-
Arcadia
- A Novel
- Narrated by: John Lee, Jayne Entwistle
- Length: 20 hrs and 12 mins
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $38.50
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Stone's Fall
- A Novel
- By: Iain Pears
- Narrated by: Roy Dotrice, John Lee, Simon Vance
- Length: 24 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Iain Pears tells the story of John Stone, financier and arms dealer, a man so wealthy that in the years before World War One he was able to manipulate markets, industries, and indeed entire countries and continents. A panoramic novel with a riveting mystery at its heart, Stone's Fall is a quest to discover how and why John Stone dies, falling out of a window at his London home.
-
-
Not a Thriller
- By Snoodely on 11-07-09
By: Iain Pears
-
As You Like It
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: Lynn Collins, Alexis Jacknow, Jeff Gardner, and others
- Length: 2 hrs and 13 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Love triumphs in As You Like It, Shakespeare's joyous comic adventure! Rosalind, arguably Shakespeare's greatest female character, is banished from court and follows her exiled father into the untamed Forest of Arden. Disguised as a man for safety, Rosalind's great wit and good nature show through her male trappings as she engages with fools and philosophers adrift in the woods, and ultimately falls in love.
-
-
Very entertaining
- By Laurie on 05-25-20
-
A Conspiracy of Truths
- By: Alexandra Rowland
- Narrated by: James Langton
- Length: 14 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Arrested on accusations of witchcraft and treason, Chant finds himself trapped in a cold, filthy jail cell in a foreign land. With only his advocate, the unhelpful and uninterested Consanza, he quickly finds himself cast as a bargaining chip in a brewing battle between the five rulers of this small, backwards, and petty nation. Or, at least, that's how he would tell the story. In truth, Chant has little idea of what is happening outside the walls of his cell, but he must quickly start to unravel the puzzle of his imprisonment before they execute him for his alleged crimes.
-
-
I’d give this a million stars if I could
- By Grace on 11-15-18
-
The Fourth Bear
- A Nursery Crime
- By: Jasper Fforde
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Gingerbreadman, psychopath, sadist, genius, and killer, is on the loose. But it isn't Jack Spratt's case. He and Mary Mary have been demoted to Missing Persons following Jack's poor judgment involving the poisoning of Mr. Bun the baker. Missing Persons looks like a boring assignment until a chance encounter leads them into the hunt for missing journalist Henrietta "Goldy" Hatchett, star reporter for The Daily Mole.
-
-
10001001110000111
- By Gary on 08-31-06
By: Jasper Fforde
-
The Library of the Unwritten
- A Novel from Hell's Library, Book 1
- By: A. J. Hackwith
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan
- Length: 13 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Many years ago, Claire was named Head Librarian of the Unwritten Wing - a neutral space in Hell where all the stories unfinished by their authors reside. Her job consists mainly of repairing and organizing books, but also of keeping an eye on restless stories that risk materializing as characters and escaping the library. When a Hero escapes from his book and goes in search of his author, Claire must track and capture him with the help of former muse and current assistant Brevity and nervous demon courier Leto.
-
-
Don't Judge a Book by it's Cover
- By Terry on 01-21-20
By: A. J. Hackwith
-
Cloud Atlas
- A Novel
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: Scott Brick, Cassandra Campbell, Kim Mai Guest, and others
- Length: 19 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cloud Atlas begins in 1850 with Adam Ewing, an American notary voyaging from the Chatham Isles to his home in California. Along the way, Ewing is befriended by a physician, Dr. Goose, who begins to treat him for a rare species of brain parasite.... Abruptly, the action jumps to Belgium in 1931, where Robert Frobisher, a disinherited bisexual composer, contrives his way into the household of an infirm maestro who has a beguiling wife and a nubile daughter....
-
-
In this case: book first, then the film
- By Michael G Kurilla on 11-22-12
By: David Mitchell
-
Stone's Fall
- A Novel
- By: Iain Pears
- Narrated by: Roy Dotrice, John Lee, Simon Vance
- Length: 24 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Iain Pears tells the story of John Stone, financier and arms dealer, a man so wealthy that in the years before World War One he was able to manipulate markets, industries, and indeed entire countries and continents. A panoramic novel with a riveting mystery at its heart, Stone's Fall is a quest to discover how and why John Stone dies, falling out of a window at his London home.
