Laurence

pretty much what it says on the cover

Reviewed: 27-03-2024

Interesting project, transposing Dickens.
Not knowing how close the author would stick to the script added some suspense.
Languorously read, but well.

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A Cosy Florentine Fantasy

Reviewed: 27-11-2023

Warm and generous. A perfect book for summer evenings on the veranda while youngsters play tennis; or as an accompaniment to people watching by a piazza.
Countless coincidences and the occasional anachronism pulled me from the narrative, but might have been more readily forgiven if I'd had a glass of two of wine on board. Almost magic realism.
Aiming for the Captain Corelli's Mandolin reader, and no worse for the effort when at its best.

Beautifully read, albeit we may agree to differ on a couple of pronunciations, 'gibbous' jumps to mind. Some of the characters verged on caricature in a way they might not have on the page - but, overall, I can't imagine it read better.

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Warm hearted fairy tale, beautifully read.

Reviewed: 31-10-2023

If you want a fairy tale to warm you, this is perfect.
This narration is beautiful in pace and tone.

(The only way to improve it might be to have a loved adult read the book to you as a child).

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An odyssey of our inevitable apocalypse

Reviewed: 26-08-2023

An entertaining romp through the apocalypse we've got dialled in.

Maybe a little heavy on the exposition in an early chapter or two, but otherwise pacy and funny.

Linear, but none the worse for it.

Well read with entertaining but not distracting accents employed, rendering the majority of "he said"s redundant.

perfect for gardening and travel.

thanks!

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Another cracker

Reviewed: 25-08-2022

Struggle to understand why people rate 'Look to Windward' over this.
Any inevitability of the plot adds to, rather than detracts from, its intricate asthetic.
So far, all these Iain M Banks audiobooks are well performed, close enough to how they echoed in my head when first I read them.
Can't go wrong if you've enjoyed any of his others. And, if you've not read a Culture novel, I'd recommend starting with the first, Phlebas. But, either way, you've a treat in store.

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1 person found this helpful

Why Sci-fi/fantasy is anathema

Reviewed: 04-07-2022

Bookstores shouldn't have Sci-fi/Fantasy sections - or, they should and this could be in it.

Should authors be able to transcend genres? Absolutely. This one doesn't, he just conflates them.

If I pick up a fantasy novel, I might suspend my disbelief that every character will refer to their quest MacGuffin as, "The Staff of Blue". In full, every time. But in a sci-fi novel, not having one space marine or pirate trader refer to it as a blue stick or whatever?

Just the unrelenting humourlessness of the thing. OK, there's a slippery slope to full Douglas Adams, or John Scalzi... But just a bit of levity, occasionally even, between characters, or reflecting on a situation, maybe, please?

Of course, there is the unintended humour of characters whose every, agonisingly repetitive, metaphor goes to their squid-like lifestyle on their home world. They travel the galaxy in inside pressurised craft with approximately human-breathable air. Now, a sci-fi writer might have mumbled about the mass of water and had them in suits inside vacuum, or reflected on their ability, relative to humans, to withstand pressure and temperature changes. We just get tentacles.

There's a lot of plot-hole physics and disappointing oversight. Deep time seems to be measured in centuries, occasionally a millennium - that might be appropriate in fantasy novels, but not on stellar evolutionary scales. There's even a handing of items of power scene, like a too-friendly DM'd game of Dungeons and Dragons. And a ridiculous addendum about the physics, which I might accept from a physicist, or if philosophical like Orwell's musings on Newspeak, but this is just word salad.

Some or most of this might have been forgiven with elegant writing, David Mitchell and China Miéville jump to mind as examples of one's disbelief suspended in the elegance of sentences and intricacies of imagination. Here we have situations where we might well imagine the protagonist would be left concerned/happy/unsure and we are immediately told, she was, concerned/happy/unsure. Spoon-feeding ugliness abounds.

Without spoiler, I can observe that the payoff is drawn out far worse than Peter Jackson's 'Lord of the Rings' finale, to the extent that it, presumably inadvertently, undercuts any majesty of scope with a, 'thats all right then' moment almost stupid enough to raise a smile.

Gosh, it was awful. I trust I've conveyed some of the pain so you don't have to. If you liked the adaptation of one of this author's Dragon books, starring Jeremy Irons in a career low, you might like this.

The reader does her pretty good best with it.

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6 people found this helpful

Banks at his best, performed competently

Reviewed: 04-07-2022

If you want a hard-s.f. space opera with some sociological consciousness and a measured smattering of well integrated wit, then Iain M Banks is, was, your man.

Reading is fine.

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1 person found this helpful

If you like, you'll like

Reviewed: 04-07-2022

I found this a bit bland and occasionally mildly irritating - required reading for book club.

However, I imagine most readers will find out something about the author and want to hear more. If that's you, this book will do you just fine.

The reader performs themselves on radio for a living - so it's as good as it could be!

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Ridiculous but fun

Reviewed: 04-07-2022

Perfect acceptable modern Agatha Christie type effort with the sorts of nods and 'foutth walk breaks' that are inevitable these days but not so harsh as to overly distance the reader/listener.
Good Australian reading.

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Adequate for fans

Reviewed: 04-07-2022

A nice set-up.
Increasingly diverged from any believability and subtlety into caricature and inanity.
Reading was fine.

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