Listen free for 30 days
-
The Smoke
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Science Fiction & Fantasy, Science Fiction
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Listen with a free trial
Buy Now for £14.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Hunting Unicorns
- By: Bella Pollen
- Narrated by: Alex Jennings, Amber Sealey
- Length: 4 hrs and 55 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
American Maggie Monroe is a journalist for New York's hard-hitting current affairs show Newsline. Independent and fearless, the more cutting-edge the story, the happier she is. But when her next assignment turns out to be an in-depth documentary on the decline of England's ruling classes, she's furious at being sent to cover a bloody tea party.
-
If I Could Tell You
- By: Elizabeth Wilhide
- Narrated by: Lucy Price-Lewis
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Suffolk, 1939: Julia Compton has a beautifully well-ordered life. Once a promising musician, she now has a handsome husband who pays the bills, a young son she adores and a housekeeper who takes care of her comfortable home. Then, on the eve of war, something unexpected happens. She falls in love. Cut off from family and friends, Julia loses everything. Penniless and denied access to her son, she is cast adrift in wartime London with her bohemian filmmaker lover, Dougie.
-
Underground: Tales for London
- By: Various
- Narrated by: Sarah Beckett, Ash Rizi, Isabella Inchbald, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Underground, we are at once isolated and connected. We avoid eye contact and conversation while our lives literally intersect with those of strangers. As we stand on the tube, it becomes possible to travel far further than expected - and this sense of possibility lies at the heart of this stunning collection. Twelve writers explore life on the London Underground through eleven short stories and one memoir, commissioned to mark the opening of the Elizabeth line in 2018.
-
The Hunger Trace
- By: Edward Hogan
- Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After the sudden death of David Bryant, the charismatic owner of a Derbyshire parkland, three people are left to mourn him in very different ways. Maggie, David's young widow; Louisa, who has harboured an infatuation with David since her youth; and Christopher, David'' eccentric teenage son from an earlier marriage. In the aftermath of disaster, they will each face decisions which will define them...
-
The Long Hot Summer
- By: Kathleen MacMahon
- Narrated by: Grainne Gills
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nine lives. Four generations. One family. The MacEntees are no ordinary family. Determined to be different to other people, they have carved out a place for themselves in Irish life by the sheer force of their own personalities. But when a horrifying act of violence befalls television star Alma, a chain of events is set in motion that will leave even the MacEntees struggling to make sense of who they are.
-
The Spider Truces
- By: Tom Connolly
- Narrated by: Joe Jameson
- Length: 12 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ellis is obsessed with the spiders that inhabit the crumbling house where he lives with his dad, his older sister and Great-Aunt Mafi - and by a need to find out more about his mother, whose death overshadows the family's otherwise happy existence. He is a sensitive soul - awkward and out of place most of the time but funny, too, and with an embarrassing habit of speaking his thoughts aloud, whatever the company.
-
-
classic
- By hazanne on 31-01-16
-
Hunting Unicorns
- By: Bella Pollen
- Narrated by: Alex Jennings, Amber Sealey
- Length: 4 hrs and 55 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
American Maggie Monroe is a journalist for New York's hard-hitting current affairs show Newsline. Independent and fearless, the more cutting-edge the story, the happier she is. But when her next assignment turns out to be an in-depth documentary on the decline of England's ruling classes, she's furious at being sent to cover a bloody tea party.
-
If I Could Tell You
- By: Elizabeth Wilhide
- Narrated by: Lucy Price-Lewis
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Suffolk, 1939: Julia Compton has a beautifully well-ordered life. Once a promising musician, she now has a handsome husband who pays the bills, a young son she adores and a housekeeper who takes care of her comfortable home. Then, on the eve of war, something unexpected happens. She falls in love. Cut off from family and friends, Julia loses everything. Penniless and denied access to her son, she is cast adrift in wartime London with her bohemian filmmaker lover, Dougie.
-
Underground: Tales for London
- By: Various
- Narrated by: Sarah Beckett, Ash Rizi, Isabella Inchbald, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Underground, we are at once isolated and connected. We avoid eye contact and conversation while our lives literally intersect with those of strangers. As we stand on the tube, it becomes possible to travel far further than expected - and this sense of possibility lies at the heart of this stunning collection. Twelve writers explore life on the London Underground through eleven short stories and one memoir, commissioned to mark the opening of the Elizabeth line in 2018.