-
-
Not a Thriller
- By Snoodely on 11-07-09
By: Iain Pears
-
As You Like It
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: Lynn Collins, Alexis Jacknow, Jeff Gardner, and others
- Length: 2 hrs and 13 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Love triumphs in As You Like It, Shakespeare's joyous comic adventure! Rosalind, arguably Shakespeare's greatest female character, is banished from court and follows her exiled father into the untamed Forest of Arden. Disguised as a man for safety, Rosalind's great wit and good nature show through her male trappings as she engages with fools and philosophers adrift in the woods, and ultimately falls in love.
-
-
Very entertaining
- By Laurie on 05-25-20
-
A Conspiracy of Truths
- By: Alexandra Rowland
- Narrated by: James Langton
- Length: 14 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Arrested on accusations of witchcraft and treason, Chant finds himself trapped in a cold, filthy jail cell in a foreign land. With only his advocate, the unhelpful and uninterested Consanza, he quickly finds himself cast as a bargaining chip in a brewing battle between the five rulers of this small, backwards, and petty nation. Or, at least, that's how he would tell the story. In truth, Chant has little idea of what is happening outside the walls of his cell, but he must quickly start to unravel the puzzle of his imprisonment before they execute him for his alleged crimes.
-
-
I’d give this a million stars if I could
- By Grace on 11-15-18
-
The Fourth Bear
- A Nursery Crime
- By: Jasper Fforde
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Gingerbreadman, psychopath, sadist, genius, and killer, is on the loose. But it isn't Jack Spratt's case. He and Mary Mary have been demoted to Missing Persons following Jack's poor judgment involving the poisoning of Mr. Bun the baker. Missing Persons looks like a boring assignment until a chance encounter leads them into the hunt for missing journalist Henrietta "Goldy" Hatchett, star reporter for The Daily Mole.
-
-
10001001110000111
- By Gary on 08-31-06
By: Jasper Fforde
-
The Library of the Unwritten
- A Novel from Hell's Library, Book 1
- By: A. J. Hackwith
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan
- Length: 13 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Many years ago, Claire was named Head Librarian of the Unwritten Wing - a neutral space in Hell where all the stories unfinished by their authors reside. Her job consists mainly of repairing and organizing books, but also of keeping an eye on restless stories that risk materializing as characters and escaping the library. When a Hero escapes from his book and goes in search of his author, Claire must track and capture him with the help of former muse and current assistant Brevity and nervous demon courier Leto.
-
-
Don't Judge a Book by it's Cover
- By Terry on 01-21-20
By: A. J. Hackwith
-
Cloud Atlas
- A Novel
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: Scott Brick, Cassandra Campbell, Kim Mai Guest, and others
- Length: 19 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cloud Atlas begins in 1850 with Adam Ewing, an American notary voyaging from the Chatham Isles to his home in California. Along the way, Ewing is befriended by a physician, Dr. Goose, who begins to treat him for a rare species of brain parasite.... Abruptly, the action jumps to Belgium in 1931, where Robert Frobisher, a disinherited bisexual composer, contrives his way into the household of an infirm maestro who has a beguiling wife and a nubile daughter....
-
-
In this case: book first, then the film
- By Michael G Kurilla on 11-22-12
By: David Mitchell
-
The Wrong Unit
- A Novel
- By: Rob Dircks
- Narrated by: Rob Dircks
- Length: 5 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
I don't know what the humans are so cranky about. Their enclosures are large, they ingest over 1,000 calories per day, and they're allowed to mate. Plus, they have me: an Autonomous Servile Unit, housed in a mobile/bipedal chassis. I do my job well: keep the humans healthy and happy.
-
-
The kind of science fiction book I search for!
- By Fascinatingbooks on 07-31-16
By: Rob Dircks
-
Medicus
- A Novel of the Roman Empire
- By: Ruth Downie
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Gaius Petrius Ruso is a divorced and down-on-his-luck army doctor who has made the rash decision to seek his fortune in an inclement outpost of the Roman Empire, namely Britannia. After a 36-hour shift at the army hospital, he succumbs to a moment of weakness and rescues an injured slave girl, Tilla, from the hands of her abusive owner. And before he knows it, Ruso is caught in the middle of an investigation into the deaths of prostitutes working out of the local bar.
