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A World Out of Time

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A World Out of Time

By: Larry Niven
Narrated by: Tom Weiner
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About this listen

After more than two hundred years as a corpsicle, Jaybee Corbell awoke in someone else’s body and under threat of instant annihilation if he made a wrong move while they were training him for a one-way mission to the stars.

But Corbell bided his time and made his own move. Once he was outbound, where the society that ruled Earth could not reach him, he headed his starship toward the galactic core, where the unimaginable energies of the universe wrenched the fabric of time and space and promised final escape from his captors.

Then he returned to an Earth eons older than the one he’d left, a planet that had had three million years to develop perils he had never dreamed of - perils that became nightmares that he had to escape... somehow.

Larry Niven is the multiple Hugo and Nebula award–winning author of the Ringworld series, as well as many other science fiction masterpieces. His Beowulf’s Children, coauthored with Jerry Pournelle and Steven Barnes, was a New York Times best seller. He lives in Chatsworth, California.

©1976 Larry Niven (P)2012 Blackstone Audio, Inc. Adventure Science Fiction Fiction

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Critic reviews

“This fantastic novel is a mix of Niven hard science and a time-travel concept to boggle the mind.…Even after the last line the feeling remains of the story still rushing on into the magic distance of the universe.” (A. E. van Vogt, winner of the SFWA Grand Master Award)
“Niven rams this fantastic tale at the reader with taut authority, mixing hard science with mind-boggling concepts of time and space to give us a whole new kind of trip.” ( Publishers Weekly)
“Niven’s intoxicating concepts, ideas, scientific extrapolations, and exotic hardware bubble up from every page. Rich in imagination and astonishing in breadth…Will challenge the most sophisticated readers.” ( Booklist)
All stars
Most relevant  
I never tire of this story. Larry Niven at his best and the performance was great. Good character voices and well read.

One of my favourites

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A great story of another time and place with a surprising twist and an excellent narration

An interesting tail

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Old fashioned sci fi. Some quite unique ideas and half decent narration albeit always always American it seems. Other nationalities do exist Amazon.

Good not great

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A chewy space western in which our lone ranger goes to a far future Earth. I read it because someone on the New Scientist Culture Lab podcast said it was her favourite ever sci-fi. It’s mostly technology fiction and social mores fiction. Ferrel pre-pubescent boy scouts and their enemies, the girls, have been throwing bits of the solar system around. Civilisation’s fundamental problem, though, which our hero resolves, is aging: yes: hair loss, going grey, and wrinkles. Despite everything I’ve just written it’s honestly not a comedy. It’s tightly plotted, pacy and OK.

Peculiar Plot

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Niven doles out a fast paced story containing lots of incredible sci-fi ideas. Niven completes his amazing trick of making the fantistic believable with many ideas that wouldn't be out of place in his Known space universe.
However this is not a perfect Niven tale the story focus changes rapidly and although the mysteries are interesting all apart from one is solved too fast. The fast pace allows Niven to quickly develop a new universe but all apart from the main character feel underdeveloped.
For anyone new to Niven I would suggest starting with 'Ring World' and other Known space books, but if want something beyond his main work and you can hold onto to the roller coaster strap in and enjoy, just watch out for the sudden stop!

A sci-fi roller coaster

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