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Chasm City cover art

Chasm City

By: Alastair Reynolds
Narrated by: John Lee
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Publisher's Summary

Named one of the best novels of the year by both Locus and Science Fiction Chronicle, Alastair Reynolds's debut Revelation Space redefined the space opera. With Chasm City, Reynolds invites you to reenter the bizarre universe of his imagination as he redefines Hell.

The once-utopian Chasm City - a domed human settlement on an otherwise inhospitable planet - has been overrun by a virus known as the Melding Plague, capable of infecting any body, organic or computerized. Now, with the entire city corrupted---from the people to the very buildings they inhabit---only the most wretched sort of existence remains. For security operative Tanner Mirabel, it is the landscape of nightmares through which he searches for a lowlife postmortal killer. But the stakes are raised when his search brings him face to face with a centuries-old atrocity that history would rather forget.

©2008 Alastair Reynolds (P)2009 Tantor

Critic Reviews

"Consistently startling.... Reynolds remains one of the hottest...SF writers around." ( Publishers Weekly)

What listeners say about Chasm City

Average Customer Ratings
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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
  • Ben
  • 08-10-2016

addictive

Chasm city was a story that had me consistently coming back for more, eager to uncover the next twist. the narration grew on me, and after an hour or so I couldn't have imagined a better voice for it. excellent

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Steam punk

Enjoyable in many ways though the story was ultimately weak. I think the author might be hoping for a film deal; steam punk blade runner. The first book is on another level. I'll read the third in the series to form a better opinion.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars

Cant keep going, narrator ruins it.

Twenty minutes in, and I can't keep going because of this narrator. I've heard that this story is excellent, but the narrator sounds like a 50s radio ad man with only a handful of ways to go about inflection, accent and other voice techniques. I honestlly can't focus on the story, that's how irritating I find this narrator.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great company

A gripping tale with a few twists. Doesn't carry on from the first book, all the characters are new.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Folds together, just barely.

Reynolds’ disjointed approach is at full swing again: As usual, story figments start lightyears apart, and slowly come closer, and eventually fold into a single continuum... but this time, just barely. This story lacks some of the elegant geometry of its presecessor, Revelation Space. The killing punch comes too late in the telling, and is overshadowed by much else. Still, a solid 4/5 overall. Enjoy, and keep along with the series. Definitely, worth the time invested.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Alastair Reynolds dropped the ball before it was thrown.

This book was so disappointing. Not because it was a terrible story, but because he developed it so well and then copped out at the very last moment. He obviously didn’t realize what he had before he threw his jewel in the bin. I’m surprised that after 700+ pages of good writing he couldn’t think of anything better than a completely absurd deus-ex machina climax.

I also wish he’d had cut the over used tropes and cliches of science fiction. He has a PhD in astrophysics you think he’d be smarter and more original. He takes the horse that’s been beaten to death, revives it with fantastical futuristic technology, and then beats it some more.

On the plus side John Lees performance was superb.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Tom
  • 18-04-2023

Great world building, slow exposition, poor character voices

I did listen all the way to the end, but I have to admit this is the first audiobook that’s really had me frustrated. It was a combination of the frustratingly slow exposition of the various twists and turns of the story (which to be honest had already revealed themselves halfway through), and I did not enjoy the narration, especially the voice acting. There is something haughty and smug about every single character’s voice, and to be honest, I don’t think the writing of the dialogue helped with that - all a bit stilted. Attempts at accents were not great.

All of that said, the world-building was awesome and a lot of the imagery and ideas will stick in my mind, so it was overall a worthwhile listen.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Great Listen

The depth and the well written parts of this story go further again and I would say just about as good as the first. Though I had expectations that were not filled within the first part of the book, it nonetheless delivered on interesting dark good storytelling and like before but maybe more strongly it pulls on your heart strings in unexpected ways, as well as horrifying you, then leads you into tranquility. Well read performance, I wish there was more artwork for these books, they seem so much larger a scale when you read than you would first imagine words could do. It goes into more detail of the early American era in this book,

Again not a happy scifi story, nonetheless not very dull either plenty of segmented action. I got this for free so factor that in. No credits spent.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Dan
  • 09-01-2022

Keeps you hooked the whole way through

Can see why this book won awards when it came out. It should be made into a tv series (possibly suit an animated series).

Also have to say, John Lee is the best narrator in the audiobook business.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Good but…

I actually like the story of Sky Houseman and the way it was told was interesting but the meandering way that it was exposed to the reader/listener left me a little bit frustrated with it. I do like Alistair’s writings and how he treats the future as both wonderful and advanced yet decaying and decrepit. Like I said I generally liked the book but a few things let it down. It doesn’t seem to matter that much to a lot of readers but it mattered to me.

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