G. Bledsoe

Incredible Narrator

Revisado: 10-13-24

It’s Poe like atmosphere. The narrator does an excellent job with more than a hint of Christopher Lee.

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An Excellent Story

Revisado: 07-19-23

Some of Leonard’s stories are tongue-in-cheek, but not this one. This one is serious and also sad, if not bitter. I’d have to say it’s one of his best. Guidance does an especially good job at capturing not just accents, but the attitudes of the characters. Really well done.

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SciFi KItsch

Revisado: 04-30-19

My guess is that Douglas Richards, the author of this book, considers himself a 21st century Jules Verne. Or maybe the next Michael Crichton. He’s more like a 21st century version of Victor Appleton, the “house” pseudonym for whoever wrote any given Tom Swift book, and I don’t mean that in a good way. Richard’s writing is bland-vanilla, his few characters are flat, juvenile and stereotypic, his story-line is predictable and bourgeois, his setting a clumsy collection of Amazon trivia with science tidbits stapled on at the seams. He freely admits in the hour plus comments at the end of the recording that he knew nothing about the Amazon when he started the book. It shows. He has no real feel for anything. He just reads articles about stuff and then shoe horns it into his story. In an attempt to assure you how up to date and relevant he is he name drops Elon Musk repeatedly and (spare me) Star Trek. His occasional attempts at humor are lame in the extreme. Who told this man he could write?

The book does start off with some potentially interesting breaks in time and plot, but quickly the book slips into a pedestrian sequence of dimly imagined events. This is the writing of a middle school boy with immature fantasies.

In spite of Richards’ science background this really isn’t science fiction. It’s science fiction kitsch. It lacks any real sense of wonder or depth. It lacks atmosphere or voice. The science is inserted like an introvert at a party trying to break an awkward silence with a technology factoid.

There’s a disconnect between the story heard in this book and what Richard’s biography and sales indicate. If Seeker is any indication of how well he writes I don’t know how any editor would publish his writing. There are good scientists writing science fiction out there: Alastair Reynolds, for one. Maybe I’m just not a member of Richards’ style..

Readers of this book will also enjoy “Tom Swift and his Motorcycle,” “Flash Gordon: The Witch Queen of Mongo,” and “Rocket Ship Galileo.”

Bad juju, Maynard. Bad juju. And I don’t consider myself a reader who is hard to please.

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Disconnect

Revisado: 05-28-18

I’m not sure why my take on this book is so different than other readers. Maybe there are two books with the same title by the same author because the book I’m struggling through is grindingly awful. It has the literary merit of watching a friend play a video game especially if you don’t particularly like video games, which I don’t. The rest is cultural/camp name-dropping, which grows old pretty quickly.

Cline manages to keep as much distance between the reader and what little unoriginal plot lines as possible. He tells rather than shows--the mark of an amateur writer. He painfully fills the first seven or so chapters with back story. Another violation of basic writing. The book appears, sounds, feels, tastes and smells juvenile. If that was his purpose he nailed it, but it just doesn’t work for me. It's embarrassingly bad. Maybe a movie might breathe some life into this, but I don’t think special effects are going to help. It's playing in the background as I write this, and I’m just about to give it the axe.

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In Space, No One Can Hear You Scream...

Revisado: 12-25-16

...but in Audible everyone can.

There are no real surprises in this recording: you get what you expect--alien-style stalking terror. It fits neatly into the Alien mythos. Overall it's well acted (the actress playing Ripley does an amazing job sounding like Sigourney Weaver--maybe a bit more stilted), but if any Audible recording could be dramatically enhanced with stereo this is it. I understand the premise of mono recordings being smaller for quicker downloads back in the day of dial-up internet and with a single narrator and no special effects there's little need. But with today's download speeds and especially in a dramatized setting there's no excuse for mono. I can't help but believe this could still be easily re-mixed in stereo. Stereo would be mind-wrenchingly more terrifying. I would have awarded five stars across the board if it had been released in stereo.

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2nd Rate Bummer

Revisado: 06-15-16

I have to say I found the book depressing. I've read a number of books recently by authors who seem to think writing a downer is art. There are noir novels that make that formula work, but this book isn’t one of those. The author just doesn’t have that kind of skill or especially that kind of voice. The narrator didn’t help either. His reading of characters voice struck me as, for lack of a better word, "corny." I'm not a particularly difficult reader to please, but trust me, there are lots of better books out there written by better writers, narrated by more experienced readers.

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Alternate History Mystery

Revisado: 05-24-16

I have to say that this book dragged horribly until well over half way through. The premise was interesting enough. But at least to this American too many subtleties of class were given too many words. The book picked up and the end was both satisfying and depressing all at once. I don’t usually like depressing books, but this one made its point.

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Bad Country Good Book

Revisado: 05-06-16

The story has strong and interesting characters and clever plotting. It's part Tony Hillerman but mostly Elmore Leonard--although grittier maybe. The pace keeps the reader's attention throughout. Well done.

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Beating a Dead Horse

Revisado: 05-03-16

I get what Little was trying to do. He thought he was writing an allegory like Dante's "Inferno" or Swift's "Gulliver's Travels." Little is giving us a larger than life tale of business practices taking over our lives and our loss of privacy. All laudable goals. However, his end work is ponderous and depressing. The idea could have been treated more deftly in a short story. But this book is just plain hard to listen to and through no fault of the narrator.

The book just doesn’t move. It repeats in endless, tiny iterations each leaving a bad taste and a sense of helplessness in the reader. This is a dark and gloomy book, folks. If you're looking for something uplifting, this ain't it. I listened to the second half of the book at 1.5x just to get it done since I didn’t want to give a poor review to a book that I hadn’t listened to all the way through. Steer clear is my advice. There are no revelations in the book beyond what you can find in the description. Bad juju.

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Unsatisfying

Revisado: 04-04-16

This is a book that leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Maybe it's the first in a series but I won't read any of the sequels. The message is depressing. Not good. Find something else to listen unless you want to be put in a bad mood for the sura

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