Try free for 30 days
-
Against a Dark Background
- Narrated by: Peter Kenny
- Length: 18 hrs and 19 mins
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from Wish List failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $33.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also picked
-
Revelation Space
- By: Alastair Reynolds
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 22 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nine hundred thousand years ago, something annihilated the Amarantin civilization just as it was on the verge of discovering space flight. Now one scientist, Dan Sylveste, will stop at nothing to solve the Amarantin riddle before ancient history repeats itself. With no other resources at his disposal, Sylveste forges a dangerous alliance with the cyborg crew of the starship Nostalgia for Infinity. But as he closes in on the secret, a killer closes in on him because the Amarantin were destroyed for a reason.
-
-
Shame the narration is so off-putting
- By Amazon Customer on 31-08-2019
-
The Wasp Factory
- By: Iain Banks
- Narrated by: Peter Kenny
- Length: 6 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Wasp Factory is a bizarre, imaginative, disturbing, and darkly comic look into the mind of a child psychopath - one of the most infamous of contemporary Scottish novels.
-
-
Not for the faint of heart
- By Amazon Customer on 22-01-2019
-
We Are Legion (We Are Bob)
- Bobiverse, Book 1
- By: Dennis E. Taylor
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There's a reason We Are Legion was named Audible's Best Science Fiction Book of 2016: Its irresistibly irreverent wit! Bob Johansson has just sold his software company for a small fortune and is looking forward to a life of leisure. The first item on his to-do list: Spending his newfound windfall. On an urge to splurge, he signs up to have his head cryogenically preserved in case of death. Then he gets himself killed crossing the street. Waking up 117 years later, Bob discovers his mind has been uploaded into a sentient space probe with the ability to replicate itself.
-
-
So much better than I expected
- By Rob on 13-09-2017
-
A Hole in the Sky
- Arkship Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Peter F. Hamilton
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Klett
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sixteen-year old Hazel lives in the Daedalus, a starship that is flying in search of a new world. The ship has been traveling for 500 years, searching for a world to settle in after having to abandon its last world. Everyone on board Daedalus lives a very simple existence in farming villages. The age of machines supplying their needs was lost during a mutiny 500 years ago.
-
-
I wish I asphyxiated
- By Anonymous User on 22-04-2021
-
Children of Time
- By: Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Narrated by: Mel Hudson
- Length: 16 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Adrian Tchaikovksy's critically acclaimed stand-alone novel Children of Time is the epic story of humanity's battle for survival on a terraformed planet. Who will inherit this new Earth? The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age - a world terraformed and prepared for human life. But all is not right in this new Eden.
-
-
Enjoyable book with a rather swift ending.
- By emmoff on 30-05-2017
-
Anathem
- By: Neal Stephenson
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman, Tavia Gilbert, William Dufris, and others
- Length: 32 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fraa Erasmus is a young avout living in the Concent of Saunt Edhar, a sanctuary for mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers, protected from the corrupting influences of the "Saecular" world by ancient stone, honored traditions, and complex rituals. Over the centuries, cities, and governments have risen and fallen beyond the concent's walls. Three times during history's darkest epochs, bloody violence born of superstition and ignorance has invaded and devastated the cloistered mathic community.
-
-
All world building, no narrative.
- By Anonymous User on 14-10-2019
-
Revelation Space
- By: Alastair Reynolds
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 22 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nine hundred thousand years ago, something annihilated the Amarantin civilization just as it was on the verge of discovering space flight. Now one scientist, Dan Sylveste, will stop at nothing to solve the Amarantin riddle before ancient history repeats itself. With no other resources at his disposal, Sylveste forges a dangerous alliance with the cyborg crew of the starship Nostalgia for Infinity. But as he closes in on the secret, a killer closes in on him because the Amarantin were destroyed for a reason.
-
-
Shame the narration is so off-putting
- By Amazon Customer on 31-08-2019
-
The Wasp Factory
- By: Iain Banks
- Narrated by: Peter Kenny
- Length: 6 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Wasp Factory is a bizarre, imaginative, disturbing, and darkly comic look into the mind of a child psychopath - one of the most infamous of contemporary Scottish novels.
