METAtropolis

By: Jay Lake, Tobias Buckell, Elizabeth Bear, John Scalzi, Karl Schroeder

Narrated by: Michael Hogan, Scott Brick, Kandyse McClure, Alessandro Juliani, Stefan Rudnicki, John Scalzi

Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's summary

Welcome to a world where big cities are dying, dead - or transformed into technological megastructures. Where once-thriving suburbs are now treacherous Wilds. Where those who live for technology battle those who would die rather than embrace it. It is a world of zero-footprint cities, virtual nations, and armed camps of eco-survivalists.

Welcome to the dawn of uncivilization.

METAtropolis is an intelligent and stunning creation of five of today's cutting-edge science-fiction writers: 2008 Hugo Award winners John Scalzi and Elizabeth Bear; Campbell Award winner Jay Lake; plus fan favorites Tobias Buckell and Karl Schroeder. Together they set the ground rules and developed the parameters of this "shared universe", then wrote five original novellas - all linked, but each a separate tale.

Bringing this audiobook to life is a dream team of performers: Battlestar Galactica's Michael Hogan ("Saul Tigh"); Alessandro Juliani ("Felix Gaeta"); and Kandyse McClure ("Anastasia 'Dee' Dualla"); plus legendary audiobook narrators Scott Brick (Dune) and Stefan Rudnicki (Ender's Game).

John Scalzi, who served as Project Editor, introduces each story, offering insight into how the METAtropolis team created this unique project exclusively for digital audio.

©2008 Joseph E. Lake, Jr., Tobias S. Buckell, Elizabeth Bear, John Scalzi, Karl Schroeder (P)2008 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

• 2009 Hugo Award nominee, Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form

• 2009 Audie Award nominee, Original Work

“Each story shines on its own; as a group they reinforce one another, building a multifaceted view of a realistic and hopeful urban future.” (Publishers Weekly)
“Scalzi and his contributors/collaborators have created a fascinating shared urban future that each of them evokes with his or her particular strengths.... This stellar collection is a fascinating example of shared world-building.” (Booklist)
"This impressive group of writers imagines what happens when the world moves beyond cities as a locus of human civilization. The range of narrators...brings a unique narrative style to the production. Of the five narrators, all well chosen for the stories, Allessandro Juliani proves to be the best with his rendering of Scalzi's piece." (AudioFile)

Not a wasted credit

(rewritten to exclude apostrophes or quotation marks, which Audible processes incorrectly.)

I like the concept of a shared world and overall this is an entertaining audiobook, but like any anthology some stories are better than others.

In the Forests of the Night by Jake Lake was an extended pseudospiritual/political rant that never answers the most obvious question, i.e. who is Tygre?

I liked Stochasti-city by Tobias Buckell at least in part because it is read by Scott Brick but also because it is entertaining and interesting although the ideas of ex-military street mercs and repurposing abandoned urban real estate were done (better) decades ago by William Gibson.

The Elizabeth Bear story elicited an enthusiastic meh. The characters just were not that compelling and there was not much of a plot to resolve.

John Scalzi is a good writer with a good sense of humor and a lighter tone was needed by this point. His story was funny, but at times it comes across like a 1980s comedy film: slacker hero saves the world through pranking. Not a spoiler, because you see it coming a mile away.

They saved the best for last. To Hie from Far Cilenia by Karl Schroeder is the most thought-provoking of the set. It was a quirky combination of The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson and Spook Country by William Gibson with a heavy dose of Stephensonian fascination with currency. Being a huge fan of both Stephenson and Gibson, it worked for me. The fact that Stefan Ruknicki is a brilliant reader helps too.

The whole collection owes a lot to Gibson, even the various green movements (anybody remember the Sandbenders?), but Gibson was less heavy-handed than these stories. It does put a nice big flashing date stamp on the era at least. Half the science fiction books in the 80s were about nuclear Armageddon, half today are about environmental Armageddon.

Anyway, it serves as a good screenshot of contemporary writing and is worth a listen.

Great narration, stories hard to get into

Not much else to say but as this review is titled. The narration was great, but most of the stories were difficult to really get into.

A lesson to John Scalzi...

This was introduced as a new idea of tied in short stories set in a world where the United States is on the verge of economic collapse caused by Republican/Conservative political policies and environmental collapse as the earth is ravaged by global warming (once again due to Republican policies).

The idea of a themed set of short stories has been done in Sci Fi before. Such sci-fi classics like Assimov's "I Robot" and Bradbury's "Martian Chronicles", which are now monumental classics in the sci fi world and are often required reading in many schools.

Though these books are now dated an the timelines when these stories were to come to reality have long passed, they are still classics and are still treasured by sci fi enthusiasts. What Scalzi needs to learn from these two classic writers is a lesson of arrogance.

Bradbury and Assimov were not so arrogant as to suggest that their vision was how it was actually going to be, as Scalzi does in his interstory narratives.

Scalzi's world is a utopian vision based on Joseph Baratz model of Kibbutz aggrarian communes, hippy communes, collectivism and outright Marxism disguised as anarchism, with tiny cameras and satellites watching your every move - and we're supposed to think this is an intelligent answer to a new and more ideal world.

You have government counselors assigning you to a pig tending job from a goverment accepted job bank of job openings based on your aptitude... and if you don't accept your social duty and agree to your pig tending job, there was always life outside the walls of your community. Sound familiar? The Soviet Union had such walls - and they assigned their citizens to jobs and one room apartments.

In this book, the Soviet Union is like a capitalist wet dream as in some of the communes in this book, you can't even own personal property! In this world, you can't drive an electric car without people tearing up your car and calling you a "footprinter"... It is such a screwed up place that people are wearing reality augmenting glasses. You have walk or ride a bicycle everywhere. And we're supposed to think "Wow... This is cool!"

Saying that. Based on the setup, the stories were well done. Ignoring the politics, I loved the stories. They were performed by the best narrators and the plots were great. The same stories could have been told with a little less political finger pointing and a little less environazi arrogance. All the same, I look forward to the next book.

So the stories get 3 stars for sheer arrogance and political fingerpointing. Everything else about the stories was 5 star.

Sad, Depressing

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Definitely not! The authors apparently imagine a future filled with violence; where there is not enough anything to go around. That is such a "I bought into the nonsense" point of view! There is enough in this world to go around for thousands of years to come!

What could the authors have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Make it more up-beat; more optimistic.

Did METAtropolis inspire you to do anything?

It just made me angry.

A good book

This was the best audiobook I've listened to! Mr Susskind assumes very little physics knowledge but still manages to not talk down to the listener and clearly explain complex concepts. In addition, he has many fascinating, illuminating stories about many of the great luminaries of the physics world, from drinking a beer with Feynman in a small bar in NYC in the 1960s to touring San Francisco's steep hills with Stephen Hawking. This was a great audiobook!

Great extrapolative science fiction

Great stories set in a common universe, not far from our own in time. You recognize a lot of the metatrends in our society, and it is cleverly thought out 20 years into the future.

Fantastic sci-fi!

Some of the best sci-fi I have ever read and is very much award-worthy. I highly recommend it.

Bravo!

This is engaging, thoughtful, well written science fiction at its best. I can’t gush enough about this book.

half great

i really liked 2 of the 4 stories and would like them as full books

Thought provoking and hopeful futurism

I found METAtropilis to push the conceptual limit of science fiction; at least according to my experience. The future it depicts is extremely plausible, while also not being anything I’ve considered before. The performance was compelling and enjoyable.