Ancestral Night cover art

Ancestral Night

A White Space Novel

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Ancestral Night

By: Elizabeth Bear
Narrated by: Nneka Okoye
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About this listen

 A space salvager and her partner make the discovery of a lifetime that just might change the universe in this wild, big-ideas space opera from multi award-winning author Elizabeth Bear.

Haimey Dz thinks she knows what she wants.
She thinks she knows who she is.
She is wrong.

A routine salvage mission uncovers evidence of a terrible crime and relics of a powerful ancient technology, just as Haimey and her small crew run afoul of pirates at the outer limits of the Milky Way and find themselves both on the run, and in possession of ancient, universe-changing technology.
When the authorities prove corrupt, it becomes clear that Haimey is the only one who can protect her galaxy-spanning civilisation from its potential power - and from the revolutionaries who want to use it to seed terror and war. But doing so will take her from the event horizon of the super-massive black hole at the galaxy's core to the infinite, empty spaces at its edge. Along the way, she'll have to uncover the secrets of ancient intelligences lost to time as well as her own lost secrets, which she will wish had remained hidden from her forever . . .

Energetic and electrifying, Ancestral Night is a dazzling new space opera, sure to delight fans of Alastair Reynolds, Iain M. Banks, and Peter F. Hamilton.

Praise for Elizabeth Bear

'Gripping, perfectly balanced, and highly recommended' Kirkus

'Like the best of speculative fiction, Bear has created a fascinating and complete universe
that blends high-tech gadgetry with Old World adventure and political collusion' Publishers Weekly©2019 Elizabeth Bear (P)2019 Orion Publishing Group Cyberpunk Dystopian Military Science Fiction Fiction Thought-Provoking Black Hole

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All stars
Most relevant  
Loved the story, although it would have been better if it was a little more pacy. For me the narrator really let this book down. But if you can get past that then it’s a really enjoyable listen.

Great story

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There was nothing wrong with this book but it takes a long time to get somewhere.

I got to the end

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Really nice story in general,
Well developed characters and pleasantly narrated would like to see more on this line

GREAT LISTEN

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I really wanted to like this book alot , some of the sci fi ideas are great and I couldnt wait for them to be expanded on ...... it didnt happen .

The narrator did a decent job , although I thought the first few hours she just sounded like she was reading a book to me . I just couldnt get into the characters she was doing because of that .

Some of it felt like being sat in a ethics class , or some sort of self help group talking about your feelings and it was more that than sci fi which in the end left me with a bad taste .

Great space ideas , internalizing main character

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I was expecting an exploration of the classic Big Dumb Object trope that I like. However the mystery of the found ship is soon dispelled and even the mystery of the aliens behind the second ship is quickly explained. So it’s more of redemption journey for the main protagonist, dealing with a traumatic past. Still Haimey and the shipboard AI are compelling characters, although some parts of the book made me want to
Shout out “just shoot the pirate FFS”, looking forward to future stories set in the same universe.

Narration was good.

Not what I was expecting

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Amazing journey. A whirlwind of galactic travel through space in search of lost selves. Intelligently and heartfully read.

an internal experience of an astroengineer

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This was a good listen. I switched off halfway through but got back into it again. Would recommend it cautiously to my spacefaring friends.

Good but a little long winded at times.

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Neatly thought out galactic scale FTL travel mechanics coupled with multi species, multi political and minutely personal philosophy. Also a damn good yarn with heroines, heroes villains and sentient AIs. Nicely done.

Deep cosmological sci fi woven around personal, political philosophical experimentation

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Really enjoyed this. I was invested in the characters. It had a good story arc and lots of interesting novel sci if ideas.
If you like Alastair Reynolds I would recommend a listen.

Good sci fi, great vision and story telling.

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This book at no stage raised my heart beat above a gentle stroll. Well written, it just never got into the realm of I can't put this down. Like I said, slow and steady.

Slow and steady.

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