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The Quantum Magician

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About this listen

The breathtaking debut from acclaimed short story writer Derek Kunsken

Belisarius is a quantum man, an engineered Homo quantus who fled the powerful insight of dangerously addictive quantum senses. He found a precarious balance as a con man, but when a client offers him untold wealth to move a squadron of warships across an enemy wormhole, he must embrace his birthright to even try. In fact, the job is so big that he'll need a crew built from all the new sub-branches of humanity. If he succeeds, he might trigger an interstellar war, but success might also point the way to the next step of Homo quantus evolution.

©2018 Derek Kunsken (P)2018 Recorded Books Genetic Engineering Hard Science Fiction Science Fiction Fiction
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The book is well written and well narrated but the subject matter is very difficult to describe audibly quantum mechanics is only really slightly understood by the smartest people on the planet so to most of us it's just a name for something we know probably exists but don't know why or how.
That said his character portrayal and interactions are excellent.

great book difficult subject

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Great stuff. Fresh and different. Great story and great narration. I didn't understand most of the quantum physics stuff but I don't think I really needed to. The narrator got the heart racing with his urgency and pace during the exciting bits. Loved it.

Superb

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I have listened to the first hour 3 times now and I'm retaining nothing. Not that there is anything essentially wrong with either the story or the performance. I just don't have the mental hooks on which to hang this concept. As a mechanical engineer I'm normally good with hard sci-fi and can suspend disbelief if required, but this isn't working for me.

not sticking

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The author demonstrates a pronounced understanding of quantum concepts and has proven very capable in building a creative story around them.

The story itself borrows from other influences, though not excessively, but most notably from the heist popularised by the successful Ocean's franchise, and stays close to this all the way through to the end. Unquestionably, it is competent stuff written with some clever characterisation and a brisk pace that maintains a canter without too much effort. The story introduces some novel ideas and nice touches, but also never quite fully delivers on the excitement of its early promise of giving us something new. I rarely found myself caring enough about the main protagonist Belasarius and his grand scheme into which he is invested, or any of the other characters inhabiting this world, although the narrator did a good job bringing them all to life.

On the plus side, it is mostly an entertaining novel, well thought out with plenty of action and science thrown in, and pitched at an accessible level, even if you might not naturally gravitate towards hard sci-fi. But in the minus column, it never ventures too far from obvious cliché, and was easily inclined to follow a well worn path, even though it pretended not to. The unfolding vision the author describes loses itself in its own detail at times, and the quantum theme, whilst skilfully done, can feel somewhat misplaced in a heist story that struggles to fully justify it.

Good, but might have been better.

Crowd pleasing magic, but seen it all before

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I loved this book so much, the concepts were really interesting and the story kept me guessing. The characters felt real and complex with realistic motivations.

Great story and compelling characters

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