Misspent Youth cover art

Misspent Youth

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Misspent Youth

By: Peter F. Hamilton
Narrated by: Steven Crossley
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

A gripping introduction to the world of Peter F. Hamilton’s Commonwealth Saga, Misspent Youth is set in the near-future, over three hundred years before Pandora’s Star and Judas Unchained. For fans of Iain M. Banks and Stephen Baxter.

Read by Steven Crossley, narrator of C.J. Sansom's Shardlake series.

Jeff Baker is granted the gift of eternal youth. However, it’s not all it seems . . .

It is 2040 and, after decades of research, we can finally rejuvenate a human being. At seventy-eight years old, Jeff Baker – renowned inventor and philanthropist – has given the world much of his creative genius. He’s therefore selected as first choice for this gift.

At first, rejuvenation feels like a miracle. Until the glow begins to fade. Personal relationships start to break down and the world waits for more brilliant new work. Living the dream will come at a cost, but can Jeff pay the price?

©Peter F. Hamilton 2016 (P)2016 Pan Macmillan Publishers Ltd. Classics Fantasy Fiction Genetic Engineering Science Fiction Genetics

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Revelation Space cover art
Wife on the Run cover art
Hyperion cover art
The Witching Hour cover art
Lord of All Things cover art
The Steep Approach to Garbadale cover art
Wicked cover art
Ascendant cover art
Complicated cover art

Critic reviews

‘The owner of the most powerful imagination in science fiction’ – Ken Follett, author of The Pillars of the Earth

‘Hamilton handles massive ideas with enviable ease’ – Guardian
All stars
Most relevant  
His books always have a bit grot in them but this was just unbearable. Be better as a script for some cos play porn site.

Peters erotics fantasies

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I have to say that I love the commonwealth saga books but I found this a bit too obsessed with sex. The story is good and the characters interesting but I felt that it could have been a short story rather than a full novel because there was a lot of padding, in my opinion.

The main thing that might make some people uncomfortable is that it is quite sexist in places. Peter F Hamilton never has shyed away from see in any of his books but for the most part they don't objectify one sex over the other. This story is a bit over balanced in that request.

The narrator is good and easy to listen to but he's no Toby Longworth or John Lee.

A Little Obsessed

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This prequel is very, very disappointing! From chapter 1 to chapter 45 the ONLY thing that happens is the inventor of the memory crystal, that will allow the Unisphere and SI to exist, is the first human to receive rejuvenation. He then steals his son's 18-year-old girlfriend. That is IT!! Until chapter 45 the ONLY thing that happens is rejuvenation and stealing his son's girl. Nothing more, honestly!! It is a poorly written soft-porn travesty. I want my time back and my money back! This book adds nothing to the well-written Commonwealth Saga and Hamilton should not have wasted his time writing it, and you should not waste your time listening to it. It is no wonder John Lee didn't narrate it; he would have been embarrassed to read what is just a badly written pornographic, steaming pile of poo, and I'm being kind describing it as that.

Very disappointed! Don't bother, trust me!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
As this review title states, I really am so glad that I read The Commonwealth Saga before this; had I read/listened to this first, I never would have continued with any of Peter F. Hamilton's other stories. As it stands, I'll avoid any standalone books from here on out, but I hope the next series that I read of his brings the amazing story-telling ability that I saw back in the first two Commonwealth storylines back; this story was 95% sex, and concludes with a disappointing ending (in my opinion).

I did enjoy the narrator's performance, though the sound itself fluctuates in the extreme throughout (from very, very quiet to very loud due to having to turn the volume up just to hear the quiet parts). Overall rating 3 out of 5.

So glad I read The Commonwealth Saga first

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
decent story but doesn't really go anywhere. doesn't setup the rest of the commonwealth story arc, doesn't really tell much of a story that has any impact further than this book. the character narrative happens a little easy and despite everything that happens people just accept each thing that's said, no debate, no push back, it just happens. also got predictable from about half way through.

kind of just meanders along.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Probably not Peters best book and the narrator totally killed it for me... Gave up half way through. If you want to give Peter Hamilton a fair go I would suggest Great North Road

Poor Narrator

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Peter Hamilton is the master of exploring the impact deferent technologies would have on a world, looking at every aspect and facet from the functional to the social political and economical, it's one of the reasons his world building is so exceptional and creates such believable universes.

This book is a tighter focused work on the introduction of just one piece of technology (Rejuvenation) and its impact on individual people and the society as a whole. It does an excellent job of exploring the social difficulties this introduces and some of the moral dilemmas it causes.

This book feels like Peter Hamilton is exploring a slightly different writing style, and a different kind of story telling. With such a tight focus this book doesn't have the epic scale that you might be used to from a Peter Hamilton book or the widespread science fiction elements.

As a prequel book to the Commonwealth Saga it unfortunately falls short of it's potential to give us an interesting insight into what the main character from the original books were doing at this early point in the Commonwealths history. Some of the characters do appear but this book for the most part feels like a standalone story that could just as easily not be set in the Commonwealth universe.

Peter Hamilton but with a difference...

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I love Peter F. Hamilton and have read and thoroughly enjoyed all of his books, this one not so much. I read it when it first come out and thought I would give it another go. It is an overblown story of a extremely intelligent but very silly self centered man who after rejuvenation goes on a screw fest. At the end it sinks into sentimentality. I think it might have been good as a (very) short story.
Other than the rejuvenation aspect there is no science fiction in it, much more of a bum-wincing soap opera.
On the audible web sight it is coming up as part of the Commonwealth Saga but it is not, it's a stand alone book.

Not his best

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I bought this by mistake thinking the saga was a trilogy. it's a distant prequel with a fair amount of soft porn and teenage angst. Not much more to say.

Unnecessary addition

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Not sure what percentage of a story needs to be sci-Fi in order for it to be listed as a Sc-iF book, but you won't find much in this. This was almost a Jeffrey Archer listen. Unfortunately it is a long winded and dull. I very much enjoyed this authors other books but think this book is a dud.

Sci-Fi

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews