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Middlegame

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Middlegame

By: Seanan McGuire
Narrated by: Amber Benson
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About this listen

A Locus Award Finalist!

This program is read by Amber Benson.

New York Times best-selling and Alex, Nebula, and Hugo-Award-winning author Seanan McGuire introduces listeners to a world of amoral alchemy, shadowy organizations, and impossible cities in the stand-alone fantasy, Middlegame.

Meet Roger. Skilled with words, languages come easily to him. He instinctively understands how the world works through the power of story.

Meet Dodger, his twin. Numbers are her world, her obsession, her everything. All she understands, she does so through the power of math.

Roger and Dodger aren’t exactly human, though they don’t realize it. They aren’t exactly gods, either. Not entirely. Not yet.

Meet Reed, skilled in the alchemical arts like his progenitor before him. Reed created Dodger and her brother. He’s not their father. Not quite. But he has a plan: To raise the twins to the highest power, to ascend with them and claim their authority as his own.

Godhood is attainable. Pray it isn’t attained.

©2019 Seanan McGuire (P)2019 Macmillan Audio Action & Adventure Adventure Dark Fantasy Fantasy Fiction Science Fiction Middle Game

Critic Reviews

2019 NPR Best Book of the Year
2019 Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year
2020 Hugo Award Nominee
2020 Locus Awards Nominee
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This is the first audiobook I had to literally choke through to finish. The story is interesting enough, the relationship between the main characters are at times very gripping and the concept mostly well done. However, the way it starts off I thought I had missed a previous book and I found at the end I was left somewhat uninterested. Ultimately, the biggest issue is that I could not get past the narrator. The accents change a lot even within the same character making it hard to follow and while I appreciate the enthusiasm I was really struggling to not be too annoyed to keep listening.

Underperforms at its best

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The story is brilliantly written and leaves you questioning reality and dejavu. Struggled with the narration in particular with Lee's voice.

Great story but I struggled with the narration

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A fascinating book about a twin brother and sister, one is drawn to language, one drawn to numbers. They are separated at birth but have a psychic type connection to each other, and kind of fill in the blanks for each other. It could be described as sci-fi with a smattering of alchemy and fairytale themes set in the modern world. It's fantastic, interwoven and rich, and so so good. A book that will stay with me and circle in my mind for a long, long time.

Interwoven and intriguing

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Lacking depth, despite some original ideas.
Feminist, yet all the key females seem constantly worried about their male counterparts leaving them alone...
Annoying narration

interesting concepts but confused

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I enjoyed this story, it was an original idea with good characters. I found the voices used for some characters a little annoying, particularly for Lee and Reid

Good story, not keen on the narration

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I enjoyed the story but was continually drawn out of it by the narrator's inflections. Everything sounded kind of sarcastic and insincere the way it was spoken- it worked for the villains but less so for the main characters.

Great story. Didn't enjoy the narration.

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Interesting enough concept, and I listened through to the end, but I felt like the story lost direction in the last hour or so. The narrator was very difficult to listen to with some of the characters’ voices.

Narrator makes it difficult

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Dreadfully boring. badly written. I could not force myself to finish it. A waste of my time and money.

mind-numbing rubbish

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I've never really been a fan of science fantasy and this book did nothing to convert me into one. well. I am not a fan of horror stories either and this book seems more like a horror story.

I did like the descriptions of the trials and tribulations of talented children. it reminded me a little of my childhood.

having said the above, I suppose if you're into this sort of thing it's quite well done.

more like a horror story

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