-
-
Not for the faint of heart
- By Amazon Customer on 22-01-2019
-
We Are Legion (We Are Bob)
- Bobiverse, Book 1
- By: Dennis E. Taylor
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There's a reason We Are Legion was named Audible's Best Science Fiction Book of 2016: Its irresistibly irreverent wit! Bob Johansson has just sold his software company for a small fortune and is looking forward to a life of leisure. The first item on his to-do list: Spending his newfound windfall. On an urge to splurge, he signs up to have his head cryogenically preserved in case of death. Then he gets himself killed crossing the street. Waking up 117 years later, Bob discovers his mind has been uploaded into a sentient space probe with the ability to replicate itself.
-
-
So much better than I expected
- By Rob on 13-09-2017
-
A Hole in the Sky
- Arkship Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Peter F. Hamilton
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Klett
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sixteen-year old Hazel lives in the Daedalus, a starship that is flying in search of a new world. The ship has been traveling for 500 years, searching for a world to settle in after having to abandon its last world. Everyone on board Daedalus lives a very simple existence in farming villages. The age of machines supplying their needs was lost during a mutiny 500 years ago.
-
-
I wish I asphyxiated
- By Anonymous User on 22-04-2021
-
Children of Time
- By: Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Narrated by: Mel Hudson
- Length: 16 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Adrian Tchaikovksy's critically acclaimed stand-alone novel Children of Time is the epic story of humanity's battle for survival on a terraformed planet. Who will inherit this new Earth? The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age - a world terraformed and prepared for human life. But all is not right in this new Eden.
-
-
Enjoyable book with a rather swift ending.
- By emmoff on 30-05-2017
-
Anathem
- By: Neal Stephenson
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman, Tavia Gilbert, William Dufris, and others
- Length: 32 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fraa Erasmus is a young avout living in the Concent of Saunt Edhar, a sanctuary for mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers, protected from the corrupting influences of the "Saecular" world by ancient stone, honored traditions, and complex rituals. Over the centuries, cities, and governments have risen and fallen beyond the concent's walls. Three times during history's darkest epochs, bloody violence born of superstition and ignorance has invaded and devastated the cloistered mathic community.
-
-
All world building, no narrative.
- By Anonymous User on 14-10-2019
-
The Prefect
- By: Alastair Reynolds
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 19 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tom Dreyfus is a Prefect, a law enforcement officer with the Panoply. His beat is the multifaceted utopian society of the Glitter Band, that vast swirl of space habitats orbiting the planet Yellowstone, the teeming hub of a human interstellar empire spanning many worlds. His current case: investigating a murderous attack against one of the habitats that left 900 people dead, a crime that appalls even a hardened cop like Dreyfus.
-
-
Another great story
- By jason on 16-02-2022
-
World Engines
- A post climate change high concept science fiction odyssey
- By: Stephen Baxter
- Narrated by: Penelope Rawlins, Christopher Ragland
- Length: 17 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the middle of climate-change crises, there is no mood for space-exploration stunts - but Reid Malenfant, elderly, once a shuttle pilot and frustrated would-be asteroid miner, decides to go take a look anyway. Nothing more is heard of him. But his ex-wife, Emma Stoney, sets up a trust fund to search for him the next time the Kernel returns...By 2570 Earth is transformed. A mere billion people are supported by advanced technology on a world that is almost indistinguishable from the natural, with recovered forests, oceans, ice caps.
-
-
a Continuation of Manifold Series
- By Anonymous User on 29-12-2019
-
Cryptonomicon
- By: Neal Stephenson
- Narrated by: William Dufris
- Length: 42 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1942, Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse - mathematical genius and young Captain in the US Navy - is assigned to detachment 2702. It is an outfit so secret that only a handful of people know it exists, and some of those people have names like Churchill and Roosevelt. The mission of Watrehouse and Detachment 2702 - commanded by Marine Raider Bobby Shaftoe - is to keep the Nazis ignorant of the fact that Allied Intelligence has cracked the enemy's fabled Enigma code. In the present, Waterhouse's crypto-hacker grandson, Randy, is attempting to create a "data haven" in Southeast Asia....
