The Stonehenge Gate

By: Jack Williamson

Narrated by: Harlan Ellison

Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's summary

A dark mystery has been buried beneath the sands of the Sahara for eons. In a basement in New Mexico, four poker buddies find reason to believe that a startling secret is out there, and these four amateur adventurers are about to uncover it.

Curiosity propels mild-mannered professor Will and his three friends to the Sahara to excavate a site where radar has detected trilithic stones hidden beneath the sand. There they stumble upon an ancient artifact that will change their lives and the world forever: a gateway between planets, linking Earth to distant worlds where they will discover wonders and terrors beyond imagining. Now each traveler must play a crucial role in unraveling an ancient mystery, the solution to which may reveal the true origins of the human race, if they can survive the journey back to Earth.

©2005 Jack Williamson (P)2006 Blackstone Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"Williamson's artificial creatures are brilliant as always. Lush descriptions and a refreshingly brisk pace buoy the novel." (Publishers Weekly)
"Williamson's combination of SF technological inventiveness and heroic quest is surprisingly successful, offering a neat origin story for humanity, to boot." (Booklist)

Can you say useless wonder?

The author starts off with a fantastic overall plot. Then he proceeds to completely mutilate it from chapter one on.

The story is told from the First-person perspective of a traveller "Stone" who is swept from earth through a star portal built by the supposed progenitors of intelligent life on earth. To the best of my ability to tell those progenitors failed completely if the reader is to judge by the actions and intelligence of the book's main characters. The main character is a coward, inept, of less than average intelligence and completely useless to his comrades. I was left with little or no respect for any of them past the first chapter.

The narrator does not help at all. When I listen to an audio book I want to listen to the Author tell the story HIS way. This narrator wanted to make it a broadway production starring himself. I wanted to reach through my headphones and slap the guy.

Just stop the stupid theatrics and read the book already... please!?

Waste of money. And I rarely say that about books.

Too long, too boring

Some fun visuals but overall not enough new concepts to keep my interest. Characters were boring, too. Ellison's narration was just so-so; he should stick to writing.

What a disappointment

"The Stonehenge Gate" starts out ok. It kept me interested for the first several chapters then the author goes off into lord knows where totally losing my attention. Don't waste your money. I was so bored that I totally lost interest in finishing the story.

Don't But This Book!

This is about the worst narrated book I've listened to yet! Poorly read, poor timing, poor sense of the dramatic, the reader has taked a mediocre book and made it a horrible one. I don't usually give up on a book, but I give up on this one!

Move along, nothing to hear...

We selected this book because it was read by Harlan Ellison. This book is proof H.E. will ____ for food.

This book is garbage. It is written by a person that clearly knows nothing about SciFi, character development, story telling, or plagiarism.

The story appears to be an attempt to write a bad script for the TV series Stargate. It even has a "major" character that is a large black man with a symbol on his forehead.

This is boring, repeats the same sentences over and over and over again, carefully dodges telling story, has huge leaps of illogic, and is generally racist.

That this book ever got published astounds me... that an audio book was generated for it is offensive.

Please, if you have to read/hear it for yourself because you don't trust our judgment, don't pay for it!

This book is appallingly awful

Do not buy this book - the narrator is painfully and ridiculously melodramatic, and that doesn't help - but the story itself is just rancid. I guess if you were looking for an example of poor narrative, characterization, and repetitive exposition, you have found a gem.
I wouldn't have given it any stars, but I guess you can't do that here.

So Sad

Don't waste your money.

This had a great possible plot.

The plots suck, the reader sounds like he's got oncomming lung cancer and spits in the microphone. I was so disappointed

Extremely interesting plot line.

The story moves extremely quickly. Interesting human complexities are explored. Using the backdrop of various worlds and civilizations, we get to watch the characters face some of the biggest problems facing our human experience.