The Algebraist
The Algebraist book cover

The Algebraist

Audio CD – November 1, 2004

by
Price
$7.25
Publisher
Time Warner Books Uk
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-1405500784
Dimensions
6.61 x 0.98 x 2.48 inches
Weight
7.5 ounces

Description

Review Explosive― Sunday TIMES There is now no British SF writer to whose work I look forward with greater keenness― The TIMES Gripping, touching and funny― T.L.S.

Features & Highlights

  • It is 4034 AD. Humanity has made it to the stars. Fassin Taak, a Slow Seer at the Court of the Nasqueron Dwellers, will be fortunate if he makes it to the end of the year.
  • The Nasqueron Dwellers inhabit a gas giant on the outskirts of the galaxy, in a system awaiting its wormhole connection to the rest of civilisation. In the meantime, they are dismissed as decadents living in a state of highly developed barbarism, hoarding data without order, hunting their own young and fighting pointless formal wars.
  • Seconded to a military-religious order he's barely heard of - part of the baroque hierarchy of the Mercatoria, the latest galactic hegemony - Fassin Taak has to travel again amongst the Dwellers. He is in search of a secret hidden for half a billion years. But with each day that passes a war draws closer - a war that threatens to overwhelm everything and everyone he's ever known.
  • As complex, turbulent, flamboyant and spectacular as the gas giant on which it is set, the new science fiction novel from Iain M. Banks is space opera on a truly epic scale.

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
30%
(375)
★★★★
25%
(312)
★★★
15%
(187)
★★
7%
(87)
★
23%
(288)

Most Helpful Reviews

✓ Verified Purchase

DO NOT BUY, this is an ABRIDGED recording

Beware this is an ABRIDGED recording. DO NOT BUY
✓ Verified Purchase

Challenging for a United States reader

People should read the book first. Then when they listen to the audiobook it will be because they loved the book, and they can follow the story. One of the issues with the audiobook is the fact that there is very little action. I've listened to 4 discs, and so far it's very dry. There are long stretches of the book which are descriptions of planets that have been conquered, or there are long stretches during which one character is giving a speech. The language used by the author makes it sound like he should have stuck to doctoral dissertations. The author may be trying too hard to sound well-written.

The audiobook was further sabotaged for me by the fact that the reader/narrator adds no drama - almost like he is bored, and he speaks with a strong British accent. I love watching British TV shows, so a British accent doesn't throw me off. I've listened to audiobooks read by other British readers with no problem. I'm fascinated by the difference in how people in Britain pronounce thing differently than we do in the US. But the combination of the reader's lack of drama, the author's use of elevated language (attempting to sound flowery and well written) and the British accent of the reader make it challenging to listen to. By the time I've realized what a word is in spite of the accent, I've missed at least a sentence or two. One annoying example is the word "distributed". It is pronounced by the reader "dis-tri-BEAUT-ted". That's fine. But the word is in the book so frequently that if I was playing a drinking game and took a drink every time it was used, I'd be drunk before the next disc. The word "se-CUN-ded" threw me off until I realized it was "SE-con-ded" as in parliamentary procedure a motion is seconded. At least that's what I'm going with.

So my final advice is read the book. If you really like it, try the audiobook.

After reading reviews which indicated that people have started and stopped multiple times and never made it through the book, I'm going to cut to the chase and just not read the rest. I don't think I'll read any of Mr. Banks books. I'm "Saving Mr. Banks" for another life.

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