A bit underwhelming - give previous heights

My caveat for the following review is that I am not a great consumer of shorter titles, and I perhaps do fall into the know-what-I-like camp. I choose my books carefully - either from reading through reviews, or choosing works from authors I know well. With my tastes I have worked through everything that is available on audible from the likes of Alastair Reynolds, Ian M Banks, Peter F Hamilton,or Dan Simmons - so a new appearance of a previously unread or unheard work is something of an anticipation. While diverting enough, I have found that this collection doesn't leave you with the same satisfaction as the more intricate and involving epic-scale, civilsation-spanning narratives that I know and enjoy. A benefit I suppose is that you are not awaiting the required social peace from doing anything else that a single non-episodic good "story" positively engenders you to seek. While it would be unfair to describe the book as neither being though-provoking, or fault some of the tales' actions as simply taking place in more near-future (therefor potentially uninteresting) "universe" in the way that Hamiltion's early work arguably did (if compared to his later books), it has I must admit put me off collections as a whole and the classic short-story form. All-in, an interesting diversion while awaiting the next hefty tome or first trilogy installment of whatever this man's fertile imagination comes up with in that format.

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5 people found this helpful

Well Done Peter you have come back from the cold

As an old-time fan of Peter's work I thought this was the best thing I've heard - not just from him but recently.

A great book that isn't just a collection of stories but mainly related stories mostly set in the same universe of The Reality Dysfunction etc. The first story, Watching Trees Grow, is an expansive story that I knew from some years ago and was a pleasure to hear in audio format and then this book just gets better.

Peter has gone back to his roots and produced quality without the excessivly word pros that, in my opinion, have spoiled his last several books. I suspect most of these stories were written before his current epoch and that explains their compactness but nevertheless well done Peter, please keep this up and publish more like this.

The reading is also really well done with the majority of it being read with passion and a great male voice.

For fans of Peter's work please listen to this and then check out his older works such as Escape Route and the full Night's Dawn Trilogy collection.

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5 people found this helpful

Entertaining shorts

A great little collection of short stories by PFH. He's good at yarns and even better at endings, two prerequisites for short story writing. SciFi fans will enjoy this book, which coincidentally is superbly narrated.

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good but.

first narrator I found to be too flat, lacking the depth of voice which gives the story gravitas.

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1 person found this helpful

A really nice listen

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I would recommend it to any friend who enjoys Peter F.Hamilton's work and ideally who has already read about the starflyer war in Peter's earlier books on the Commonwealth.

What other book might you compare Manhattan in Reverse to, and why?

This is a book of short stories but the style is still all Peter. So a comparable book would be Judas Unchained.

What about the narrators’s performance did you like?

Narration was good but I did have the odd double take on some of the accents - especially as I've listened to the Void series and some of the characters in the short stories are the same ones in the Void books but with a different narrator's interpretation of their voices. However the quality of the narration was good.

Any additional comments?

An excellent listen.

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well worth a listen

solid writing from an excellent author, and well performed. good to visit some old friends and make some new ones. recommended for Hamilton fans.

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Mana from Heaven

When Enzyme Bonded Concrete is uttered for the first time, you know you can get the pipe out, fluffy slippers and relax into that world we know and love, and it's it's...Paula. Which to be honest if i could chose anyone out of all the books for her own lil' novel it would be her. Darn it give her her own epic two book yarn Peter, you know you want to.


Great intro in Hamilton's books if you have no read any before, for fans, it's mana from heaven

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4 people found this helpful

Another fantastic (if short) intriguing novel!

A must for Commonwealth saga readers.
Keep reading to the end to finally find out the connection between The Sheldon's and Inspector Mao. (Didn't see THAT coming!).

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Good book but struggled with it in audible format

I enjoyed this collection of stories as much as any of Hamilton's longer works but found the audio format confusing. With a printed book the divisions between chapters and individual stories are easy to see, not so with an audio book. The different narrators helped but was still tricky. Perhaps we could have book "parts" as well as chapters as divisions to be able to jump to?

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