Anonymous
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Constituent Service
- A Third District Story
- By: John Scalzi
- Narrated by: Amber Benson
- Length: 2 hrs and 30 mins
- Original Recording
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Ashley Perrin is fresh out of college and starting a job as a community liaison for the Third District–the city’s only sector with more alien residents than humans. Ashley’s barely found where the paper clips are kept when she’s beset with constituent complaints–from too much noise at the Annual Lupidian Celebration Parade to a trip-and-fall chicken to a very particular type of alien hornet that threatens the very city itself. And if that’s not terrifying enough, Ashley is next up at the office karaoke night.
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Short and fun!
- By Andrew on 10-04-24
- Constituent Service
- A Third District Story
- By: John Scalzi
- Narrated by: Amber Benson
Amber Benson is a terrible narrator
Reviewed: 10-22-24
I majorly disliked Benson's narration. She should not do character voices. I was expecting a nice lightweight Scalzi story but it was just way too stagey and overdramatized and the voices, other than the main character, sounded like a kid trying to sound like a character. I think she is a good actor but this was a terrible fit for her talent. Boo hoo.
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The Hangman
- By: Louise Penny
- Narrated by: Robert Bathurst
- Length: 1 hr and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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On a cold November morning, a jogger runs through the woods in the peaceful Quebec village of Three Pines. On his run, he finds a dead man hanging from a tree. The dead man was a guest at the local Inn and Spa. He might have been looking for peace and quiet, but something else found him. Something horrible. Did the man take his own life? Or was he murdered?
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Different for a reason
- By Amazon Customer on 01-12-22
- The Hangman
- By: Louise Penny
- Narrated by: Robert Bathurst
Penny making a quick buck
Reviewed: 06-11-24
Louise Penny exploiting her own characters. So disappointed. I am glad i didn't waste a credit and even gladder that I paid less than a dollar for it.
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The Kaiju Preservation Society
- By: John Scalzi
- Narrated by: Wil Wheaton
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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When COVID-19 sweeps through New York City, Jamie Gray is stuck as a dead-end driver for food-delivery apps. That is, until Jamie makes a delivery to an old acquaintance, Tom, who works at what he calls “an animal rights organization”. Tom’s team needs a last-minute grunt to handle things on their next field visit. Jamie, eager to do anything, immediately signs on. What Tom doesn't tell Jamie is that the animals his team cares for are not here on Earth. Not our Earth, at at least. In an alternate dimension, dinosaur-like creatures named Kaiju roam a warm and human-free world.
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I'm listening with a permanent smile on my face
- By Lucy A. Pithecus on 03-15-22
- The Kaiju Preservation Society
- By: John Scalzi
- Narrated by: Wil Wheaton
Wheaton is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me
Reviewed: 04-30-24
I love Scalzi, everything he writes. And I have tolerated Wheaton as Scalzi's go-to narrator. Now I am done. Enthusiasm is one thing, but the relentless volume and how all the characters kind of laugh while they are talking -- at full volume -- and they all talk!!! with triple exclamations!!! at the end of every sentence!!! it makes me nuts.. It makes my head hurt.
Have I mentioned the volume?
I cannot believe that Scalzi's listeners are so enthralled with Wheaton's SF cred that they would actually enjoy listening to this ongoing shrieking. There is no subtlety, all characters shriek exactly alike and at the same -- yes, I will say it again -- volume.
Credit where due: Wheaton's management of epic filthy cursing, especially Kiva Lagos in The Last Emperox comes to mind e.g. "feculent festering douchenozzle" [sic]. [Even that could benefit from reduced decibel level. Her character would be a lot more interesting if the filth sounded more like her just talking. She actually isn't shouty-angry all the time. But that's a different book. Moving on.]
Beyond that, Wheaton just hurts my ears. Boo hoo. Scalzi's writing deserves better.
