Mitch

Story Just Quits

Revisado: 09-26-15

I get it. This book is intended to be part of a series. But every book in a series shold stand alone. This one just stops. You can sense the advertisement, for the rest of the story, buy the next book in the series.

If this woman is an example of the survivors, then humanity truly is at its extinction point. She has very poor survival skills.

She doesn't drive, so she has to bicycle from NYC to Alaska. So, does she get freeze dried food when she's picking out survival gear. Nope. She opts for canned soup and canned fruit. Does she grab a survival knife. Nope. Batteries. Nope. Cycling clothes. Nope. A tent and sleeping bag. Nope. Etc.

Yet she goes back to her apartment after running into aliens in her building to get fresh underwear. C'mon. She could get that at any department store on her path. OK, she also went back to get the sat phone, but she shouldn't have left that or anything she needed when she left her apartment.

I'm sorry. If you're the sole survivor in NYC, the least of your concerns is a daily change of underwear.

Then she has the curiosity of Pandora instead of the good sense to keep on riding as a brush fire is dangerously close. Of course, that brings her face-to-face with dangerous aliens.

There's even a deus ex machine when her curiosity is getting her killed and a Malamute dog appears out of nowhere and saves her.

The narrator did a fine job. It's the author who offered a dimwitted protagonist and the hand of God to save her. I *might* have gone for the next volume, if the first didn't end so abruptly. Better yet, if this survivor died and the next started with someone with a little common sense.

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A Bit Tedious

Revisado: 09-05-15

As far as a cozy mystery goes, this was OK. I agree with the many reviewers that Agatha Raisin is not a likeable protagonist. The thing about protagonists is that they don't have to be likeable. They have to engage the reader.

I was engaged by this story until about 3/4 finished. By then I had pretty much figured out who was the killer and was ready for the story to end. It didn't. Like her character, the author didn't know when to wrap up the story. Instead the story steps sideways. Agatha goes to London. Will she return. Will she stay in the Cotswolds. Etc.

The narration was excellent.

Warts and all, this book was well-worth the Daily Special price I paid for it. I'd even consider listening to another volume in the series.

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Reads Like a High Concept Movie Script

Revisado: 06-21-15

This is a novel screaming to be a movie. The protagonist faces numerous challenges. Each time he solves a problem, another emerges and threatens to end his life.

Some of the science is OK. Some is incorrect. Sometimes there are more plausible explanations. Like the drill short-circuiting the communications with Earth. Current is drawn and unless that current is pulled through the rover, a more likely explanation is a ground loop problem. That will also damage delicate electronic components and is a more likely explanation.

Likewise, the preponderance of pyroxides on Mars is not really explored. It's easy to get oxygen on Mars without electrolysis. Pour some water from a fuel cell on much of the surface. The trick is capturing and pressurizing it for storage.

More important is the need to suspend belief on a couple of matters. How that "hab" manages to stay on the ground is not adequately explained. Well, it is, once it is loaded with soil, but that comes as a byproduct of the astronaut trying to grow potatoes to survive. At one Earth atmosphere of pressure, it would require a lot to keep a canvas "hab" on the ground. Likewise, the Martian atmosphere is so thin and the surface so pocked with craters, who would want to reside for any length of time in a canvas structure. Even small particles travelling at high velocity through the atmosphere would tear through it with explosive decompression the almost certain result as the 1 Earth atmosphere tears through even the tiniest hole. Then there is the issue of cosmic rays. The near absence of atmosphere and magnetosphere means that time on the surface would have to be extremely limited. The typical solutions are feet of dirt or feet of water surrounding the habitat. I'm not aware of any canvas coating that will deflect cosmic rays. They travel with too much velocity for a micron thin coating to offer any appreciable resistance.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed this book immensely. The narrator did a truly superb job reading the text. I highly recommend The Martian. But while it is hard sci fi, it remains just that more fiction than science, in spite of the digression of number of potato yields, etc.

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Well-Written, Painful Narration

Revisado: 08-29-14

The book is generally well-written. It is less a military history and more a series of biographical vignettes. The book is a bit repetitious, right down to sentence fragments and even whole sentences being repeated in close enough proximity to be noticeable.

I would prefer a different narrator. Grover Gardner's voice is high pitched and nasal with an almost whinny quality to it. The audio editing, as others have noted, is below average with occasional fluctuations in volume, fullness, etc.

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Narcissism Without Bound

Revisado: 08-10-14

Libertarians will find much to like in this book. Emerson is totally self-absorbed and the philosophy he espouses in this essay offers no sense of social responsibility. I found the essay to be tiresome, since it can quickly be summed up as the philosophy of "Me."

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Uneven Narration and Adaptation

Revisado: 07-28-14

I would recommend the Foundation series to a friend. It is truly a classic. I'd be much less likely to recommend this dramatization, however. The sound effects were quite irritating at time. The volume varied, causing me to adjust it more than an audible book I've ever heard. The adaptation had more of the "cheesy" feel of Dr. Who or "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" than the Asimov Foundation series itself. If a listener's only experience with Asimov's "Foundation" series is this dramatization, they would have a very incomplete appreciation of the series. They should read "Foundation" first, but then I expect they would likely find this dramatization very disappointing

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Hard to Finish

Revisado: 07-28-14

What would have made More Than Human better?

A shorter novel. The novel was a conglomeration of three short stores. Together, in my opinion, they merit a single short story. There is simply not enough story to sustain a novel format.

Has More Than Human turned you off from other books in this genre?

No, it has not turned me off from Science Fiction.

Which scene was your favorite?

Part 2, narrated by Harlan Ellison. Part 1 nearly bored me to death. Part 3 brought closure, but it was still too long and tedious.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

A lot of boredom and feeling of tediousness. I found myself frequently feeling, "C'mon, get on with the story."

Any additional comments?

I am unsure why this book is such a classic, since it is so overwritten. The basic plot is interesting. I can understand why that would merit classifying it as "classic." But the story could have been told in 15-20 pages easily enough.

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A Classic Story, Read Well

Revisado: 05-07-14

This is a classic sci fi story that I never read. When Audible included it as part of a sci fi sale, I decided to download it. I'm glad I did.

The story is a delight. Dated, to be sure. It's from 1962. (Which sci fi title from that era isn't?)

I disagree with the comments about narrator. He's not the best Audible narrator, perhaps. But his telling of the story is perfectly acceptable. I especially like his narration of "Old Pappy."

I've enjoyed every minute of this story, even if it is predictable and stretched a bit. While it is a short book, it really should have been a novella or maybe even a short story. Still, it's definitely worth a listen, even if you're just looking to broaden your classic sci fi education.

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Tedious, Sophmoric

Revisado: 08-28-13

The narration was OK. A bit flat, which did not help with the tedious, repetitive, sophomoric prose. If you're a budding narcissist with delusions of grandeur, then I do not doubt that Anthem will be a stimulating credo. If Anthem is an exposition of Ayn Rand's "objectivist" philosophy, where is the philosophy? This is not a literary expression of philosophical principles. This book exhibits nothing approaching modern or classical philosophy.

It is a tedious story about elevating egoism and selfishness as the most important life guiding principles.

At least Atlas Shrugged and Fountainhead had some interesting characters and some interesting plot.

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Superb Collection, Well Narrated

Revisado: 08-28-13

I can't say if this IS the most complete volume of vampire stories ever published, but it certainly covers a very broad watershed. When I saw that the stories go back as far as the 19th century, I expected some dull and even downright tedious stories among this collection. Not at all! The stories are all interesting. The range of narrators adds to the interest. This is a really well-done collection of horror stories.

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