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Permafrost

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Permafrost

By: Alastair Reynolds
Narrated by: Natasha Soudek
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About this listen

A LOCUS AWARD FINALIST FOR BEST NOVELLA

Fix the past. Save the present. Stop the future. Master of science fiction Alastair Reynolds unfolds a time-traveling climate fiction adventure in Permafrost.

2080: at a remote site on the edge of the Arctic Circle, a group of scientists, engineers and physicians gather to gamble humanity’s future on one last-ditch experiment. Their goal: to make a tiny alteration to the past, averting a global catastrophe while at the same time leaving recorded history intact. To make the experiment work, they just need one last recruit: an ageing schoolteacher whose late mother was the foremost expert on the mathematics of paradox.

2028: a young woman goes into surgery for routine brain surgery. In the days following her operation, she begins to hear another voice in her head... an unwanted presence which seems to have a will, and a purpose, all of its own – one that will disrupt her life entirely. The only choice left to her is a simple one.

Does she resist ... or become a collaborator?

 Fiction Hard Science Fiction Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction Time Travel Surgery

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All stars
Most relevant
Alastair Reynolds has become one of my favourite authors and it was not until I went away to try material from other writers and came back that I was reminded of his quality.. I usually avoid shorter stories but I was intrigued by the summary of Permafrost. I was not disappointed. Natasha Soudek was an inspired choice of narrator to convey the bleak Russian backdrop and characters. Reynolds applied a moving and measured ending to the story, which could so easily have been spoiled with an up-beat one, which it certainly was not. Good stuff.

Usual high calibre material from this author

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A really interesting take.
Not your run of the mill time travel book.
Just the right length.

At last a descent time travel book.

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Thought provoking and sad. A very different time travelling experience and nothing like any of the previous Alastair Reynolds works I’ve read before.

So very different

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ENJOYABLE TIME TRAVEL STORY WITH A TWIST,NOT QUITE AT HIS USUAL FIVE STAR LEVEL BUT A DEFINITE FOUR STAR PLUS.

SOMETHING DIFFERENT TO USUAL SPACE OPERA

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Probably the best time-travel story I've read/heard if only because part of its premise revolves around the paradoxes of time travel. I see that one reviewer complains about the narrator's 'fake Russian accent'; as it happens, Natasha Soudek is Russian as he would have heard, had he listened to the post-script. Given that many of the characters were Russian and given the grief that underlaid the whole story, I say that her narration and accent were perfect for the job. She also did a good job of separating the characters. The only thing that bothered me was the description of the main event in the end run; I know a little bit about that technology and it doesn't happen like that. Otherwise; another excellent Alastair Reynolds story.

Time travel with a twist - or three

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