This has not aged well

I’ve read Ben Bova titles in the past and decided to listen to this one as it is part of Audible’s Included library.

Set in a near future Earth and published in 2005, before the iPhone was released and prior to the last Space Shuttle launches I have to say that it really has not aged well at all.

The book has a decent plot, but is severely held back by two dimensional characters, outdated views on sex and race and as previously mentioned outdated “future” technology. Add to that the rather dire narration with dodgy accents (the Irish one in particular was cringeworthy) and numerous editing errors.

I’ll try some more of Bova’s books on Audible is the hope of enjoying them more than this one, but considering this is one of his higher rated titles I’m not overly optimistic!

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Unexpectedly good

Loved it, great story good characters give it a go it won’t disappoint.
Problem is it’s another set of books I’m going to have to buy.

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Good political/scifi story.

had to put the speed up to 1.05 to make the narrator sound human.

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Hasn't weathered well

The time hasn't been kind to this novel. The protagonist seems archaic in all aspects. His attitude towards fellow human beings is downright terrible. He is a misogynistic bully who steamrolls his way through life. Ignores the good people around him is no teamplayer and seems an all-around asshole to be frank.

Besides the valiant effort by Mr Rudnicki to narrate this peace and make it interesting, I found myself almost rooting for the protagonist to utterly fail in all his ebdeavours. Such a relic and so unlikable he is. only sheer determination and stunbornness to see through something started made me finish this.

On the other hand, if you are a fan of say, Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt romps, then I'm sure you'll find this entertaining. In many regards, Dan, our protagonist is similarly unbelievable as Mr Pitt is in most everything he does.

Oh well, better luck next time.

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"And rain makes apple sauce."

This is not a bad book, just rather wooden. The protagonists are, for the most part, unlikable and two dimensional so, consequently, also not really believable. The plot is similarly somewhat slow moving, interrupted as it is by a foolish, self defeating romance, speeding up to real thriller impact only in the last couple of hours of this thirteen and one half hours book. But the most annoying part was the frequent use of the saying, 'And rain makes apple sauce', (is this an actual saying or one made up for this book?) and the constant mild expletive, 'double damned'.
Narration by Stefan Rudnicki, whilst otherwise fine, his voice pleasantly deep, did his best to breathe life into the characters but his reading was also a little slow, best speeded up in playback to 1.2.

The microwave satellite sounds good, though.

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Good book, good narration

Good book, good narratolion, but it could do with someone going through it again with an audio editor. There are snippets where the narrator has had two attempts at a line which haven't been cut out properly.

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Good stor (very poor edit)

What made the experience of listening to Powersat the most enjoyable?

The story itself, I like a techno thriller and this delivered on that well. But I find Stefan Rudnicki's voice to be very mono-tone which makes is a hard listen.

What didn’t you like about Stefan Rudnicki’s performance?

I found his voice to be very mono-tone, but the most annoying thing was the editing. There are at least 15 bad edits in this audiobook if not more. Many times a sentence or partial sentence is repeated, and in one case it was repeated twice. This is by far the worsted edited audiobook in my audible library of around 100 books.

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3 people found this helpful

Great

The narrator gave me a drama, tension and thrill's in space. Unusual dirty deeds what rich people can become involved with.

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Gave up after 2 hours

Strangely when I started listening to the sorry it sounded like the author has borrowed large parts of Elon Musks early life but being Ben Bova I thought "that can't be". As a historical piece of SciFi it is OK but some of the old enemies of the USA make you roll your eyes and people objecting to space flight and "we should be up there" had me giving up within minutes.

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Another one demonizing Muslims

I heard just the beginning which was promising until it turned out this is yet another piece of propaganda demonizing Muslims as people blinded by hatred and rage against the evil West - "the unbelievers". Such a sad cliche.

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2 people found this helpful