-
The Hunger Trace
- By: Edward Hogan
- Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After the sudden death of David Bryant, the charismatic owner of a Derbyshire parkland, three people are left to mourn him in very different ways. Maggie, David's young widow; Louisa, who has harboured an infatuation with David since her youth; and Christopher, David'' eccentric teenage son from an earlier marriage. In the aftermath of disaster, they will each face decisions which will define them...
-
The Long Hot Summer
- By: Kathleen MacMahon
- Narrated by: Grainne Gills
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nine lives. Four generations. One family. The MacEntees are no ordinary family. Determined to be different to other people, they have carved out a place for themselves in Irish life by the sheer force of their own personalities. But when a horrifying act of violence befalls television star Alma, a chain of events is set in motion that will leave even the MacEntees struggling to make sense of who they are.
-
The Spider Truces
- By: Tom Connolly
- Narrated by: Joe Jameson
- Length: 12 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ellis is obsessed with the spiders that inhabit the crumbling house where he lives with his dad, his older sister and Great-Aunt Mafi - and by a need to find out more about his mother, whose death overshadows the family's otherwise happy existence. He is a sensitive soul - awkward and out of place most of the time but funny, too, and with an embarrassing habit of speaking his thoughts aloud, whatever the company.
-
-
classic
- By hazanne on 31-01-16
-
The Fragments
- By: Toni Jordan
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Inga Karlson died in a fire in New York in the 1930s, leaving behind three things: a phenomenally successful first novel, the scorched fragments of a second book - and a literary mystery that has captivated generations of readers. Nearly 50 years later, Brisbane bookseller Caddie Walker is waiting in line to see a Karlson exhibition featuring the famous fragments when she meets a charismatic older woman. The woman quotes a phrase from the Karlson fragments that Caddie knows does not exist - and yet to Caddie, who knows Inga Karlson’s work like she knows her name, it feels genuine.
-
-
A rare find... kept me engaged throughout
- By catherine shovlin on 07-05-20
-
The Song House
- By: Trezza Azzopardi
- Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Kenneth Earl advertises for someone to help him catalogue his vast collection of music, Maggie - the final candidate - is his last hope. What he doesn’t know, however, is that this isn’t the first time that Maggie has been to Earl House, and it’s no coincidence that she applied for the job.
-
How to Paint a Dead Man
- By: Sarah Hall
- Narrated by: Philip Franks
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Italy in the early 1960s: A dying painter considers the sacrifices and losses that have made him an enigma, both to strangers and those closest to him. He begins his last life painting, using the same objects he has painted obsessively for his entire career - a small group of bottles. In Cumbria thirty years later, a landscape artist - and admirer of the Italian recluse - finds himself trapped in the extreme terrain that has made him famous.
-
-
Mmmmm ... polished enough but empty I think
- By Gerard on 27-01-21
-
The Ecliptic
- By: Benjamin Wood
- Narrated by: Jane MacFarlane
- Length: 14 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a forested island off the coast of Istanbul stands Portmantle, a gated refuge for beleaguered artists. There, a curious assembly of painters, architects, writers and musicians strive to restore their faded talents. Elspeth 'Knell' Conroy is a celebrated painter who has lost faith in her ability and fled the dizzying art scene of 1960s London. On the island, she spends her nights locked in her blacked-out studio, testing a strange new pigment for her elusive masterpiece. But when a disaffected teenager named Fullerton arrives at the refuge, he disrupts its established routines.
-
-
slow to start but stick with it becomes excellent
- By fred2020 on 24-07-18
-
Cthulhu Lives!
- An Eldritch Tribute to H. P. Lovecraft
- By: Salome Jones
- Narrated by: Leeman Kessler, Alasdair Stuart
- Length: 6 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This volume brings together 17 masterful tales of cosmic horror inspired by Lovecraft's work. In his fiction, humanity is a tiny, accidental drop of light and life in the endless darkness of an uncaring universe a darkness populated by vast, utterly alien horrors. Our continued survival relies upon our utter obscurity, something that every fresh scientific wonder threatens to shatter.
-
-
Amateur sounding narrator make it unlistenable
- By Jaime on 18-01-20
-
The Long Gaze Back
- By: Sinéad Gleeson
- Narrated by: Caroline Lennon, Kevin Hely
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spanning four centuries, The Long Gaze Back features 22 new stories by some of the most talented Irish women writers working today. Taken together, the collected works of these writers reveal an enrapturing, unnerving, and piercingly beautiful mosaic of a lively literary landscape. The anthology presents an inclusive and celebratory portrait of the high calibre of contemporary literature in Ireland. These stories run the gamut from heartbreaking to humorous, but each leaves a lasting impression. They chart the passions, obligations, trials and tribulations of a variety of vividly drawn characters with unflinching honesty and relentless compassion. These are stories to savour.
