Summertide cover art

Summertide

The Heritage Universe, Book 1

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Summertide

By: Charles Sheffield
Narrated by: Geoffrey Howard
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About this listen

 It was just before Summertide, the time when the twin planets, Opal and Quake, would orbit closest to their sun, subjecting both - Quake in particular - to vast tidal forces. It was to be the most violent Summertide ever, creating something that only happened every 350,000 years.

Access to the unstable Quake was supposed to be prohibited, but some very insistent travelers were determined to make the trip. Professor Darya Lang, who studied artifacts left by the long-vanished aliens called the Builders, had a hunch that she might find the Builders themselves. Louis Nenda and the Cecropian Atvar H'sial had their own interests in Quake, and would do anything to get there. And Councilor Julius Graves was hunting murderers - if they were hiding on Quake, he would find them.

Planetary Administrators Hans Rebka and Max Perry had no choice but to go to Quake - risking their lives to protect the others - and to learn, just maybe, the secret of Summertide and the Builders.

©1990, 1991, 1992, and 1997 Charles Sheffield (P)2002 Blackstone Audiobooks Adventure Fantasy Fiction Science Fiction

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All stars
Most relevant  
Bit technical in places & took a while to get into but overall a decent story.

One for hardcore sci-fi fans

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What Summertide does, it does very well. It is a tidy and compact story that builds competently upon its solid premise with intelligent space opera tempered by a mix of hard science.

The small cast of characters is diverse, believable. and well developed, and the narration is competent and serves to properly communicate the complexity of the science as it is revealed. The science is frequent and relevant, and never feels misplaced, ably supporting the themes the author is exploring.

My only gripe is that whilst ST puts in impressive groundwork to create a deepening fascination with the ancient race of Builders central to the story, I felt there was a frustrating lack of action between the protagonists and their competing self-interests.

The story is part of a sequence, but is also remarkably self-contained and does not try to overtly push too much into future episodes, although undoubtedly that is where the big questions will find their answers.

ST left me wanting more, and has performed well enough to make me want to read book two.

A carefully crafted story

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It is a great combination of mystery, crime and sci-fi. You can’t stop listening to it , the story is fascinating and well written.

Great story & performance

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Brillent audio story, well read, from the start i was captivated sand i had to continue llisstening all through to the end

Very Good

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This is an old fashioned tale that uses one of my favourite tropes of still working artefacts left by a previous civilisation. I rather enjoyed it.

Narration was well done.

Old fashioned..

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Well read, with interesting ideas, but some real inconsistencies, particularly that technologically advanced space travelers would have sophisticated planetary science and advanced enabling cultures.

Too many holes in the plot to be satisfying.

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This is a difficult listen. Shame as the the concept is very good and has potential. Unfortunately it is really dull for at least 3/4.

Very dull until close to the end

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I did not get past the 4th chapter as this is a hard one to follow, especially if you want a lighter listen.

hard to follow

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