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Damocles
- Narrated by: Angela Dawe
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
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When Freedom Airlines flight 121 went down over the Pacific Ocean, no one ever expected to find survivors. Which is why the 16-year-old girl discovered floating among the wreckage - alive - is making headlines across the globe. Even more strange is that her body is miraculously unharmed and she has no memories of boarding the plane. She has no memories of her life before the crash. She has no memories period. No one knows how she survived. No one knows why she wasn't on the passenger manifest.
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Invested In the Tale
- By UnreliableHeart on 09-17-15
By: Jessica Brody
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Dark Horse
- Class 5 Series, Book 1
- By: Michelle Diener
- Narrated by: Christina Delaine
- Length: 13 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Rose McKenzie may be far from Earth with no way back, but she's made a powerful ally - a fellow prisoner with whom she's formed a strong bond. Sazo's an artificial intelligence. He's saved her from captivity and torture, but he's also put her in the middle of a conflict, leaving Rose with her loyalties divided. Captain Dav Jallan doesn't know why he and his crew have stumbled across an almost legendary Class 5 battleship, but he's not going to complain. The only problem is, all its crew are dead - all except for one strange, new alien being.
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A Perfect Sci Fi / Romance Series You'll Love!
- By bluestategirl on 12-02-16
By: Michelle Diener
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Recon
- By: Tarah Benner
- Narrated by: Michael Goldstrom, Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Eli knows corruption runs deep within the compound. It's a reality he's forced to confront every year on Bid Day. But when your job is to go out into the radiation-soaked Fringe so that others can live in peace, you don't ask too many questions. For Harper, the bid system works just fine. She's the best developer in her year, and she's confident she'll find a place among the wealthy, respected Systems workers. But when an upset in the bidding changes the course of Harper's future, she'll be forced to rely on an unlikely ally.
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Really fun listen
- By Cate on 05-23-16
By: Tarah Benner
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Stolen Time
- By: Danielle Rollins
- Narrated by: James Fouhey
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Seattle, 1913. Dorothy spent her life learning the art of the con. But after meeting a stranger and stowing away on his peculiar aircraft, she wakes up in a chilling version of the world she left behind - and for the first time in her life, realizes she’s in way over her head. New Seattle, 2077. If there was ever a girl who was trouble, it was one who snuck on board Ash’s time machine wearing a wedding gown - and the last thing he needs is trouble if he wants to prevent his terrifying visions of the future from coming true.
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A Twist You Won’t See Coming
- By Smith on 04-22-19
By: Danielle Rollins
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Titanborn
- By: Rhett C. Bruno
- Narrated by: R.C. Bray
- Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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After decades hunting wanted offworlders throughout the solar system, Corporate Bounty Hunter Malcolm Graves doesn't bother asking questions. So long as the pay is right, he's the man for the job. And he always works alone. But when a high-profile bombing on Earth has Pervenio Corp clamoring for answers, they force him to team up with a strange, cyber-augmented partner. A young man more interested in statistics than instinct. Their assignment: Track down a suspected group of extremists from Titan who will go to any length to free their moon from the grip of Earth's corporations.
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Great Mystery Sci-fi
- By Bryan on 02-08-19
By: Rhett C. Bruno
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War of the Spheres
- By: James Millington, B. V. Larson
- Narrated by: Mark Boyett
- Length: 12 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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When humanity reaches for the stars, our probes are destroyed. They crash into an incredibly advanced piece of technology: a massive force-field. Unknown beings have placed a barrier around our star and planets, enclosing us within. We’re locked inside a Great Sphere. Was this invisible obstacle built to imprison us - or to protect us? No one knows the truth, but it soon becomes clear the barrier has leaks. Aliens infiltrate and try to sabotage our efforts to escape our cage.
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misleading summary...
