Matter audio review
Jan. 4th, 2009 01:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearA new category of review for 2009 will be audiobooks, as I've started listening to them at the gym, and have just finished Matter by Iain M Banks. It's taken over three months to get through it, since I've only been listening to a couple of hours a week at most, and it's a pretty long book.
I'm not sure I would have got into it had I been reading it on the page, as it's complicated, technological and contains a very great number of characters, species and planets whose names I would have struggled to keep straight or even pronounce if presented with type.
However, the talent of Toby Longworth in bringing the story and characters to life was spectacular and made the experience of listening to the book and extremely enjoyable one. The story itself was multi-layered and quite fascinating, but it was the wealth of individually and distinctively realised characters that really kept me listening over the 17 hours of the narrative.
The significance of the plot ranged from the fate of one small war orphan to the potential destruction of an entire planet, and involved at least nine or ten different races, as well as several journeys across the universe to a multitude of planets on a selection of types of ship. I'm not normally too keen on vast space operas, and was a bit upset that several of my favourite characters didn't make it to the end, but Toby Longworth was a very good companion over many hours at the gym and the complexity of the story gave me something to look forward to whilst exercising.
I'm not sure I would have got into it had I been reading it on the page, as it's complicated, technological and contains a very great number of characters, species and planets whose names I would have struggled to keep straight or even pronounce if presented with type.
However, the talent of Toby Longworth in bringing the story and characters to life was spectacular and made the experience of listening to the book and extremely enjoyable one. The story itself was multi-layered and quite fascinating, but it was the wealth of individually and distinctively realised characters that really kept me listening over the 17 hours of the narrative.
The significance of the plot ranged from the fate of one small war orphan to the potential destruction of an entire planet, and involved at least nine or ten different races, as well as several journeys across the universe to a multitude of planets on a selection of types of ship. I'm not normally too keen on vast space operas, and was a bit upset that several of my favourite characters didn't make it to the end, but Toby Longworth was a very good companion over many hours at the gym and the complexity of the story gave me something to look forward to whilst exercising.
