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Quarantine
- Narrated by: Adam Epstein
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Science Fiction & Fantasy, Fantasy
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Editor reviews
Adam Epstein brings a conversational, offhand delivery to a neurologically-enhanced gumshoe named Nick Stavrianos in Quarantine.
Greg Egan’s science-fiction novel is set in the year 2067 in a world where the solar system has been enclosed by an unbreakable barrier put in place by an unknown extraterrestrial force. Andrews is hired to find a brain-damaged woman named Laura Andrews, who has disappeared from her institution. Following her to Hong Kong, Stavriano’s case leads him closer to the mysterious force that’s "quarantined" the solar system.
Epstein performs Stavriano’s narration in a world-weary tone, his voice modulating in his nuanced renditions of the story’s many characters.
Summary
In 2034, the stars went out. An unknown agency surrounded the solar system with an impenetrable barrier, concealing the universe from humanity’s gaze.
In 2067, Nick Stavrianos is hired to investigate the disappearance of a mentally disabled woman, Laura Andrews, from the institution where she was being cared for. Aided by a skull full of neural modifications, he follows her trail to the Republic of New Hong Kong, where an organization known as the Ensemble has uncovered Laura’s extraordinary secret: An ability that could transform the world.
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What listeners say about Quarantine
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Samuel Brooks
- 20-02-20
Decent story let down by bad narrator
I love Greg Egan's books, but the narrator's repetitive intonation in every phrase is distracting and makes the book a slog to get through.
1 person found this helpful
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- Big Dave
- 21-02-22
Top shelf
A fascinating book and solid performance. There're complaints about the narrator in some reviews but I thought he did a solid job; his pacing and tone were perfect for the protagonist. Some of the female and Catonese character voices were a bit odd imo but always clear, full of appropriate emotion and distinguishable.
The story is more tell than show than I would normally be happy with but with a topic like this I don't see any other way. The concepts in play here well presented and explored, if I was being really picky I would have liked a little more tension in there but this is a fantastic book and the author deserves all the praise he gets and probably a great deal more on top.
Highly recommended.
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- Kindle Customer
- 23-08-20
Great Egan, tiring listen
The story is classic Egan: extremely original, hard sci-fi intertwined with thought-provoking philosophical passages, all wrapped up in an entertaining thriller. Yet the listen was not a great experience. The reader insisted in punching every end of a sentence, and often even more frequently than that. Unnatural and exhausting. His ability to convey different characters was good, though.
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- Michael Oberhardt
- 09-12-13
Fantastic Story Let Down by Narration
Where does Quarantine rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
In terms of narration, the worst so far.
In terms of story, up in the top 20%
What did you like best about this story?
The great ideas, like the priming, quantum mechanics, behavioral mods, and the quarantining of earth. The first part of the book, before it got into the quantum mechanics side of it, really reminded me of the Ghost in the Shell universe.
Would you be willing to try another one of Adam Epstein’s performances?
Yes, but only as I'm a Greg Egan fan, and no other option sadly.
I was able to "get used to it", but it was a conscious effort...
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
Not so much moving, but the lead character's discussing the behavior mods as a means of avoiding grief, and rationale behind it, on humans having always strived for behavioral modification, and a hardware mechanism of doing it being no less valid.
Any additional comments?
I've been a long term Greg Egan fan and was excited to see his books getting audiobook releases. However, the narrator they have chosen really is not very good, and it makes it a struggle to listen to. But if you can get past it, persevere, the story is worth it. If you still read written books though, I'd recommend just getting the written version. It is hard to pass up the convenience of audiobooks though...
9 people found this helpful
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- Supreme Chancellor
- 01-10-15
Awesome read!
What did you love best about Quarantine?
This story had a great concept, and the author did a great job of making a difficult subject comprehensible to the lay-person. I can't help but think this could explain some of the oddities in our world like the Mandela Effect.
What did you like best about this story?
The level of technical detail was refreshing. Guessing what technology will be available in three to six decades is always difficult, but some sci-fi authors are surprisingly good at predicting how technology will evolve.
Which character – as performed by Adam Epstein – was your favorite?
The main character.
If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?
The sky is the limit; literally.
2 people found this helpful
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- Michael Kalyaano
- 02-06-15
Good book, bad reader
I gave up listening to the audio version after 10 minutes.The reader tried a poor hard boiled detective style. His patronising attempt at Chinese accent was woeful. I could not bear it. I read the paperback many years ago and will have to read this fascinating book again.
2 people found this helpful
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- Matthew
- 28-02-15
Another great book killed by narrators pacing.
Stop sabotaging your books by pacing the narrators. The third wall is broken with every pause... every over enunciated... halting... word. I've forgotten the beginning of the sentence by the time narration reaches the end.
It's unlistenable.
7 people found this helpful
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- Jennifer
- 09-04-20
Bizarre and really really cool
This book has a fascinating and unique premise that it utilizes to its fullest extent. The spy stuff near the end with the protagonists surreal superpower was thrilling and extremely cool. As with all of Egan's works this book explores themes of consciousness in a refreshingly logical way that is not often seen. Also typical of Egan's books the ending was a bit of a letdown, and I personally did not understand it at all.
The performance was pretty mediocre, but it was not bad enough to make me stop listening.
Overall, a fantastic read if you're a fan of hard sci fi.
1 person found this helpful
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- Danny Metzcalf
- 16-04-22
Leaves you wonderstuck thinking about the premise!
Some science fiction is just a story set with a twist, or a murder mystery in space, a romance but with cyborgs. Even hard science fiction, it's a lot of focus on a spaceship design or something and then people do stuff in the spaceship. Not for the Glorious Greg Egan! this author find a way to fundamentally shift reality, carefully backed by doing the math and thinking about the physics and the underlying axioms of the universe. his characters aren't a story with a twist, they exist in an altered reality where the fundamentals from the quantum foam up have been modified and carefully, carefully considered. Egan is one of the few authors where when you're done with the book you end up on Wikipedia learning more about the topic and a few weeks later you still can't get the premise out of your head, and suddenly you find yourself by chance talking to someone super technical or educated or whatever and you find that you came away from the Egan book with a full education and you can talk the talk with the best of them!
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- Daniel Smith
- 04-01-19
What more could I want from a Greg Egan Tale
Cool tech, deep science, and mind blowing revelations. loved it, right up there with his best.
Narrator is a bit deadpan. But works well with the sort of cyberpunk noir theme.
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- James
- 06-11-18
Can't handle this voice actor
I love Greg Egan books, but the guy who reads narrates Quarantine and Diaspora absolutely destroys the experience for me. I'm sorry Mr. Egan, you deserve better
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- Jacob
- 01-05-18
Interesting premise let down by sloppy execution
Disappointed. The entire premise of the "bubble" was turned out to be a bait and switch after a promising opening. What the novel was presented as being about turned into hard sci-fi with a focus on quantum mechanics.
Now I like hard sci-fi so that wouldn't necessarily be a problem but the author seem to struggle with the presentation. A big part of the book consists of bland characters just having monologues/dialogues. These lengthy sessions seem to have little more purpose than to provide the listener with enough of an understanding of the mechanics that will make the ending plausible.
Shame really.
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- m. nonymous
- 17-06-17
Egan not at his best
Quantum mechanics is not so pliable as simulated humanity - this ends up frustrating given Egan's level of detail and extrapolation.