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Speaker for the Dead
- By: Orson Scott Card
- Narrated by: David Birney, Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 14 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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In the aftermath of his terrible war, Ender Wiggin disappeared, and a powerful voice arose: the Speaker for the Dead, who told the true story of the Bugger War. Now, long years later, a second alien race has been discovered by Portuguese colonists on the planet Lusitania. But again the aliens' ways are strange and frightening...again, humans die. And it is only the Speaker for the Dead, who is also Ender Wiggin the Xenocide, who has the courage to confront the mystery...and the truth.
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The Enderverse
- By Joe on 06-13-05
- Speaker for the Dead
- By: Orson Scott Card
- Narrated by: David Birney, Stefan Rudnicki
Valentine is annoying + beware the end interview
Reviewed: 03-15-24
I love the Ender stories. I prefer to listen than reading, but in this case I felt like I was going to scream. Nevertheless, I persisted for the sake of Ender.
Specifically: I am not sure who decided it would be good to give Valentine her own narrator, but it was a lousy decision. She is really stagey and melodramatic and i kept feeling like I wanted to shake her and say, "Just read! Do not act! You are not an actor!" I hung in through it, but every time she started in I ground my teeth.
Also, I beg of all audiobook producers, PLEASE stop putting author interviews immediately after the book ends! Endings need a moment to absorb. They are important, and they are art. Just give me a moment, willya?
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Women Who Made Science History
- By: Leila McNeill, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Leila McNeill
- Length: 2 hrs and 56 mins
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It’s not news that women have been denied the same educational and institutional opportunities, resources, and access as men, and that science’s history is often told through the stories of great men, with a few great women making an appearance here and there. But that approach misses the big picture. The history of science isn’t complete without women.
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Short but Worthwhile
- By Gilbert M. Stack on 03-07-23
- Women Who Made Science History
- By: Leila McNeill, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Leila McNeill
not a "great course" per se but worth it
Reviewed: 05-15-23
i enjoyed this. it was not a great course as i understand them--she isn't a professor who has earned a reputation as both a scholar and an educator--so it was more like a long article. nonetheless i hadn't heard of any of these fabulous women who we all should have known about, and for that i am grateful. wish there has been more included.
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Happily Ever Ninja
- Knitting in the City, Book 5
- By: Penny Reid
- Narrated by: Em Eldridge, Will M. Watt
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
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There are three things you need to know about Fiona Archer...I would tell you what they are, but then I'd have to kill you. But I can tell you that Fiona's husband - the always irrepressible and often cantankerous Greg Archer - is desperately in love with his wife. He aches for her when they are apart, and is insatiable when they are together. Yet as the years pass, Greg has begun to suspect that Fiona is a ninja. A ninja mom. A ninja wife. A ninja friend. After 14 years of marriage, Greg is trying not to panic.
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I was ANGRY!
- By Stacey on 10-04-17
- Happily Ever Ninja
- Knitting in the City, Book 5
- By: Penny Reid
- Narrated by: Em Eldridge, Will M. Watt
Fiona is cringeworthy, Greg an irrational snake
Reviewed: 04-11-23
Until this book, I liked Fiona. She was mysterious, bad*ss, leader of knitters, voice of reason, &c. Now I never want to see her name again. What on earth was Penny Reid thinking? The main characters -- Fiona and Greg, but especially Fiona -- had no internal consistency. If former CIA superspies acted like that in the field, they would never make it off the airplane, let alone home from a mission. What a sap. And Greg's character never made sense. He is a sociopath by even the most generous definition, and the Fiona I met in the previous books would never have married him. This book needed an editor with a firm hand because as far as I am concerned, Reid blew up the series with this title. I understand how love can make you do the crazy, but these two made my skin crawl.
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Slouching Towards Bethlehem
- By: Joan Didion
- Narrated by: Diane Keaton
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Universally acclaimed from the time it was first published in 1968, Slouching Towards Bethlehem has been admired for decades as a stylistic masterpiece. Academy Award-winning actress Diane Keaton (Annie Hall, The Family Stone) performs these classic essays, including the title piece, which will transport the listener back to a unique time and place: the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco during the neighborhood’s heyday as a countercultural center.