- By Neil Kresl on 04-04-19
By: James Millington, and others
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The Calculating Stars
- A Lady Astronaut Novel
- By: Mary Robinette Kowal
- Narrated by: Mary Robinette Kowal
- Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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On a cold spring night in 1952, a huge meteorite fell to earth and obliterated much of the East Coast of the US, including Washington, DC. The ensuing climate cataclysm will soon render the Earth inhospitable for humanity, as the last such meteorite did for the dinosaurs. This looming threat calls for a radically accelerated effort to colonize space and requires a much-larger share of humanity to take part in the process. Elma York’s drive to become the first lady astronaut is so strong that even the most dearly held conventions of society may not stand a chance against her.
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Never achieves lift off
- By Richard Bruno on 10-01-18
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Valor's Choice
- By: Tanya Huff
- Narrated by: Marguerite Gavin
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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In the distant future, humans and several other races have been granted membership in the Confederation - at a price. They must act as soldier/protectors of the far more civilized races who have long since turned away from war.
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Military Future Past
- By Dave H on 04-21-13
By: Tanya Huff
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These Broken Stars
- By: Amie Kaufman, Meagan Spooner
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- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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It's a night like any other on board the Icarus. Then, catastrophe strikes: the massive luxury spaceliner is yanked out of hyperspace and plummets into the nearest planet. Lilac LaRoux and Tarver Merendsen survive. And they seem to be alone. Lilac is the daughter of the richest man in the universe. Tarver comes from nothing, a young war hero who learned long ago that girls like Lilac are more trouble than they're worth. But with only each other to rely on, Lilac and Tarver must work together, making a tortuous journey across the eerie, deserted terrain to seek help.
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Enjoyable Story
- By Joki on 12-25-13
By: Amie Kaufman, and others
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Earth & Sky
- The Earth & Sky Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Megan Crewe
- Narrated by: Whitney Dykhouse
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Seventeen-year-old Skylar has been haunted for as long as she can remember by fleeting yet powerful sensations that something is horribly wrong. But despite the visions of disaster that torment her, nothing ever happens, and Sky’s beginning to think she’s crazy. Then she meets a mysterious, otherworldly boy named Win and discovers the shocking truth her premonitions have tapped into: that our world no longer belongs to us.
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Shortest car ride ever...
- By Christina A. Mai on 09-21-15
By: Megan Crewe
What listeners say about Damocles
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Kathy in CA
- 01-11-14
Swimming against the current!
I thought I loved science fiction and first contact stories, so I figured I would really like this book, especially with all the glowing great reviews. Not so.
It just did not grab me at all. There was none of the mystery and spine-tingling excitement you would expect at first contact with an alien species. We are told they evolved from burrowing animals, yet they are SO human-like. How did that happen? So we land on their planet and go about trying to find a way of mutually communicating. My dog understands more words than the Didetos learned during their brief encounter with us as the aliens. The great majority of this story involved very simplistic talking and sharing of very simplistic ideas. Almost nothing happens except a few misunderstandings that evolve into almost nothing. We hear endlessly about their very sensitive finger pads and their thrumming. It is mentioned over and over again. Then, it is time for us to leave. Minor crisis in finding minerals which is quickly remedied and we take off.
Why did we land? What did we learn about this species? I am sorry but I want-need more than this to entertain me. I need a bit more action and certainly alot more mystery! I would not read any further science fiction by this author. The narrator did not add to the listening experience--she too was just unimpressive.
So bite me! I told you I was swimming against the current.
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135 people found this helpful
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- Brian
- 06-05-13
What did I tell you about that pie!?
What made the experience of listening to Damocles the most enjoyable?
I've never listened to a book narrated by Angela Dawe before, but I think her performance on Damocles is one of the best I've experienced from a female narrator. The hang-up in most cases are the character voices and that can make or break the audio performance. I think Angela did an awesome job with all the voices (even the males) and it added to the enjoyment of the story. I've listened to some narrations where it totally ruined it. Kudos to Angela Dawe!!
What was one of the most memorable moments of Damocles?
The first-contact scene playing out. The headline of this review is a nod to that scene. That's all I'll say about it.
What does Angela Dawe bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
Again, the character voices. If a narrator does a good job, it totally adds another dimension to the book - and she did! I read some of the book on my own (thank you Whispersync for Voice) and it can be a little hard to read when working through the parts where they are trying to understand each other's language. It was much more enjoyable listening to it (for me) than reading it to myself.
