Firstborn cover art

Firstborn

A Time Odyssey, Book 3

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Firstborn

By: Stephen Baxter, Arthur C. Clarke
Narrated by: John Lee
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About this listen

The Firstborn, the mysterious race of aliens best known as the builders of the iconic black monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey, have inhabited the writing of science fiction master Arthur C. Clarke for decades. In the first two books of his acclaimed Time Odyssey series, Clarke and co-author Stephen Baxter imagined a near-future in which the Firstborn seek to stop the advance of human civilization by employing a technology indistinguishable from magic. That fate was narrowly averted, at an inconceivable price. But now, 27 years later, the Firstborn are back. This time, they have sent a "quantum bomb" speeding toward Earth, a device that human scientists can barely comprehend, let alone stop or destroy. But when shocking new insights emerge about the nature of the Firstborn and their plans, an unexpected ally appears from light-years away.©2007 Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter (P)2008 Blackstone Audio, Inc. Fantasy Science Fiction

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First grade sf

A terrific journey; well worth the money. Arthur C Clarke is a visionary. Too bad there is no more.

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Clark is overrated.

Long and slow like a soap opera. He should have left the space operas to Alastair Reynolds.

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Some excellent sci-fi from two of the greats. Excellent performance by John Lee

I always enjoy a good audiobook from either of these authors and they seem to work very well together. Overall, I preferred book one the most by far, but it’s nice to carry a series through to the conclusion.

Big shout out to John Lee, he really put a lot of efforts into his accents this time. It’s hard to imagine a Belgium/Australian accent or a French/Texas accent but somehow he manages it. I felt it was a really nice touch to show cultural mixing in humanities journey to the stars.

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Frustrating

There is nothing more frustrating than a story that skips and is therefore confusing and doesn't cleanly close the story thread. With a little more editing this could have been awesome.

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