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Hive Minds Give Good Hugs

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Hive Minds Give Good Hugs

By: Natalie "Thundamoo" Maher
Narrated by: Jessica Almasy
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About this listen

Dorky, socially awkward entomology student Evelyn wakes up one morning to find herself as some sort of alien-human hybrid trapped on an unknown planet.

Once the initial panic winds down, she quickly learns she's capable of producing more of herself: additional bodies all sharing one mind. Being well-versed in sci-fi tropes, she quickly resolves to not devour the planet and turn into an unflinching biological armada, and instead uses her new powers to try and help as many people as possible.

Unfortunately, it turns out that helping people is often very, very difficult. With dreams of Earth filtering into her mind as she sleeps, the mystery of what she is and how she got here slowly comes to light while her power and responsibility grows ever larger.

For an anxious young woman who was already struggling to get by in a normal life, it all feels like a bit too much.

Hive Minds Give Good Hugs is a story about mistakes, difficult choices, neurodivergency, and cool alien ecology. It's a very human story, even though Evelyn might never be one again.

©2022 Natalie "Thundamoo" Maher (P)2022 Podium Audio Adventure First Contact Science Fiction Fiction Solar System
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SPOILERS





Plot summary
Starts as a
"Alone on an alien world, in hive mind alien bodies doing their best to survive and evolve"
to "Poltical drama between a powerful, pacifist hive mind vs theocratic, militaristic, territorial, caste societies of space ferret-moles"
to "Political thought experiment where a hive mind/ a collective of hive minds dictate sentient and sapient live throughout the universe in "benevolent" dictatorships"

Themes, tropes and messages
It is very political, discussing current problems in the world via flashbacks such as famine, disease, disparity, religion and their problems in the first and third world, while talking about the responsibility and repercussions of pacifism while having power, and the problems with different government systems in the present. The books solution to which is, as stated above, "benevolent" interventionist dictatorships via a collection of hive minds.

The novel also focuses on mental illness and neurodiversity, with a main character having adhd, a serious case of general anxiety (major breakdowns) and probably autism. It later shows the insanity the main character develops from loneliness, their hostile environent, alien physiology and breaking of her morals.

Lastly, this novel touches on existentialist and transhumanist themes. With the main character now being alien, a hive mind of many bodies, able to change their thoughts and mental chemistry with a thought, and having their first body die, are they human and how can she stay human. With more issues later such as what is soul and does it exist, whether the copy of a being is the original and whether destroying one is killing, being involuntarily becoming part of a collective consciousness, etc.

Thought Experiment, Mental Illness, and Dread

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Lovely just simply lovely throughout the whole thing the narrative performance was also perfect a fit for the protagonist as well. 👏

Heart warming and endering.

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The story has entertaining characters, unique premisis and is paced well, the performance is unique in the voices. The dual narrative is exceptionally well done and I'm never bored or impatient to get to the other half of the story. Usually, I'm not too fond of first-person narrative, but it works incredibly well.

An incredibly entertaining story!

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Loved the perspective of the evolving mind and the reflections of complex duality. Great use of a parallel and flashback flip in gaining empathy and moral sympathy.
The only bad: somewhere starting around chapter 42, there are audio anomalies (the vibration of a silent message alert, traffic noise surges, and an edit splice point that had double audio) that seriously detract from a great oration.

Refreshingly unique perception

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I love the story
my only problem is when the mc talks via message app too someone else they say both sides of the conversation in a monotone voice at a rapid pace while saying kidnapped katholoo says ... and eight friendly legs says... like 500 times in 5 minutes I wanted too stab myself in the brain i almost turned the book off its the most lazy book reading a robot could do this. besides that i enjoyed this book..

great book

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I have never listened or watched any hivemind like stories. This audio book was incredible to me. I can't think of a better description other than beautiful and interesting. I highly recommend giving this audio book a listen.

Beautiful.

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Absolutely brilliant book, I love moral philosophy sci-fi and this is one of the best. It made me think of Star Trek and Dr Who, as well the Bobiverse series. Performance is also supreme, my only issue was the constant repeating of the sender's name, in the text message exchanges; it broke the immersion for me. Otherwise easily 5 stars.

I cried at the end

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tl;dr: Natalie Maher is a genius, Jessica Almasy is a fantasic narrator, definitely buy this book.

Hive Minds Give Good Hugs follows along in the tradition of Vigor Mortis, by being a story in which things will go upsettingly wrong and, instead of ever really being fixed, are just sort of made more complicated by the loveable, well-meaning and increasingly morally grey protagonist, generally to the astonishment and abject horror of those around her.

The novelty of the protagonist being a hive-mind actually makes the story cover similar ground to books like The Murderbot Diaries, or Ancillary Justice- if you liked the excitement and chaos of a character having to split their focus and worry about multiple crises at once in those books, this one does a fantastic job with the concept.

It's really nice to see Jessica Almasy narrating this one- she goes out of her way to read with this energetic and natural style that gives the impression of a friend who just ran to your house and pounded on your door until you opened it for them, then immediately started telling you about their awful day before they even crossed the threshold. Needless to say, it works extremely well here.

Buy the book.

A fascinating story read by a brilliant narrator

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I’m incredibly happy I decided to purchase this audiobook as its now a personal favourite.

The author always manages to keep me engaged and asking uncomfortable questions. While I’d love a second book or an epilogue this book pretty much had the perfect ending.

Would highly recommend.

Insanely Good

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would give 6 stars if I could. best depiction of a character with social anxiety disorder that I have seen

wow

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