-
-
Great listen
- By Susan on 08-31-07
By: Ruth Downie
-
The Raphael Affair
- Art History Mysteries, Book 1
- By: Iain Pears
- Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
- Length: 5 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Jonathan Argyll is arrested for breaking into an obscure church in Rome, he claims that it contains a long-lost Raphael hidden under a painting by Mantini. The painting disappears - then reappears in the hands of the top British art dealer, Edward Byrnes. How has Byrnes found out about the hidden masterpiece, and whom is he acting for? There is also the curious matter of the safe deposit box full of sketches closely resembling features of the newly discovered painting.
-
-
Beautiful art, elegant wit and amusing writing
- By Marina on 05-04-12
By: Iain Pears
-
Ready Player One
- By: Ernest Cline
- Narrated by: Wil Wheaton
- Length: 15 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At once wildly original and stuffed with irresistible nostalgia, Ready Player One is a spectacularly genre-busting, ambitious, and charming debut—part quest novel, part love story, and part virtual space opera set in a universe where spell-slinging mages battle giant Japanese robots, entire planets are inspired by Blade Runner, and flying DeLoreans achieve light speed.
-
-
Thanks, But No Thanks
- By Joshua Simpson on 01-27-19
By: Ernest Cline
-
The Fellowship of the Ring
- Book One in The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
- By: J. R. R. Tolkien
- Narrated by: Rob Inglis
- Length: 19 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Fellowship of the Ring, the first volume in the trilogy, tells of the fateful power of the One Ring. It begins a magnificent tale of adventure that will plunge the members of the Fellowship of the Ring into a perilous quest and set the stage for the ultimate clash between the powers of good and evil.
-
-
Audiobook version better than I had hoped
- By James W. on 10-31-18
By: J. R. R. Tolkien
-
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
- A Novel
- By: Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer, Susan Duerden, Rosalyn Landor, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she’s never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb.... As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, Juliet is drawn into the world of this man and his friends - and what a wonderfully eccentric world it is.
-
-
MUCH better than I ever expected! Give it a try!
- By Kent on 10-19-09
By: Mary Ann Shaffer, and others
-
Thrawn (Star Wars)
- By: Timothy Zahn
- Narrated by: Marc Thompson
- Length: 16 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this definitive novel, listeners will follow Thrawn's rise to power - uncovering the events that created one of the most iconic villains in Star Wars history.
-
-
The Sherlock of Star Wars
- By Admiralu on 05-06-17
By: Timothy Zahn
-
Gnomon
- By: Nick Harkaway
- Narrated by: Ben Onwukwe
- Length: 29 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the world of Gnomon, citizens are constantly observed and democracy has reached a pinnacle of "transparency". Every action is seen, every word is recorded, and the System has access to its citizens' thoughts and memories - all in the name of providing the safest society in history. When suspected dissident Diana Hunter dies in government custody, it marks the first time a citizen has been killed during an interrogation. The System doesn't make mistakes, but something isn't right about the circumstances surrounding Hunter's death.
-
-
Excellent, challenging, not a “beach read”
- By Mark Hancock on 12-09-18
By: Nick Harkaway
-
When We Were Orphans
- By: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Christopher Banks, an English boy born in early-20th-century Shanghai, is orphaned at age nine when both his mother and father disappear under suspicious circumstances. He grows up to become a renowned detective, and more than 20 years later, returns to Shanghai to solve the mystery of the disappearances.
-
-
Just short of 5 stars
- By Everett Leiter on 05-26-06
By: Kazuo Ishiguro
-
Dreadful Company
- By: Vivian Shaw
- Narrated by: Suzannah Hampton
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Greta Helsing, doctor to the undead, is unexpectedly called to Paris to present at a medical conference, she expects nothing more exciting than professional discourse on zombie reconstructive surgery and skin disease in bogeymen - and hopefully at least one uneventful night at the Opera. Unfortunately for Greta, Paris happens to be infested with a coven of vampires - and not the civilized kind. If she hopes to survive, Greta must navigate the darkest corners of the City of Lights, the maze of ancient catacombs and mine-tunnels underneath the streets.
