Short Review: This is a great book, but the audio version has a flaw that really annoyed me. I want a re-cut, just for me, sans music. I doubt I’ll get it.

Long Review: I love the book itself, perhaps even more than I loved Oryx and Crake. Atwood is one of my favorite authors, and I’m intrigued by the world she is creating in these books. The second book particularly appeals to me because it focuses much more closely on the female characters trapped in this terrible future Earth Atwood considers. As much as I loved the first book, I wanted to throttle the protagonist, in part because he was so dismissive of the women and girls he knew. Campbell Scott’s fantastic narration made me like Jimmy/Snowman in the audiobook much more than I liked him on paper. In this book, following the female characters was less frustrating, but more importantly, it struck closer to home. Women fair differently during revolutions and social collapses, and I can’t help but wonder how the women are doing whenever I read an account of a war or revolution or a dystopia. Atwood scratched that itch for me with this book.

Atwood has a chance to flesh out this future Earth more clearly with the second book, and the picture she paints continues to be damn near terrifying. We learn more about people Jimmy knew before the waterless flood occurred, and we see how people are managing to survive. Since we’re following the women of the greater story, we particularly see the nasty conclusion of the erosion of women’s rights–Atwood stuck a pin right into one of my hot-spots with that one.

The main characters of this book are Ren, a young exotic dancer, and Toby, an herbalist. Both are members of God’s Gardeners, an eco-cult, for some portion of their lives, and both manage to survive the “waterless flood” set off in Oryx and Crake. Ren is younger and more innocent, Toby older and more street-wise. Both survive through a combination of luck and intelligence, and both suffer greatly. It’s not light, this book, but it’s thoroughly good.

The narration is good throughout, and I think all three narrators did an excellent job. I was annoyed by the continual mispronunciation of the name “Nuala,” but tried to convince myself that in this terrible future, society had so collapsed that no one knew how to say that beautiful Irish name (which has only two syllables). The readers all pace themselves well, and the three voices work together nicely and help to denote changes in speaker smoothly but clearly.

What made me grit my teeth, though, is the music. The damn ill-considered, inappropriate music. Several sections of the book end with songs. I’m fine with that on paper, but in the audiobook, they’re bad. Really bad. And they’re not bad in an understandable “well, I’ve never been a fan of religious music, but that still makes sense” way. They’re disconnected from the audiobook in a way they just can’t be in the paper book, because the problem is in the arrangements and production. The songs follow sermons for the God’s Gardeners. In the paper book, I think the reader assumes that the songs are sung by the congregation that just listened to the sermon. But as things start to collapse around the world in the book, nothing changes about the arrangements of the songs. Nothing. As electric grids stop functioning and people begin protecting themselves in any way they can, the over-produced soul-less quasi-Christian rock doesn’t alter. WHY? Seriously, what is with that? I decided to skip the horrid, non-diegetic music to make it through the rest of the book, which I otherwise loved.

I’m sure I’ll listen to the book again, but I’m also sure I’ll skip every single song when I do. I wish someone with a truly abiding love of music had given more thought to the inclusion of these songs in the audiobook, because they’re so wrong-headed.

Under The Dome: A Novel

Author: Stephen King
Reader: Raul Esparza
Available on Audible.com

Special feature: Author’s Afterword read by Stephen King

Short Review: A beautiful autumn day in the small town of Chester’s Mill, Maine is interrupted by a clear impenetrable dome which cuts it off from the outside world. Our story carries us along to meet a broad cast of local characters. Great reader and a captivating (but long) story.

Long Review: This massive, intricate and suspenseful novel drew me in and kept my attention from start to finish. I will admit that I am a sucker for character driven stories. I love getting to know people – learning their stories and watching their paths cross. About half-way through the story (so about fifteen hours in) I remembered this was a Stephen King novel. You have to know that he is going to take you on a wild ride. I like that there are some clear good guys and some clear bad guys, but most everyone we meet is somewhere in between (just like in the real world).

Thirty-five hours is a long time to listen to one person talk – so it was crucial they found a great reader. I feel that they did a great job. I cannot speak to the accuracy of Esparza’s accents – but I can say that I enjoyed his reading. His voices were creative enough to make character identification easy. His narration had a nice rhythm to it. Looking for a good story to listen to as you make a long distance drive? I suspect that Under the Dome could get you nearly across the country and keep you very entertained along the way. I also particularly enjoyed the afterword read by the author that shares some of the story behind the story.

There are only two things I would change. First – the MP3 CDs I listened to broke the book up by the large named sections – some as long as forty-five minutes. I usually listen to books in my car, but sometimes (especially when I am as engrossed in a book as I was in this one) I want to bring my CDs into my house to keep listening. Because of the very long sections this was basically impossible unless I was lucky enough to end my drive at the start of a new section.

The second change I would make would be to include the map of Chester’s Mill apparently included in the front of the print edition. A lot of the story depends on your mental mapping of this small town. Chester’s Mill is not just the setting – it feels like another character in the story. It would have been fabulous to be able to open up the CD case and look at the map while listening.

Overall, a big thumbs up for King’s latest effort. Not sure if this will be too scary for you? Well, I don’t love horror movies and I don’t seek out scary stories as a rule but there are a lot of not nice things in store for our merry band of small town residents. It did not give me nightmares but your mileage may vary.

Audio sample available online.

Under the Dome

The Precipice (The Asteroid Wars)

Author: Ben Bova
Readers: Scott Brick, Amanda Karr, Christian Noble, Karesa McElheny and Stefan Rudnicki(with a cameo by Theodore Bikel)

Short Review: Well-woven story set in a not-too-distant-future full of corporate intrigue and environmental chaos, both on earth and in colonized outer space. The amazing readers bring our cast of characters to life – I highly recommend it and am scheming for when I can start the next book in the sequence.

Long Review: The story is set in a not so far off future in which earth has hit what they call a “Greenhouse Cliff”. After decades of ignoring global warming, the balance of earth’s environment has gone over the edge leaving behind rapidly melting polar ice caps, rising sea levels, flooding and violent weather of all types. The moon has been colonized, science and technology have made dramatic breakthroughs, governments are still generating more red tape and tycoons still want to make more money. Different countries are tackling the increasing number of disasters in their own ways, but you get a strong sense that all this is too little too late. Some folks seem to have found this book a bit too preachy on the woes of global warming and imminent worldwide natural disasters, but for me it worked well as the backdrop to the story being told. Ultimately, a lot of our story takes place up on the moon or on space ships.

What I love most about this story are the people. I especially appreciate that it was not immediately obvious to me who was meant to be the “good guys” or the “bad guys”. The story isn’t that simple. People aren’t that simple. Bova has done a fine job with giving us individuals with strengths and weaknesses. Some of them you would love to get to know over dinner, some you likely would give a lot to avoid – but the way their stories intertwine (plus the suspense and intrigue about how it all will turn out) should keep your attention.

Each shift in point of view is accompanied with a change in reader. I am not sure I always understood the logic behind the selection of which narrator used for each section or why music was included sometimes and not others – but overall it worked. After a while of listening to audio books, a familiar voice is like an old friend. Seeing Scott Brick‘s name listed on this book immediately boosted my confidence that it was likely going to be a good listen – and I was obviously not disappointed.

This is just the first volume in the Asteroid Wars series and I am excited to move on to the next book and find out what Bova has in store for us. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

The Precipice is also available on Audible.com

The Precipice