Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview
  • Empire Games

  • Empire Games, Book 1
  • By: Charles Stross
  • Narrated by: Kate Reading
  • Length: 13 hrs and 24 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (41 ratings)

£0.00 for first 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Empire Games

By: Charles Stross
Narrated by: Kate Reading
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

A time of ambition, treachery and dangerous secrets . . .

Rita Douglas is plucked from her dead-end job and trained as a reluctant US spy. All because she has the latent genetic talent to hop between alternate timelines - and infiltrate them. Her United States is waging a high-tech war, targeting assassins who can move between worlds to deliver death on a mass scale, and Rita will be their secret weapon.

Miriam Beckstein has her own mission, as a politician in an industrial revolution US. She must accelerate her world's technology before their paranoid American twin finds them. It would blow them to hell. After all, they've done it before. Each timeline also battles internal conspiracies, as a cold war threatens to turn white hot. But which world is the aggressor - and will Rita have to choose a side?

This new series is set in the same world as Charles Stross' 'Merchant Princes' series.

©2019 Julia Chapman (P)2019 Macmillan Digital Audio
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

Starter Villain cover art
The Kaiju Preservation Society cover art
All Systems Red (Dramatized Adaptation) cover art
Fly by Wire cover art
Cryptonomicon cover art
Lock In (Narrated by Wil Wheaton) cover art
Project StrikeForce cover art
The Trinity Game cover art
Two Spies Reach Out from the Grave cover art
The Quantum Magician cover art
Pirate of the Prophecy cover art
Titans cover art
The Faithful Spy cover art
The Year's Top Short SF Novels 5 cover art
The Teeth of the Tiger cover art
Chasing Shadows cover art

What listeners say about Empire Games

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    32
  • 4 Stars
    7
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    28
  • 4 Stars
    6
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    29
  • 4 Stars
    6
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Mixing time lines surprisingly easy to follow

Very well written. Good narrator who fumbled pronounciation of only few words. Enjoyable listen. Jumping straight to the next part of the series!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent

Another high paced mind bending adventure from Stross that adds another welcome thread in his ever expanding world walking universe!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Great story premise. Let down by narration and patchy writing at times.

The idea of multiple timelines is great and the detail around the set up is in depth and well thought through. In short the story has great potential and I really enjoyed it.
At times though it feels like this book could have done with some good editing. For example the author's use of technology even in 2016 feels anachronistic (ironically given the subject matter) - the heroine uses Facebook and other technologies that already feel out of date In the timeline that is supposed to be the reader's. These are only small gripes but they do detract from enjoying the story from time to time.
I struggled with the narrator. I found her performances far too similar amongst the characters and generally found her hard to follow. I am dismayed that she narrates the second book too.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Disappointed

The book gets off to a decent start but finishes part way through the story, not with a cliffhanger just a cut off. It’s really annoying when novels are not self contained works. Readers are just being misused to force them to buy more.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful