.<br/>

Of all the books that expand on the love of space travel and the importance being at the forefront of science as a nation. This is the best book I have listened to. I would rank this book in the top 20% of the almost 200 titles I have listened to. But this is a bad measuring method of quality or investment worthiness. Of all the books that I have listened to, few fall in this same category. In fact I can't think of any with the same general topic Neil is tackling here.

Mirron Willis has a great voice and narration. But his lackluster pronunciation of some very prominent men drives me nuts. Also, the V in Saturn V is the Roman numeral for 5, should be read Saturn 5. I would hope that Audible would pick a narrator for a book that has at least some knowledge or interest in the subject mater and would know some of the pronunciations of these terms and names. There are multiple times where it felt like he just guessed at it and kept on going. It feels almost like a lack of professionalism.

I blasted Mirron Willis here for his poor pronunciations. But I wonder if the producers should be the ones that need to do a better job? Its just annoying. Its not tomato tomato (That doesn't work in text, but you know what i mean) It's not even close. It's a lack of trying.

The narrator did not sound human. The book itself is a little repetitive, I felt like some chapters were exactly the same as chapters in one of Dr Tyson's other books "Death By Black Hole"

The chapter about NASA funding and politics was very informative.

He was very monotone in his performance, almost robotic. It made it very hard to focus on what was actually being said.

Another great NDT book, as always. Huge fan! Met him in Salt Lake 2 years ago. The narrator just sounds so stuck up throughout the entire book. It bothered me every day how pompous his voice sounds in this reading.

yes

yes

If you're going to read a book by an astrophysicist you ought not be scientifically illiterate.

some of the repetitious blog posts

Why can't the author read his own book? Dr Tyson has a great voice, which is something I was looking forward to. This narrator's voice is kind of annoying, and made it hard to focus on the content.

Could not last 5 minutes listening to this book. No judgement on the content. The readers cadence was all over the map.

Yet another amazing book by Neil Degrasse Tyson however the narrator on this reminds me of a much more nasally sounding professor Snape.

Sure - Mirron Willis has great expression in his telling of this story.

This one is less about science, and more about how we can get around to doing the science. I enjoyed this book, but it was very different from others by the author.

What a great voice! He has a style similar to the author, but he is not an imitator.

Another well-written book with dry wit, realism, and an overall passion for science (and doing science).

This book talks about the history of US space exploration, particularly the interconnections of space exploration with the drive for military superiority during the Cold War. The overall arch of the story builds toward a compelling argument for the future of NASA, and US space exploration.

Other than quite a bit of repetition, Dr. Tyson shares a simple overview of how space is typically viewed in society (and the random space facts that don't quite fit in the overall story).