Wonderful listening

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Full of suspense and substance. Plenty of food for thought, the kind of read that has you ruminating throughout your day, well after putting it down. Great sub culture references, sci fi content and political discourse.

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Great!

Very imaginative story that takes you across time. The beginning is quite jarring and strange. I loved the first two thirds of the book, while the final third was not quite as awesome. Some of the voices too a while for me to get into but I got used to it after an hour or so.

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EPIC EPIC EPIC

An excellent narrative and very exciting . A wonderful journey with great well written characters.

You won't be disappointed.

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Disappointing

An interesting premise but a somewhat tedious and lack lustre result in my opinion. The story also felt unbalanced and in need of a good edit.

Add to that no particularly likeable characters and I would say this is an average listening experience.

If you know the author and like his work I'm sure you will enjoy this. If you don't, like me, you may be disappointed.

Narration is competent.

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Intriguing apocalypse view

Although the world was well-built, believable and different, I wasn't particularly convinced with the story.

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Eh. It was OK.

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Honestly I wouldn't recommend it. Whilst the subject matter was interesting and the premise of the story had great potential I just found it somewhat laborious.
Some parts were quite interesting. The way the science was explained was interesting and plausible. There was quite a lot of detail in the science of gravitation mechanics and zero-g maneuvering which was handled very well.

What was most disappointing about Neal Stephenson’s story?

The start was slow and took a long time to get going.And the ending was disappointing. There was no real rise in tempo or large dramatic action, and the conclusion was weak. I was left feeling a bit like "is that it?".

Would you listen to another book narrated by Peter Brooke?

Sorry but I didn't like the narrator. I found his voice quite nasal, and it was quite high pitched. I also struggled hearing the American accent finding it pretty annoying to start with, but I had gotten used to it by the end.

Do you think Seveneves needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

Yes. There were a number of things alluded to in the story which played no part in the narrative, and seemed to be teasers to something greater happening. But none of that ever played out.

Any additional comments?

I've heard good things about Neal Stephenson, I'm just sorry that this was my introduction to his work.

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Good stuff

Good stuff, very dense but contently interesting.

Accents were totally unnecessary. When will audio book producers ever get it, that the accents are not needed, and that women read female parts best, men sound ridiculous and are always falling back on the 'southern accent'.

So overdone

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So disappointing

I chose to ignore other reviews about the narration and I enjoyed the story until the 5000 year time jump.
The first 70-80% of the book was wonderfully described and detailed with an interesting story and great characters.
The last part just seemed like a long description of technical details with only a skeleton of story. I really thought I must have missed something important because the story line seemed to assume that the reader/listener had background knowledge that would make the story understandable.
I felt let down after having devoted so much time to this book.

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Incredible read! Amazing sci fi !

Wow. This book blew me away. Such amazing sci- fi. Neil Stephenson writes with pressing context and impressive furore, that it is a integral novel of our times.

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A stretch too far?

Neal Stephenson is a great story-teller and this is the only reason I stayed with this book to the end. This time his characters were drowning in excess technical and scientific detail. If I were reading this book it would be possible to scan and skip these lengthy and tedious passages, but this is difficult when listening. Secondly, I found the technology 5000 years in the future somewhat difficult to imagine from his explanations. I couldn't 'see' the shape and colour of the things without listening to the passages a few times. Overall, I think this one was a clunker and I'm hoping for him to regain his narrative strength.

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5 people found this helpful