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    Undertow
    Undertow
    Undertow
    Audiobook11 hours

    Undertow

    Written by Elizabeth Bear

    Narrated by Tim Gerard Reynolds

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Elizabeth Bear is a rising name in science fiction. In Undertow, AndrE DeschEnes wants to escape his life as a hired assassin. He hopes to learn the art of conjuring, manipulating the odds of people's lives. But a revolution is brewing in the city of Novo Haven, where an alien race is finally gaining ground, demanding they be treated as citizens. And before AndrE moves on, he has a contract to fulfill. "Thought-provoking as well as entertaining ..."-Booklist
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateOct 10, 2008
    ISBN9781436184038
    Undertow
    Author

    Elizabeth Bear

    Elizabeth Bear was born on the same day as Frodo and Bilbo Baggins, but in a different year. She is the Hugo, Theodore Sturgeon Memorial, Locus, and Astounding Award–winning author of dozens of novels and over a hundred short stories. She has spoken on futurism at Google, MIT, DARPA’s 100 Year Starship Project, and the White House, among others. Find her at www.elizabethbear.com.  

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    Reviews for Undertow

    3.5/5

    91 ratings6 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Excellent science fiction novel featuring aliens, clones, murder and mayhem. Reminded me quite a bit of [Summer Queen] by [[Joan Vinge]].
    • 5/5
      I'm finding myself having to revise my opinion of Elizabeth Bear. I read her "Blood and Iron" for my book club in 2006, and really didn't like it very much. But I was told, "Her sf is much better than this venture into fantasy" - (I should mention here that I have this vague feeling that I then read 'Carnival', I think around June 2007, but I appear to have neglected to review it and I can't remember it, which is really not good. Although I have another vague feeling that I liked it.) Anyway, so this month I read 'Undertow' and actually really really liked it. It reminded me of Phyllis Gotlieb's 'Flesh and Gold' - which was one of my favorite books of last year's reading. Like that book, this book deals with the exploitation of a peaceful aquatic race by planetary colonists, but it's definitely its own story.
      Greene's World is a planetary backwater, considered to be a peaceful place by many, a place to escape the vicious politics of 'Central,' a way to avoid the past. The main industry is a mining operation, where most of the workers are an aquatic, frog-like native species, generally considered to be sub-human and pre-industrial by the human colonists of the city of Nova Haven.
      But the politics of Novo Haven are not so non-existent that there isn't enough work for Andre Deschenes, a pure-business assassin-for-hire, who justifies his work to himself by believing that the people whom he is hired to knock off would be killed by someone else if he didn't do it, likely in a less humane manner.
      But when Andre is hired to knock off a woman who is suspected to be involved in trying to foment a revolution amongst the natives - and who also happens to be a close friend of Andre's girlfriend - he is unwittingly drawn into a web of interplanetary politics, hidden exploitation, an unknown alien culture, new technology, and a suspicion that Greene's World is more important than Central has let on - indeed, the very existence of humanity's interplanetary empire may depend on it.
      Highly recommended.
    • 5/5
      Great take on quantum uncertainty, the observer effect, and other modern physics as plot-driving elements. Also a good allegory of slavery and depletion of natural resources. A bit slow in the start, but great action in the second half.
    • 4/5
      Andre Deschenes is a very good assassin—one of the best—but he wants to branch out into the field of “conjuring;” that is, manipulating events by calculating probabilities. He thinks he has the gift, but he can’t find an experienced conjurer willing to take him on as a pupil. Novo Haven, a floating city on the planet of Greene’s World, is the kind of frontier town where people go to hide. The city, and the planet itself, are controlled by the ruthless Charter Trade Company, who have their closely-guarded secrets: the lucrative mineral they’re mining may not be entirely natural, the mining operation itself is on the verge of destroying the planet, and the ranids (the native population species the Company uses as a labor force) are much smarter and more civilized than anyone gives them official credit for being. Meanwhile, Andre Deschenes accepts one last contract against Lucienne Spivak, one of the guerilla operatives attempting to free the ranids from the Company’s control. Unfortunately for Andre, Lucienne was not only the lover of one of the greatest conjurers in the known worlds, but was the best friend of Andre’s own lover. But Lucienne’s death sets into motion events of far greater importance than a few domestic squabbles and Andre and the others find themselves fighting on the same side, attempting to save the world before the Charter Trade Company can destroy it all.Elizabeth Bear has a wonderful way of writing straightforwardly complex plots. Nothing is intentionally obscure or ambiguous, and yet a reader must pay close attention as the story unfolds and develops. A delightful challenge!
    • 4/5
      Disclaimer: This isnt as much a review of the book as it is a report on my enjoyment of the book, and its probably more useful as a way to check on my tastes and quirks than to decide whether to read the bookIt's terribly hard to write a book and I am conscious I couldn't even write something half as good as an awful book. And this book is not awful at all! But this is just to say I hate to criticise someone's hard work, but when I try to write a review books I often end up thinking about where the book could have been great if only... and then it sounds harsher than it should be.--------------------------------------------I started by feeling it was all far too familiar - a world at the edge, lots of people with a past, a corporation exploiting it, natives useful but in-the-way, revolutionaries, a bit of cybernetics, a heavy dollop of quantum... All done very well but not that original, or maybe I have read too many similar books in the past few years. So I was starting to classify as a competent book, very readable, nothing wrong but not that memorable...Then I hit the bit that is written from the perspective of the natives and these are *hugely* enjoyable and fascinating. I'm enjoying these so much, and wanting to get more, and this would keep me reading no matter what she puts in between. I hope she keeps this up till the end, even though that could almost be to the detriment of the book (as a whole) since I care less for the human characters and the main plot as a result. But it will make the book memorable for me, that's already certain.In the second half of the book things pick up, and the plot gets resolved exactly the way I had guessed it will from the hints in the first half. It moves fast, there's some creative use of language to describe the chaos, and it is fun. The end focuses only on the humans and I was disappointed by that, I would have liked more about the natives.I'll be reading some more of hers that's for sure
    • 4/5
      Humans have come to a water world that is already populated with a species of froglike aliens, and conflict is brewing between the natives and the company that is mining a source of quantum-entangled matter that is important to instantaneous interstellar communication. Bear depicts an intriguing future; I would've liked a more thorough tour of the infrastructure and the impact of the calamity at the climax of the book.