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Tau Zero

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Tau Zero

By: Poul Anderson
Narrated by: Neil Hellegers
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This science fiction novel describes the epic voyage of the spacecraft Leonora Christine, which will take a 40-strong crew to a planet some 30 light years distant.

From practically the very first minute, Tau Zero sets scientific realities in dramatic tension with the very real emotional and psychological states of the travelers, exploring the effect of time contraction due to traveling at near-light speed on the human psyche. This tension is a dynamic that Anderson explores with great success over the course of the novel, as 50 crewmembers settle in for the long journey together. While they are a highly trained team of scientists and researchers and therefore professionals, they are also a community of individuals, each of them trying to create for him or herself a life in a whole new space - or, literally, in space.

It isn't long, however, before the voyage takes a turn for the worse. The ship passes through a small, uncharted nebula that makes it impossible to decelerate the ship. Their only hope is to do the opposite and speed up. But acceleration towards and within the speed of light means that time outside the spaceship passes even more rapidly, sending the crew deeper into space and further into an unknown future.

©2016 Poul Anderson (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc. Adventure Science Fiction Fiction
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The concept of the book is intriguing, the ending satisfactory. However the characters were extremely forgettable and dialogue just falls flat. You have the opportunity to make a travel to the unknown full of depth, and yet most of the workings within is who will date whom this particular point in time. The narration is also a low point. extremely surprised how it made it to the top 20 of one sci fi reviewer

interesting concept, boring execution

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This is a great story, horribly read!
The narrator is going for some rushed teeth-clenshed angry approach, giving the impression that every single sentence ends in an exclamation mark and all characters are just a breath away from a rampant murder spree.
This is one of my favourite SciFi stories, but the narration was like nails on a blackboard for me.
HOWEVER!
if you bring the speed down to 0.9, or maybe even 0.8, it actually becomes pretty decent (leading me to ponder if the original upload might have been made at a wrong tempo setting).

So if you do decide to give this book a try (and it really is a great story if you're more inclined towards technical rather than action-packed SciFi), be aware that you'll have to do some initial tinkering to get it right.

How to salvage this great story

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As with the other reviewers, I'm not a fan of the narration. He doesn't seem to be reading it as a story, with the pace flowing as the situations change, it's just a handful of words at a time for 7 straight hours. it's hard to pick up when some sentences/ paragraphs start and finish and the tone of some conversations are twisted. I found I had to re-read the words in my head in the way an actual human would speak.

As the for the story, I think it has aged a little, particularly with the role of women within the various personal relationships. It is a book from 1970 though, so this is to be expected to a degree. From a sci-fi perspective it is great, and asks good questions about how such a journey would pan out, with a good climactic ending.

Enjoyed the book, would probably recommend that you just read it yourself rather than listen to this.

Decent story, not sure about the narration

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This is a great story from a master with study of the human condition combined with some hard science (of 40 years ago I admit but relativity has not changed that much).

The narrator however alternated from good, when relating actual conversation, to annoying when narrating storyline. His word inflexion focused on a breathy uplift at the end of each sentence which seemed to be trying to achieve "awesome SF suspense" at all times. It trivialised the true suspense moments and made it hard to appreciate some of the human experience parts of the book. It almost made me stop listening but as the Tau wound down I got engrossed enough in the story to manage to ignore it.

At least there were very few edit errors in this which we find in many of the audible books with lower production values.

So - enjoyed the story, narration could have been better.

Great hard SF - narrator style very odd

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Maybe I expected too much. The story has so much going for it, but it felt totally disjointed. If I had been reading it, rather than listening, I would not have made it past the first few chapters. Very disappointing.

The concept was a good story

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