-
The Sick Rose
- By: Erin Kelly
- Narrated by: Abigail Hollick
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Paul has been led into a life of crime by his schoolyard protector, Daniel - but one night, what started as petty theft escalates fatally. Now, at 19, Paul must bear witness against his friend to avoid imprisonment. Louisa has her own dark secrets. Having fled from them many years ago, she now spends her days steeped in history, renovating the grounds of a crumbling Elizabethan mansion. But her fragile peace is shattered when she meets Paul....
-
-
Another stunning work
- By Cathy on 02-10-11
-
The Poison Tree
- By: Erin Kelly
- Narrated by: Alison Reid
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is the sweltering summer of 1997 when strait-laced, straight-A student Karen meets Biba - a bohemian and impossibly glamorous aspiring actress.She is drawn to her new friend’s carefree world of constant parties, and quickly abandons her old life to move into the crumbling Highgate mansion Biba shares with her brother Rex and a stream of lodgers. For a while, life is one long summer of love. But summer must end. And by the end of theirs, two people would be dead.
-
-
very good
- By JANET on 09-10-11
-
Jellyfish
- By: Janice Galloway
- Narrated by: Janice Galloway
- Length: 4 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Janice Galloway redefined contemporary Scottish fiction with the extraordinary The Trick Is to Keep Breathing, first published in 1989, going on to become a towering presence in British literature, winning the McVitie's Prize, the EM Forster Award, the Saltire Scottish Book of the Year Award and the SMIT Non-fiction Book of the Year. She is a novelist, short story writer, memoiriere, librettist, essayist and poet.
-
-
A wonderful narrator
- By A Friend on 22-12-15
-
Lovers and Newcomers
- By: Rosie Thomas
- Narrated by: Rula Lenska
- Length: 15 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Miranda Meadowe decides a lonely widowhood in her crumbling country house is not for her. Reviving a university dream, she invites five of her oldest friends to come and join her to live, and to stave off the prospect of old age. All have their own reasons for accepting.To begin with, omens are good. They laugh, dance, drink and behave badly, as they cling to the heritage they thought was theirs for ever: power, health, stability.
-
The Pier Falls
- By: Mark Haddon
- Narrated by: Clare Corbett, Daniel Weyman
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An expedition to Mars goes terribly wrong. A seaside pier collapses. A 30-stone man is confined to his living room. One woman is abandoned on a tiny island in the middle of the ocean. Another woman is saved from drowning. Two boys discover a gun in a shoebox. A group of explorers find a cave of unimaginable size deep in the Amazon jungle. A man shoots a stranger in the chest on Christmas Eve.
-
-
Powerful, desolate, depressing
- By Derrick on 16-05-16
-
Constance
- By: Rosie Thomas
- Narrated by: Eva Haddon
- Length: 15 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Constance, a musician, composer, and arranger of other people's music, has made a new life for herself in Bali. On hearing the news of her sister's serious illness, the last thing she wants is to leave her relaxed lifestyle and return to London.
-
-
loved it.
- By sally smith on 03-10-18
Summary
Simon Ings' The Smoke is about love, loss and loneliness in an incomprehensible world.
Humanity has been split into three different species. Mutual incomprehension has fractured the globe. As humans race to be the first of their kind to reach the stars, another Great War looms. For you that means returning to Yorkshire and the town of your birth, where factories churn out the parts for gigantic spaceships.
You're done with the pretentions of the capital and its unfathomable architecture. You're done with the people of the Bund, their easy superiority and unstoppable spread throughout the city of London and beyond. You're done with Georgy Chernoy and his questionable defeat of death. You're done with his daughter, Fel, and losing all the time. You're done with love. But soon enough you will find yourself in the Smoke again, drawn back to the life you thought you'd left behind. You're done with love. But love's not done with you.
More from the same
What listeners say about The Smoke
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Miss Andrea Mary Scott
- 27-04-20
Original storytelling approach
Completely engaging from the first to the last word. Everything from the completely mundane lives of everyday people to the absolutely unintelligible actions of an alien race will leave you pondering how it's all connected for days afterwards.
1 person found this helpful