Any additional comments?
I like first contact stories and this was enjoyable. Enjoyable enough that I finished it in two days which is rare for me (maybe a first.) There were some parts of the story where I rolled my eyes (a bit too silly) and some parts I would have liked explored more. Some of it was too un-realistic in my opinion. But hey, it's not my book. What I LOVED the most was the telling of the story from both viewpoints, the local Dideto and the alien Earthers, AKA "Urfers." Sometimes this viewpoint would just flip flop as the story continued, but most of the time it would rewind and re-tell the same scene from the other viewpoint. This was cool! Very cool actually!! All-in-all it was a fun story, had enjoyable characters, it flowed well, and I really liked it. That's what matters most, right? I highly recommend!
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63 people found this helpful
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- David
- 12-19-14
Humans are the aliens, linguistics FTW
Damocles is not an action-packed novel. Most of the book is talking, describing the laborious task of humans and aliens trying to establish communications when they share no culture or language in common. The linguistics are not described in detail, but the process of constructing a bridge to translation is realistic.
This is also a "humans are the aliens" novel, in which it's the Earthers who come from outer space, to the shock and awe and terror of a less advanced civilization.
The setting the Earthers come from is barely fleshed out — humans have expanded to other colonies, but the message from an older alien race giving Earthers the secret of FTL travel and telling them that there are other races seeded from the same DNA as humanity is never described in more detail than that. It's a MacGuffin to send the crew of the Damocles out into space.
Damocles is told in alternating chapters from the viewpoints of Meg Dupris, the linguist aboard the Damocles, and Loul Pell, a socially awkward nerd in a dead-end government job when the Earthers arrive.
Besides the realistic communications problems, the best part of Damocles is the realistic aliens, the Didetos. They are close enough to human that their psychology and physiology is understandable, but different enough that they're clearly not human. Their culture constantly throws the Earthers off-balance with its similarities and differences - Didetos don't sleep, and although they have an industrial society that has begun launching satellites, they have never in their history undertaken to explore their oceans. Yet, they have press conferences, a military-industrial complex, and comic book nerds.
Loul Pell is one of the latter. A disgraced scientist, now working as a cubicle drone because he once presented a paper speculating about alien contact, he suddenly finds himself whisked away by Dideto Men In Black when aliens actually appear, pretty much where and how he said they would. And so he accidentally takes the role of speaker-to-aliens, and befriends a strange, willowy, extraterrestrial named "Meg."
Although there are some misunderstandings and tension over miscommunications, and questions about whether the Earthers will be able to return home, there is no dramatic action in this book. It's a novel about inter-cultural communications, and if aliens ever do visit Earth, I can see Men In Black whisking S.G. Redling off to advise our first contact team on how to communicate with them.
A thoughtful, intelligent sci-fi novel that explores linguistics and alien cultures in a realistic way. Damocles is not a particularly exciting book, but it's a fine work of genuine speculative fiction.
I did not love the narrator, who particularly when listening at higher speeds (I usually listen to audiobooks on my Audible app) has a very high-pitched and sometimes annoying voice, though she was clear and did a good job switching between Meg and Loul's voices.
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16 people found this helpful
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- Randy Greenhaw
- 12-10-13
Fun, Exciting & Fascinating – Silly, Moronic
High Schoolish, 85% to 90% of the story was great, I enjoyed it and was enthralled, and then out of the blue it would turn in to a silly high schoollish event. Rolling around in the mud, throwing temper tantrum. At one minute they are highly trained professionals, handpicked for the mission then they are on. The next minute they are silly children acting out.
Overall the story was interesting and i enjoyed, but it could have been so much more.
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15 people found this helpful
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- Hassan
- 05-30-13
Its good, but could have been much better.
This book is about humanity "Earthers" going into some kind of a vage mission, which doesn't make that much sense with the reason giving by the author to discover other life forms. They stumble into a planet with many suns and with another race of human called the "Didetos" who don't look human but they are being called humans, but thats fine.
