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Slow Bullets

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Slow Bullets

By: Alastair Reynolds
Narrated by: Susan Duerden
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About this listen

A vast conflict, one that has encompassed hundreds of worlds and solar systems, appears to be finally at an end. A conscripted soldier is beginning to consider her life after the war and the family she has left behind. But for Scur - and for humanity - peace is not to be.

On the brink of the ceasefire, Scur is captured by a renegade war criminal and left for dead in the ruins of a bunker. She revives aboard a prisoner transport vessel. Something has gone terribly wrong with the ship.

Passengers - combatants from both sides of the war - are waking up from hibernation far too soon. Their memories, embedded in bullets, are the only links to a world that is no longer recognizable. And Scur will be reacquainted with her old enemy but with much higher stakes than just her own life.

©2015 Alastair Reynolds (P)2015 Tantor Adventure Hard Science Fiction Military Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction Technothrillers Thriller & Suspense Fiction Thriller Technology War

Critic Reviews

"A fine example of the true science fictionist's art." (Michael Bishop, author of A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire)
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Interesting story if a little sparse. It could have been developed further but has lots of original ideas.
The effort is let down by the narrator who ends almost every single phrase and sentence with the same weird inflection. You get used to it after an hour or so but, OMG, it’s so unnatural.

Interesting story line wretched by the narrator

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I don't want to be JUST a negative reviewer here, but …

it's my fault, I just listened to 'Slow Bullets' after coming off of the back of a run of nineteen Alastair Reynolds titles which has taken me around 12 months of listening, and millions of miles into the blackness of his space operas and world settings in Revelation space, Poseidon's Children, meeting the Sylveste's, and Gentian's, as well as the hitching a ride in the lighter Revenger series.

I wouldn't have continued listening to his work without being drawn into the depth and complexity of the story arcs that were masterfully laid down … (albeit with some frustration at chapter breaks when I started but which I learned to live with).

Slow Bullets doesn't have any of that. I understand it's a 4 hour 'commute read' so there's not a lot of depth to build, but that requisite superficiality along with some frustrating narration by an extremely eloquent but, in my opinion, disappointing reader, has left me exhausted. The 19 other books which are mostly from 17 to 27 hours each energised me to continue the particular story lines or hunt for another of Mr Reynolds titles. Slow Bullets has been the longest 4 hours I can remember.

I honestly cannot think why this was released, I can only imagine it was a spur off of one of the other stories, or a thought bubble with potential. I'm really sorry. Not that my opinion counts, but I really wish it had been presented, (and read) differently.

Such a brilliant author. Now I really have to try out another title with the same narrator to see if this was just an unfortunate glitch or if it's the person's style or prose, (I suppose). (… AND a poet!!)

By comparison I cannot say enough good things about Revelation Space. When it was finishing it, and again with Poseidon's Children I was seriously considering starting from the beginning to glean some more from the series, but I thought after 12 months of Mr Reynolds perhaps I should take a break.

(… it wouldn't take much to start over, excellent author.)

This was a very slow bullet

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A novella with some intriguing sci-fi ideas. The plot seems compressed and truncated. I wanted more drama, tension, and action. The narrator had a distracting cadence, like a reporter reading the news. I was hoping for something more gripping.

An intriguing novella.

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The story itself was pretty interesting but the narrator/voice actor was mostly monotone which made the first third of the story hard to get through. It was worth it in the end.

Interesting story but…

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Narration is monotonous, with every sentence, no matter how mundane, overloaded with false drama and interrupt intensity. Honestly, hard to finish this one, short though it is. Good story, even if not Reynolds' best.

Good story, horribly performed

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