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Didion deserves better.
- By Victoria Wright on 01-21-13
- Slouching Towards Bethlehem
- By: Joan Didion
- Narrated by: Diane Keaton
Keaton is a surprisingly bad choice to narrate
Reviewed: 02-13-23
Didion's sentences are so full of story and detail that they do not require the kind of stagey, over-emphasized reading that Keaton gives them. I'm bummed. I stopped after the first story. I wish I could find a version read by someone else, because I love this book.
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Lady Jayne Disappears
- By: Joanna Davidson Politano
- Narrated by: Justine Eyre
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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When Aurelie Harcourt's father dies in debtor's prison, he leaves her just two things: his wealthy family, whom she has never met, and his famous pen name, Nathaniel Droll. Her new family greets her with apathy and even resentment. Only the quiet houseguest, Silas Rotherham, welcomes her company. When Aurelie decides to complete her father's unfinished serial novel, she must keep her identity as Nathaniel Droll hidden while searching for the truth about her mother's disappearance - and perhaps even her father's death.
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One of the best books I have heard lately
- By Ponderbunny on 03-09-20
- Lady Jayne Disappears
- By: Joanna Davidson Politano
- Narrated by: Justine Eyre
Unnecessarily Goddy
Reviewed: 02-01-23
The story was a good one, and clever. The writing was okay but suffered from too many tingles and waves of various types rushing or flooding over our heroine.
The references to God, and the Bible quotes, started showing up well into the book and were unwelcome and unnecessary and, in truth, were out of nowhere given there was no reference to a Bible in her father's belongings or a chaplain from her childhood or any clue at all where this came from. I was offended by this sudden religiosity for many reasons, but primarily because (a) I wasn't prepared to read a Christian romance novel and frankly wouldn't have, and (b) all the praying and so forth could have remained key to her personality without beating me about the head and shoulders with it. Lots of people, myself included, pause to receive wisdom when we are confused or looking for direction. Lots of people are good and charitable and care deeply for others without the Bible telling them to do it.
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A Tale of Two Cities [Tantor]
- By: Charles Dickens
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 13 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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A Tale of Two Cities is one of Charles Dickens's most exciting novels. Set against the backdrop of the French Revolution, it tells the story of a family threatened by the terrible events of the past. Doctor Manette was wrongly imprisoned in the Bastille for 18 years without trial by the aristocratic authorities.
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it's the singer not the song*
- By Maynard on 11-09-13
- A Tale of Two Cities [Tantor]
- By: Charles Dickens
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
i am reeling--what an experience
Reviewed: 12-23-22
my first experience of this classic. the last chapter was gorgeous and heartbreaking. i listened to this version, narrated by simon vance, because everything i read declared his to be far and away the best, most skillful of all the many recordings. i have no basis for comparison but i cannot imagine how anyone could be better.
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Confucius, Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad
- By: Mark W. Muesse, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Mark W. Muesse
- Length: 18 hrs and 56 mins
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No understanding of human life, individual or collective, could be complete without factoring in the role and contribution of these history-shaping teachers. Now, this 36-lecture series takes you deep into the life stories and legacies of these four iconic figures, revealing the core teachings, and thoughts of each, and shedding light on the historical processes that underlie their phenomenal, enduring impact.
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Audible at its best
- By cliff on 08-14-13
- Confucius, Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad
- By: Mark W. Muesse, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Mark W. Muesse
wowzah, so very good and yes, even enlightening
Reviewed: 12-14-22
i didn’t know what to expect and i was amazed. i learned so much! dr muesse was so humble and appreciative of his subjects that it was just a pleasure to listen. not for one nanosecond did i feel any holier-than-thouness (sorry, heh) — just a true pleasure in being able to share the lives and teachings of these sages with me.
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