The Actual Star cover art

The Actual Star

A Novel

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The Actual Star

By: Monica Byrne
Narrated by: Carolina Hoyos, Kareem Ferguson, Gisela Chipe
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About this listen

David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas meets Octavia Butler's Earthseed series, as acclaimed author Monica Byrne (The Girl in the Road) spins a brilliant multigenerational saga spanning two thousand years, from the collapse of the ancient Maya to a far-future utopia on the brink of civil war.

The Actual Star takes listeners on a journey over thousands of years and six continents—collapsing three separate timelines into one cave in the Belizean jungle.

An epic saga of three reincarnated souls, this novel demonstrates the entanglements of tradition and progress, sister and stranger, love and hate. The book jumps forward and backward in time among a pair of twins who ruled a Maya kingdom, a young American on a trip of self-discovery, and two dangerous charismatics in a conflict that will determine the fate of the few humans left on Earth after massive climate change.

In each era, age-old questions about existence and belonging and identity converge deep underground. Because only in complete darkness can one truly see the stars.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2021 Monica Byrne (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers Fiction Genre Fiction Literature & Fiction Metaphysical & Visionary Science Fiction

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All stars
Most relevant  
Took a couple of chapters to warm to it but then I was sucked in by this tale of lives interweaving through time. At the end I still had questions, but in a good way. Would have loved for the author to explore Xander’s journey in later life, but perhaps that would have defeated the point.

Different!

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I was attracted to this book via the Guardian wrap up of best sci fi of 2021, and was not disappointed. While I would call it speculative rather than science fiction, it weaves an epic story across two thousand years of Maya history, present day tourism and far future post climate change society. The characters are richly drawn and the world building is top notch. The audio performances (three different narrators) are uniformly excellent, really bringing the text to life. Highly recommended!

An ambitious triumph

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I didn't, but still got loads of joy out of the audiobook. I have a little Spanish and love the language but again don't believe that to be necessary either. I realised that while listening I may have missed some detail while considering what this or that meant, and those constructions are explained in the PDF.

The performances are excellent especially given the length of the piece. It flattened a little for me about three quarters through, but recovered pace soon enough. There are some surprising character twists and plenty of interesting philosophy, it's one that a week after finishing the book I'm still thinking about.

Overall a highly entertaining read, with a satisfying ending which, heads up, you'll need to make time to read or listen to properly.

Do spend a bit of time with the PDF

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Gripping story across three millennia, I enjoyed the balance between historical inspiration and sort-of-just-plausible sci fi, and a few bits where you have to make up your own mind what’s happening.

Good audio version with 3 narrators for the 3 different time periods (with each also covering a few phrases in 3 languages - Ch’ol Maya, Creole, and Spanish). That helped imagine the different worlds, almost more than if I’d read the languages on a page I think. I wish there were a proper preview on Audible though, listening to a bit of the author’s note is not very inspiring.

Gripping story, good recording

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There wa far too much Spanish to make sense of the context, especially in the future story setting. This was very alienating, especially as a listener.

I'm sure that a fluent Spanish speaker would be able to take cues to understand the future context, but as an English and French speaker, I was just lost and frustrated. I gave up after the introduction to the third character.

This may well be an impressive piece of storytelling, but I wouldn't know because the language was completely inaccessible. I don't expect to have to reach for a language dictionary every 5 words just to follow what's going on in book ostendibly published in English.

Disappointing.

You Need to be Bilingual to Understand this Book!

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