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Serpent's Reach

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Serpent's Reach

By: C. J. Cherryh
Narrated by: Romy Nordlinger
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About this listen

The constellation of Hydri, also called the Serpent, became an undesirable destination during the era of humanity's most prolific interstellar colonization. For Hydri was under strict quarantine because it harbored an intelligent and dangerous alien race, the insectoid majat. Yet human colonies predating the quarantine did exist in this sector of space, which they called Serpent's Reach. Cut off from others of their own kind, they had their own inbred culture and special relationships with the alien majat.

Raen was the only survivor of the massacred Sul family, and she had made a pledge to devote her life to seeking vengeance for her slain clan. Her thirst for revenge would take her not only across the worlds of the Reach, but into the very center of an alien webwork that knit the stars of the forbidden constellation into a complex of interbred alien hives that no outsider could hope to unravel, and where most of humanity dared not go.

©1980 C.J. Cherryh (P)2012 Audible, Inc. Science Fiction

Critic reviews

"For interesting aliens, try Cherryh's Serpent's Reach. In it she has created what may be the first sympathetic hive mind in SF. Cherryh has successfully avoided almost all the mystic pseudoscience claptrap inspired in her predecessors by Earth's social insects. She has achieved a Hive intelligence that makes sense. I congratulate her and I look forward to her attempt to top it." ( Analog)
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I first read this book years ago and really enjoyed the story the pace and the characters, now I’ve heard the audible version the enjoyment I first felt has come flooding back. I would love to see it as a film if the script did the book justice and stayed true to the story. I would recommend to anyone liking sci-fi

A great read

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Would you try another book written by C. J. Cherryh or narrated by Romy Nordlinger?

All of C J Cherryh's books are great. This one could have been a really good audio book but is narrated so badly that it is barely listenable.

Would you be willing to try another one of Romy Nordlinger’s performances?

No

If this book were a film would you go see it?

Yes

Another great book ruined by terrible reading!

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C J Cherryh is a very good story teller, this recording is quite good, I have read the book and have enjoyed hearing it I can recommend both this recording and the book very well written

Great read

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