Machine

White Space, Book 2

By: Elizabeth Bear

Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh

In this “spectacularly smart space opera” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) set in the same universe as the critically acclaimed White Space series and perfect for fans of Karen Traviss and Ada Hoffman, a space station begins to unravel when a routine search and rescue mission returns after going dangerously awry.

Meet Doctor Jens.

She hasn’t had a decent cup of coffee in 15 years. Her workday begins when she jumps out of perfectly good space ships and continues with developing treatments for sick alien species she’s never seen before. She loves her life. Even without the coffee.

But Dr. Jens is about to discover an astonishing mystery: two ships, once ancient and one new, locked in a deadly embrace. The crew is suffering from an unknown ailment and the shipmind is trapped in an inadequate body, much of her memory pared away.

Unfortunately, Dr. Jens can’t resist a mystery and she begins doing some digging. She has no idea that she’s about to discover horrifying and life-changing truths.

Written in Elizabeth Bear’s signature “rollicking, suspenseful, and sentimental” (Publishers Weekly) style, Machine is a fresh and electrifying space opera that you won’t be able to put down.

©2020 Elizabeth Bear. All rights reserved. (P)2020 Orion Publishing Group. All rights reserved.

Not Her Best Work

I love Elizabeth Bear's stories. However, I had trouble with this one for a simple, yet important reason: The ad nauseum lengths of the inner monolog of Dr Jens became so annoying I took to skipping chapters. After a discourse or three on the pain she lives with, why am I listening to a regurgitation of the same issue again and again, oh and let's not forget, again. I guess what it comes down to is this not being a favorite Bear story. Is it enough to turn me away from this author? Absolutely not, but for me Machine gets a C-

An engaging and smart sci-fi

Bear's second White Space novel builds on a strong debut, feeling more confident in the universe being built. The pace, characters, setting, and commentary are all engrossing.

Sophisticated thinking, fun book

There are a lot of amateurs writing sci-fi now.....probably a good thing, but you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find a really good combination of story, characters and imagination. This is a REALLY good one. Excellent narration as well.

I liked this one a lot. Fantastic world building

Great world building, great character, and the very few pronunciation mistakes (which may not really have been) by Adjoa Andoh don't take away from brilliant and beautiful narration. Such a wonder, rich voice. It was a pleasure to listen to.

This takes place in the same universe as as the previous book but doesn't really directly rely on knowledge from that book. Very glad I ignored the few people who said ugly things about the narration. I totally enjoyed this.

Black Women reading scifi YES please

I actually liked this one even more than the first book of which it has a few surprise guests but not enough to take away from it as a stand alone. Really enjoyed the voice actres/actress that I was excited to recognize. I only wish there was a little bit more continuity with singers voice but that’s not even a factor. Loved this

Everything SF is for

An engaging parable of our present, beautifully read. Recommended. Plus a bunch of useless words to meet the review minimum.

Literary Science Fiction

Bear is at the top of her craft. I don't read a lot of science fiction but the White Space series captured me completely. Bear's stories remind me of novels by Ursula Le Guin and Margaret Atwood. She imagines future societies in a way that reflect on the here and now by implication. What would the future look like if humans on Earth had finally gotten desperate enough to work together and they'd saved the planet? What was left of it anyway. And then mastered space travel? What role would they play in a truly multicultural civilization out there in the galaxy? Where machines have personhood. Where ships travel faster than the speed of light in something called white space? Where there is no bigotry, no poverty, no crime, no shame, and humans haven't lost their sense of humor? What could possibly go very, very wrong? Machine is my favorite kind of book, a well-written story that takes you to places you've never been before and challenges you to think hard about what you find there.

Spectacular Narrator

The voices the narrator created for the characters were so good - this was an epic listen.
It’s another marvelous Elizabeth Bear book. She is a world builder on par with Frank Herbert.

Mispronunciations were jarring

The narrator clearly did not listen to the first novel and so differing pronunciations of characters like Cheeirilaq or Haimey Dz were kind of jarring. But the worst was the pronunciation of the name a new character, Calliope. As that character becomes more prominent, the pronunciation as Callie-ope instead of Ca-LYE-o-pee really bothered me. The strength of the writing made it worth finishing the audiobook but wow was it annoying to my ears at times.

Even more brilliant than book one!

there was a lot of personal growth of the characters in book one... book two is mostly around the one main character and understanding where they came from and their personal growth... as it pertains to the story and the story is amazing and twisty and turny and you are trying to figure out what's happening and who's doing it... it's an excellent space opera it's an excellent mystery it's excellent sci-fi it's excellent at conveying reasonable psychological and emotional evolution.

Elizabeth Bear is officially one of my new favorite authors! everything of hers that I've read so far has been fantastic.

it confronts ableist problems it confronts feminist problems it confronts racist problems it confronts a myriad of blind spots that most people don't even know that they have and in a way that makes you aware of them without smacking you in the face.

I have nothing but good things to say.

if you even remotely enjoyed the first book the second book is easily three times as good.