-
-
Neil Stevenson is a genius
- By Rhiannon on 09-12-2016
-
Espedair Street
- By: Iain Banks
- Narrated by: Peter Kenny
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Daniel Weir used to be a famous - not to say infamous - rock star. Maybe still is. At thirty-one he has been both a brilliant failure and a dull success. He's made a lot of mistakes that have paid off and a lot of smart moves he'll regret forever (however long that turns out to be). Daniel Weir has gone from rags to riches and back, and managed to hold onto them both, though not much else. His friends all seem to be dead, fed up with him or just disgusted - and who can blame them? And now Daniel Weir is all alone.
-
-
My favourite book
- By Helen Percival on 22-12-2020
-
The Colour of Magic
- Discworld, Book 1
- By: Terry Pratchett
- Narrated by: Colin Morgan, Peter Serafinowicz, Bill Nighy
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Somewhere on the frontier between thought and reality exists the Discworld, a parallel time and place that might sound and smell very much like our own, but which looks completely different. Particularly as it’s carried though space on the back of a giant turtle (sex unknown). It plays by different rules. But then, some things are the same everywhere. The Disc’s very existence is about to be threatened by a strange new blight: the world’s first tourist, upon whose survival rests the peace and prosperity of the land.
-
-
Good story, but not the narrator for me
- By Shane on 13-10-2022
-
The Mote in God's Eye
- By: Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle
- Narrated by: L J Ganser
- Length: 20 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Mote In God's Eye is their acknowledged masterpiece, an epic novel of mankind's first encounter with alien life that transcends the genre. No lesser an authority than Robert A. Heinlein called it "possibly the finest science fiction novel I have ever read".
-
-
great storyline
- By Robert on 13-06-2016
Publisher's Summary
The novels of Iain M. Banks have forever changed the face of modern science fiction. With breathtaking imagination and extraordinary storytelling, they have secured his reputation as one of the most extraordinary and influential writers in the genre.
Lady Sharrow was once the fearless leader of a combat team in one of the sporadic little commercial wars in the vicinity of the planet Golter. Now she is hunted by the Huhsz - a religious cult hellbent on assassinating her - and her only hope of escape is to find the last of the apocalyptically powerful Lazy Guns before the Huhsz track her down.
Her journey through the exotic Golterian system is a destructive and savage odyssey into her past, and that of her family and of the system itself.
Books by Iain M. Banks:
Consider Phlebas
The Player of Games
Use of Weapons
Excession
Inversions
Look to Windward
Matter
Surface Detail
The Hydrogen Sonata
The State of the Art
Against a Dark Background
Feersum Endjinn
The Algebraist
Critic Reviews
"Imaginatively brilliant." (Daily Mail)
"Few of us have been exposed to a talent so manifest and of such extraordinary breadth." (The New York Review of Science Fiction)
More from the same
Author
Narrator
What listeners say about Against a Dark Background
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jason S
- 25-10-2022
Not one of his best stories
the only Iain M Banks that I've not greatly enjoyed. the characters are ok, the story is reasonably interesting, but it lacks any real depth and the ending seems to me to be a bit weak
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Chris
- 03-01-2018
quite a good yarn
not up to the standard of other banks books.
still worth listening to. it is rather hard to follow at times.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 31-08-2022
Brilliant story read brilliantly
A dark story of a flawed character from Banks. Kenny's range of voices and story-telling is really impressive.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 14-05-2020
Another masterpiece
Iain M. Banks doesn't disappoint with another hugely imaginative piece of work expertly delivered by Peter Kenny. Although lacking the quintessential humor of the Cultures minds, this story holds it's own in the unmistakable style which you will all recognize.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Clasina
- 02-11-2020
great narration. story a bit grim.
narrator is fab at voice characterisation. story is good but rather dark - no happy ending - left me a bit unsatisfied.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- irahim
- 18-04-2019
A fully complete work of genius craftsmanship
I have read this a few times now and it keeps bearing fruit. I lover Peter Kenny’s voice, a perfect companion to this crafted work, a multi layered work with the ultimate take no sh1t heroine.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Dallas
- 10-03-2019
Too long, boring, pointless.
I skipped 9 of the last chapters so i could finish the book, after trying my best to get into the first 20hrs.
I couldn't get into the storyline or the characters at all. I wanted to like this book, i really did ... but it is about 4x longer than it should be.
I felt altogether detached from this story.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!