What made me buy this book was the idea of us humans being the technologically advanced aliens discovering a planet with human life who are advanced in technology but not as much as us. We always think that aliens will discover us not the other way around which was a cool idea.
Issues:
The problem was that there was many vage points here and there, for example: the Didetos were not giving a detailed description in my opinion and i had a hard time imagining how the hek they look like, kept on thinking of monkeys the whole time i think. Also the whole mission doesn't make much sense, they thought on how to go forward, but nothing in the book shows that they planned how to go back at all. Another issue is the number of people going through this mission, they show in the book that it was a major mission and with high risks, if so why sending only 6 members, shouldn't it been more? And sadly you might say in the end "what then!!" "Did we finish" "whats going on?", the ending could have been bette. I do hope that there will be a next bok after this one.
You will find these small issues here and there, which are a bit disappointing. But still story wise it was a good read. I have enjoyed reading this bok, and i did like it from the beginning.
The narrator was good, and did a good job with this book
If you like reading anything about space and discovery, not war, you will like this book.
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15 people found this helpful
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- Brian PDX
- 01-07-15
An excellent "First Contact" novel-I loved it
This is a very slow paced novel and though I did give it a 5 star review, it could have been so much better had author Redling given us a better verbal picture of what the Didodes (I have no idea how it is spelled) or the aliens that are visited really looked like. I finally ended up picturing a neanderthal-ish person in my mind. I'd have preferred know what the author envisioned when writing.
The similarities between Earthers and Didodes are many as are the differences and Redling with excellent narration from Angela Dawe does a lot to show these...but it all brought up several questions in my mind, akin to the physical description issue that I won't go into as it would be very much a spoiler.
I think this novel is appropriate for a younger teen interested in space exploration that focuses on interpersonal skills more than plasma ray guns and hyper drives...not lots of tech in this book, just lots of talking.
I basically listened to this in 2 days and even dreamed about it the night between..did this story have an effect on me? Apparently so!.
I recommend it for people who don't need blood and guts stories.
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13 people found this helpful
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- colleen
- 09-16-13
3.5 stars
This is a very interesting story. Five research astronauts land on new planet and make contact. The author provides a unique perspective during the story of both human and alien experiences and perceptions. I give it about 3 1/2 stars. Characters and story line not always believable. The narrator had trouble with some of the male voices.
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13 people found this helpful
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- Konrad
- 09-16-17
I couldn't get past the science faux pas.
This may be a decent effort but salad I'll never find out.
To the author
I read a lot of sci fi and am a bit of a science geek as are many readers of the genre.
The first serious gaff was the doctors comment indicating that a character should wait a light year.
the second was the indication that one planet in a solar system was destroyed by a super nova yet somehow the rest of solar system wad intact.
this was pretty early in the bookand I was immediately turned off.
the story was obviously geared towards young adults which is fine but you still have to adhere to known science in order to extrapolate from it.
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9 people found this helpful
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- Erica
- 08-11-13
Perfect for Linguists or Space Enthusiasts
I happen to be both, which maybe isn't fair: ) But this book was a wonderful story about space travel and first contact and what that means for a civilization, but also about establishing communication and developing language. Damocles was a phenomenally fun book that I enjoyed every minute of. It doesn't delve too deep into the science -- astrophysics or linguistics -- needed for the book, but I'm actually glad because that would have bogged the story down. I recommend this book if you really wanted to like Ursula K. LeGuin books but could never make it past page 30, or if you took at least one physics, one philosophy, and one linguistics course in college.
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9 people found this helpful
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- Shawn
- 06-07-13
Listened Straight Through
Would you consider the audio edition of Damocles to be better than the print version?
Both Editions are excellent
What was one of the most memorable moments of Damocles?
When both sides realize that common gestures (a shrug) are not natural but learned.
Any additional comments?
I usually listen to multiple books at once. I will get to slow part of the story and switch to another title. The beat praise I can give is I finished this in 2 days straight through. There are no slow parts. Part Sci-Fi; part social observations, I highly recommend.
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7 people found this helpful