All the Birds in the Sky

By: Charlie Jane Anders

Narrated by: Alyssa Bresnahan

Nebula Award winner, Novel, 2016.

From the editor-in-chief of io9.com, a stunning novel about the end of the world - and the beginning of our future.

Childhood friends Patricia Delfine and Laurence Armstead didn't expect to see each other again after parting ways under mysterious circumstances during high school. After all, the development of magical powers and the invention of a two-second time machine could hardly fail to alarm one's peers and families. But now they're both adults, living in the hipster mecca San Francisco, and the planet is falling apart around them.

Laurence is an engineering genius who's working with a group that aims to avert catastrophic breakdown through technological intervention into the changing global climate. Patricia is a graduate of Eltisley Maze, the hidden academy for the world's magically gifted, and works with a small band of other magicians to secretly repair the world's ever-growing ailments. Little do they realize that something bigger than either of them, something begun years ago in their youth, is determined to bring them together - to either save the world or plunge it into a new dark ages.

A deeply magical, darkly funny examination of life, love, and the apocalypse.

©2016 Charlie Jane Anders (P)2016 Recorded Books

Critic reviews

"Narrator Alyssa Bresnahan is so good that it's possible just to enjoy her voice and forget everything else. Luckily, this geeky, spiritual love story is strong enough to keep listeners riveted, and Bresnahan's performance is the icing on a very tasty cake." (AudioFile)

Unexpected delight

I read and enjoy all genres, but I did not expect to enjoy this book as much as I did. It is engaging with an interesting and unexpected message. I will now read anything else by this author. I read more than 100 books a year and rarely review. I highly recommend this book!

Couldn't stop listening

It's been a long time since I couldn't put a book down, so I'm glad a large swath of my friends told me to read this. Really unique characters, a fantastic story, & interesting perspectives on science, technology, nature, & more. If you're wondering if you should read this book, the answer is YES!!

Loved, loved, loved this mix of science and magic!

Where does All the Birds in the Sky rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Among the top. Alyssa Bresnahan seemed the perfect fit for this clever and engaging story about finding your way through life.

What did you like best about this story?

So dang clever. The characters were likable, and it helped to get to know them from their awkward childhood years through their awkward adventures as adults.

Have you listened to any of Alyssa Bresnahan’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No, but I look forward to listening to her again.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Nothing extreme, just pure enjoyment. Made me smile more than once.

Any additional comments?

Worth your time!

A nice surprise

I joined a book group to break myself out of my normal book groove. The only thing more riveting than the story was the flawless narrator. loved it!

Solid, engaging, nice sarcastic touches

This was pretty good. By no means flawless, but I finished it quickly because I got invested in the characters and kept wanting to know how things worked out. Fun read, good narrator, give it a shot.

My biggest issue was that the author included many characters who are far more intelligent than she is, and she just didn't know how to write people who are actually that smart. We're told Laurence thinks extraordinarily quickly and is a child prodigy. Great--but in essentially all of his dialogue, he's thinking at an average speed. He has the voice of a whiny tech bro with a touch of heart, not a child prodigy. This kept coming up and breaking my suspension of disbelief.

Many story beats were predictable or obvious. Various sacrifices felt obligatory. By far the most surprising things were micro-scale and basically irrelevant, like the Happy Fruit startup's pitch, which I found to be hilarious. The dialogue with tech bros deciding they know how to fix the world was also excellent.

I'm a bit of a connoisseur of magic systems, and this one was not interesting. The rules were fairly ad hoc and it wasn't deep. Likewise I very much enjoy hard science if the author can manage it (ah Andy Weir), but that's not this book at all. Oh well.

I really liked Patricia's character overall. Complex, troubled, likeable. Her friends also worked well. Laurence and his set were fairly two-dimensional and unlikeable, sadly.

The narrator's voices themselves aren't too different, but she does a great job changing the rhythm, pitch, and "feel" all at once, resulting in plenty of diversity. I'll complain that Feynman is pronounced "FINEman" and not "Faneman".

I was satisfied with the ending. Maybe a bit too tidy and sudden, but endings are hard.

science vs Magic comma but love tryouts

this is the best book I've read in the last 3 months. it is the combination of science and Magic when did to create a great love story.

Be brave

Both main characters struggle with their true nature and having people around them that can appreciate who they are. Being unique may just be what saves the world.

Not for everyone

The concept was good. I was somewhat uncomfotrable with the whole cult concept. Older man luring young girls with the promise of feeling free, only to be used and manipulated. Good read, just not a book for me.

I LOVED THIS BOOK!

Any additional comments?

can't understand some of the negative reviews, especially the one calling the first chapters juvenile. They ARE! Delightfully. Some people just can't handle satire.

I'll try to explain without spoiling. The first chapter is a parody of Grimm's Brothers Tales, down to the quest and beast to fight and riddle to solve, all that, and told in the pithy style of classic fairy tales, without all the flowery prose of modern fantasy. I fell head over heels in love with the book from that first chapter, recognizing the sophisticated styles game that went over the heads of other reviewers who described that part as childish. Well.. Duh.

The two very different books I would compare this too are Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, and Peter Carey's Oscar and Lucinda. The style is a bit satiric like Pratchett or Vonnegut, but more like Vonnegut. Many of the plot elements are delightfully ridiculous, enough to leave me laughing out loud. For instance (not a spoiler because it's right there in the blurb), one of the two main characters, as a grade school student, creates a two- second time machine out of old junk like microwave ovens. The two-second time machine only goes forward, and only forward two seconds in time, which is just long enough to avoid cafeteria food thrown at his head, but otherwise kind of useless. Obviously.

As the characters grow up, the style changes to reflect it. The scifi elements are still too fantastic to take seriously, but not as Jimmy Neutronish. The relationships become more real and mature. I wanted to cry for Laurence during his difficulties near the end.

As much as I might like a sequel to know what happened to Patricia and Laurence, I recognize it would probably be a blasphemy, ruining a beautiful near perfect gem.

The performer's tone was perfect throughout.

I intend to recommend this book tomorrow in my regular book community at Dailykos

wlkngcrcls

A good book to listen to, but the large jumps in time had me confounded at times. It felt as if I had to reconnect to the characters. The science part of the book was intriguing but I wished they would have gone into the use of science with magic more thoroughly. While I may not have focused as best I could the ending seemed a bit scattered and slightly unresolved. Did they really stop it? Was the Quickening (or whatever term was used) happening globally, or was it just a vision imposed. In the end was a little to simplistic and left haphazard, without much telling of the world to come. It really needed a prophecy of the future something powerful to end on. This book came in like a passive lion and out like lamb. Even so I think it is very well written book and was enjoyable. which is why I gave it high marks. I like it very much. It did keep me wondering how it would all work out. I'd like to se a second version set further into the future. Results of what had passes., more of an epic at that point.