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Falling Free

By: Lois McMaster Bujold
Narrated by: Grover Gardner
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Summary

Leo Graf was just your average highly efficient engineer: mind your own business, fix what's wrong, and move on to the next job. But all that changed on his assignment to the Cay Habitat, where a group of humanoids had been secretly, commercially bioengineered for working in free fall.

Could he just stand there and allow the exploitation of hundreds of helpless children merely to enhance the bottom line of a heartless mega-corporation?

He hadn't anticipated a situation where the right thing to do was neither safe, nor in the rules. Leo adopted a thousand quaddies. Now all he had to do was teach them to be free.

©1988 Lois McMaster Bujold (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
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Critic reviews

  • Nebula Award Finalist, Best Novel, 1988

"Superb....Read, or you will be missing something extraordinary." (Chicago Sun-Times)
"Bujold's best work in my opinion." (Science Fiction Chronicle)

What listeners say about Falling Free

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Nice but not special

I was a little let down by the story and character development knowing it is a nebula award winner.
Nicely written of course and an intersting premise about freedom, slavery and "all out" capitalism where people are patented and property of the company but it doesn't go deep that way. I recommend it but don't have high expectations.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

easy going story

not amazing but fun world and ideas. easy listening but with basic story line and terrible "love" angle

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

superb

if you don't know these books run and get them. pure joy. having read them several times I am now enjoying them as audio and delighting again. I was not sure about the narrator because having read a book I have a version of people in my own imagination, but the narrator was so good I found him totally compelling.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Good old-fashioned science fiction

Straightforward and fun: engineers are good, managers are bad, individuals good, corporations bad. Like much sci-fi of the era, it oozes with optimistic projections of American values of that time - don't look for any modern political correctness Some nice sci-fi ideas, and a story the trots along cheerfully, if a little implausibly.

The reader was no better than OK, but didn't get in the way too much.

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5 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Starts out on a very good premise, but falls short

Starts out on a very good premise, but the second part is very underwhelming. Everything just falls into place in a most unlikely fashion.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Precursor to Vorkosigan series

Although this is a precursor to the Vorkosigan series it really does stand on its own.
The story of a not quite every-man senior engineer who takes his job seriously is put into an ethical dilemma and goes up against a mega-corp.
I won't write anymore as it would spoil your enjoyment.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Enjoyed this - good performance

This was good entertainment. Great insight into life without gravity & the ethics of gene manipulation!

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1 person found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars

awesome. this is Sci-Fi at it's best.

Relatable main character. clever plot. lots of ethics. probably of particular interest to those in engineering.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

I loved reading this book.

It kept me engaged with the characters and plot to the very end. I strongly recommend this book

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

“Classic” sci-fi - a simple story, well told.

The first thing that struck me was that the writing style and use of language reminded me of something like classic Heinlein. Backed up with a narrator that could have been a newsreader from the same era the effect was to transport me back into the “golden age” of sci-fi.

That’s not a bad thing! The story is straightforward and doesn’t hold many surprises, but it’s well told.

Apparently it’s a prequel. I don’t know the series to which it refers, but I’d happily read (listen to) more in the same ‘verse.

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