I know it was of its time, but still ...

A lot of this book was grating. Women barely exist, and what purpose they do have is to look pretty and have sex, which they are always up for. They have no jobs, or opinions, or education. And, in fact, I'm pretty sure that it's not so much that it was like that in the late 60s as that the author wanted women to be like that, so I'm not happy to just let it go because 'that's how it was'.

The structural bits of the story, the world, the aliens, the technology, were all great and moved along at a good pace but I strongly disliked all of the characters for different reasons. There is no hero in this book. Plus the author was not as deep and meaningful as he clearly thought he was. That's the downside of an audiobook, you can't skim past all the self indulgent twaddle.

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The question it ask you, will you love society even when it reject you

To love society even when it outright ostracises you and cast you out, interesting idea.
Is is it worth to love that which abhors your existence.
Quite the question?

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An enjoyable Sci-fi story.

Well written and narrated. Inspired it seems by some real classics - in a good way.

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"The Labyrinth of Lemnos."

A brilliant book which presses all of the right buttons for this reader: good writing, descriptions which give just enough to form pictures in the mind but leave enough to the imagination, a touch of surprise, of horror, of future fears as well as the terror of the present, and three contrasting but fascinating protagonists. Old mid twentieth century ideas SF.
All performed by an appropriate narrator, Stefan Rudnicki.
.
Highly recommended, and available to download for free from the Audible+ programme

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1 person found this helpful

a intelligent tail of space and alien wooo

interesting ideas, beautifully told about a man who saved our humankind... in some ways he is a selfish hero or maybe its our human race that I'd selfish

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Superb despite...

... the book's archaic 1960s portrayal of women. But hey, we wouldn't throw Jane Austen or Bram Stoker out the window because they reflect the sexism of their time. Or perhaps we should!

Anyway, it's a gripping book with a bizarre and ingenious plot device at its core: on a distant planet there's a deadly and impenetrable maze, a solitary human lives inside, and mankind needs to reach him. But he has a terrible affliction which makes him psychologically unbearable (literally unbearable) to those who approach him...

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Deserving of more exposure

Whilst elements are very much of their time and genre, the story is one of those which could be transposed equally into almost any setting, given that it deals primarily with human nature and society. Well worth the read and/or listen. Rudniki occasionally mispronounces something, but his performance is strong and well-suited to the book.

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Not for me

Other reviewers are right about women in this book -- their presence in the story is for aesthetic and sexual reasons only. That is rare nowadays. Yet I can't judge the book for it. In a way, it's an interesting contrast to our current times and to how characters are written nowadays (which is often just as bad but in other ways).
My understaning is that everyone lives for so long in this fictional world that monogamy and shame are things of the past. There seems to exist shame of aging, though. 'If you can choose to look young, why wouldn't you?' said a character, feeling offended by his comrade's older body. People seem to live for fun -- or how a male writer imagined fun would look like -- bathing naked in front of dudes, sharing a girl between friends etc. Frankly, our current reality is quite close to this fictional world in the way how people buy and sell youth.

I'm simply not interested in women, so it was a boring experience for me to listen to these fantasies. Now, if the protagonist was swimming naked with his nipples perking above the water too -- then it would be something. :)) Otherwise, he is quite boring for a protagonist.

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Good story, I enjoyed it

I bought this book about 40 years ago but moved house so many times it stayed in boxes for a while and finally I lost it.

Was happy to find it for free on Audible. It was a good, well-written story. I enjoyed it, but the barrator’s voice is so deep and so slow I had to listen on 1.2x speed to make it interesting.

Well worth listening to.

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Brilliant!!!

Robert Silverberg + Stefan Rudnicki = Pure Perfection!!
Both story and narration kept me entertained every single minute.

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3 people found this helpful