Ancestral Night cover art

Ancestral Night

A White Space Novel

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Ancestral Night

By: Elizabeth Bear
Narrated by: Nneka Okoye
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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 multi award-winning author Elizabeth Bear.

Haimey Dz thinks she knows what she wants.
She thinks she knows who she is.
She is wrong.

A routine salvage mission uncovers evidence of a terrible crime and relics of a powerful ancient technology, just as Haimey and her small crew run afoul of pirates at the outer limits of the Milky Way and find themselves both on the run, and in possession of ancient, universe-changing technology.
When the authorities prove corrupt, it becomes clear that Haimey is the only one who can protect her galaxy-spanning civilisation from its potential power - and from the revolutionaries who want to use it to seed terror and war. But doing so will take her from the event horizon of the super-massive black hole at the galaxy's core to the infinite, empty spaces at its edge. Along the way, she'll have to uncover the secrets of ancient intelligences lost to time as well as her own lost secrets, which she will wish had remained hidden from her forever . . .

Energetic and electrifying, Ancestral Night is a dazzling new space opera, sure to delight fans of Alastair Reynolds, Iain M. Banks, and Peter F. Hamilton.

Praise for Elizabeth Bear

'Gripping, perfectly balanced, and highly recommended' Kirkus

'Like the best of speculative fiction, Bear has created a fascinating and complete universe
that blends high-tech gadgetry with Old World adventure and political collusion' Publishers Weekly©2019 Elizabeth Bear (P)2019 Orion Publishing Group Cyberpunk Dystopian Fiction Military Science Fiction Thought-Provoking Black Hole
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The Folded Sky By: Elizabeth Bear
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Really enjoyed this. I was invested in the characters. It had a good story arc and lots of interesting novel sci if ideas.
If you like Alastair Reynolds I would recommend a listen.

Good sci fi, great vision and story telling.

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Right from the go I was engrossed. I found the characters where all relatable and the story took some unexpected turns that kept me on my toes!

Interesting world

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Really nice story in general,
Well developed characters and pleasantly narrated would like to see more on this line

GREAT LISTEN

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I was expecting an exploration of the classic Big Dumb Object trope that I like. However the mystery of the found ship is soon dispelled and even the mystery of the aliens behind the second ship is quickly explained. So it’s more of redemption journey for the main protagonist, dealing with a traumatic past. Still Haimey and the shipboard AI are compelling characters, although some parts of the book made me want to
Shout out “just shoot the pirate FFS”, looking forward to future stories set in the same universe.

Narration was good.

Not what I was expecting

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Neatly thought out galactic scale FTL travel mechanics coupled with multi species, multi political and minutely personal philosophy. Also a damn good yarn with heroines, heroes villains and sentient AIs. Nicely done.

Deep cosmological sci fi woven around personal, political philosophical experimentation

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