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    Ancestral Night
    Ancestral Night
    Ancestral Night
    Audiobook16 hours

    Ancestral Night

    Written by Elizabeth Bear

    Narrated by Nneka Okoye

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    “Outstanding…Amid a space opera resurgence, Bear’s novel sets the bar high.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

    A space salvager and her partner make the discovery of a lifetime that just might change the universe in this wild, big-ideas space opera from Hugo Award-winning author Elizabeth Bear.

    Halmey Dz and her partner Connla Kurucz are salvage operators, living just on the inside of the law...usually. Theirs is the perilous and marginal existence—with barely enough chance of striking it fantastically big—just once—to keep them coming back for more. They pilot their tiny ship into the scars left by unsuccessful White Transitions, searching for the relics of lost human and alien vessels. But when they make a shocking discovery about an alien species that has been long thought dead, it may be the thing that could tip the perilous peace mankind has found into full-out war.

    Energetic and electrifying, Ancestral Night is a dazzling space opera, sure to delight fans of Alastair Reynolds, Iain M. Banks, and Peter F. Hamilton—“Bear's ability to create breathtaking variations on ancient themes and make them new and brilliant is, perhaps, unparalleled in the genre” (Library Journal, starred review).
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateMar 5, 2019
    ISBN9781508281535
    Author

    Elizabeth Bear

    Elizabeth Bear was born on the same day as Frodo and Bilbo Baggins, but in a different year. She is the Hugo, Theodore Sturgeon Memorial, Locus, and Astounding Award–winning author of dozens of novels and over a hundred short stories. She has spoken on futurism at Google, MIT, DARPA’s 100 Year Starship Project, and the White House, among others. Find her at www.elizabethbear.com.  

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    Reviews for Ancestral Night

    4/5

    110 ratings11 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I am a bit of a science fiction Fanatic.I struggled a little bit with the beginning of this book, trying to get oriented. For me, that is part of the joy of the journey. I promise by the second chapter you will know what aft hands are and have a much better sense of the terminology associated with these particular spacefaring sentients. Regardless, the voice of Nneka Okoye could be reading a technical manual and I would listen with rapt attention. And this book is no technical manual. The vocabulary is so beautiful, the story is so personal and gripping, and the perfect pace and elegant world building so compelling it becomes quickly irresistible. I imagine this will be one of my favorite intelligent, thought provoking reads in any genre for a long time.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      The story is very layered and yet told through one person’s eyes. The narrative (by the story’s character) is very creative. The ending has smart philosophical thoughts, reflections. The narrator of the book is very excellent, draws you right into the story, makes you empathize with the protagonist. Great overall!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 2/5
      Preachy, slow, too much philosophy, & not a very good story.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      An exciting space thriller dealing with who we are and choose to be as individuals and societies. Don't miss it.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Beautiful assemblage the perfect words wonderful insight into brain Plumbing

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Although this book did not have a great deal of action, it absolutely held my interest all the way through. It should lead us to consider how we treat ourselves and each other.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      It’s good sci fi and definitely worth a read. The author does have an issue of throwing out unknown words that require their own glossary for.

      However most things can be explained.

      One thing I want to address though is the politics. A lot of other reviews complain that it’s a bug, though honestly it’s a feature.

      The author has her own biases, but who doesn’t? The nature of societies and inequality is a theme in this book. It reminds me almost of Dune.
    • 3/5
      Entertaining enough, though I question the authenticity of making the main character some kind of intersectionality Yahtzee. There were places where the interactions between characters felt uncomfortably more like something out of a bored midlife cisgender fantasy than legitimate attraction, repulsion, or interplay. There were also places that certainly felt like Bear was working through some stuff messily in the open for the reader to awkwardly witness.

      Bear's experience as a writer made the story easy to follow and offered enough fuel for the mind's eye to render imagery of the practically inconceivable, though I can't tell if certain slips in terminology were the fault of sloppy writing or were tripped over in narration.

      The book has been enough to spark my interest in the next installment, and even earlier Bear works in the same universe.

      While the audiobook feels long and drags in a few places, it is worth a listen at least for a mostly good story.
    • 2/5
      I tried to like this book. But I felt the author was more interested in showing some social justice warriors point of view , than in the story.
    • 4/5
      An interesting tale of a future that could just come to be
    • 5/5
      Amazing. My favorite sci-fi in these last couple decades, along with the expanse. Pushing the genre in new refreshing directions and bringing modern social political topics in a new light. Must read!