-
-
Better than the first
- By Charisma on 08-08-18
By: Vivian Shaw
-
The Dragon Waiting
- By: John M. Ford
- Narrated by: Gerard Doyle
- Length: 13 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a snowbound inn high in the Alps, four people meet who will alter fate. A noble Byzantine mercenary.... A female Florentine physician.... An ageless Welsh wizard.... And Sforza, the uncanny duke. Together they will wage an intrigue-filled campaign against the might of Byzantium to secure the English throne for Richard, Duke of Gloucester - and make him Richard III.
-
-
Read not listen.
- By Anna Marie on 08-08-21
By: John M. Ford
-
Newt's Emerald
- Magic, Maids, and Masquerades
- By: Garth Nix
- Narrated by: Faye Adele
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After Lady Truthful's magical Newington emerald is stolen from her, she devises a simple plan: go to London to recover the missing jewel. She quickly learns, however, that a woman cannot wander the city streets alone without damaging her reputation, and she disguises herself as a mustache-wearing man. During Truthful's dangerous journey she discovers a crook, an unsuspecting ally, and an evil sorceress - but will she find the emerald?
-
-
Clean, fun magical romp
- By A. Cooper on 08-17-16
By: Garth Nix
Publisher's Summary
From the author of the international best seller An Instance of the Fingerpost, Arcadia is an astonishing work of imagination.
Three interlocking worlds. Four people looking for answers. But who controls the future - or the past?
In 1960s Oxford, Professor Henry Lytten is attempting to write a fantasy novel that forgoes the magic of his predecessors, J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. He finds an unlikely confidante in his quick-witted, inquisitive young neighbor, Rosie. One day, while chasing Lytten's cat, Rosie encounters a doorway in his cellar. She steps through and finds herself in an idyllic, pastoral land where storytellers are revered above all others. There she meets a young man who is about to embark on a quest of his own - and may be the one chance Rosie has of returning home. These breathtaking adventures ultimately intertwine with the story of an eccentric psychomathematician whose breakthrough discovery will affect all of these different lives and worlds.
Dazzlingly inventive and deeply satisfying, Arcadia tests the boundaries of storytelling and asks: If the past can change the future, then might the future also indelibly alter the past?
Critic Reviews
More from the same
What listeners say about Arcadia
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Bonny
- 03-01-16
Great fun!
I can't even begin to imagine how to describe this book. Time travel, fantasy, sci fi, Shakespeare, the Wizard of Oz, the end of the world, romance, coming of age . . . it has a fantastically complex plot which does make sense (I'm pretty sure), a lot of terrific characters, snappy dialogue, interesting futuristic scenarios, and excellent writing. If you get impatient with fantasy/sci fi elements, you're not going to go for this, but if you suspend disbelief and go along for the ride, it's a blast. It's a really fun book, and just when you think you're getting a handle on things, Pears pulls a hard u-turn and you're off to someplace else. In the end it is satisfying!
The narration is generally very good. My only quibble is that John Lee's voicing of Angela Meerson was in a completely different universe from Jayne Entwistle's voicing of the same character. John Lee seemed to veer into Monty Python or Dame Edna territory, where Entwistle (what a great name) did a fairly straightforward and very believable geek-ish reading. But that's a minor quibble, and the book is delightful and like nothing else you've ever read.
20 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- michaeldefreitas
- 04-20-16
Quintessentially British mashup
Any additional comments?
Iain Pears is a reliably entertaining, inventive, humorous writer. "Arcadia" draws on, and gently satirizes, a rich panoply of primarily fantasy and sci-fi literature, with strong elements of mystery and spy novels as well. The humorous tone is pure British. The book explicitly refers to numerous writers, such as Lewis, Tolkien, Shakespeare, and Christie, but I also detect echoes of Wodehouse, Asimov, and Le Carre. And the very next novel I want to revisit after this is "To Say Nothing of the Dog," another funny British time-travel novel.
11 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- anna sheynman
- 03-28-16
Amazing story with excellent readers (John Lee!)
What made the experience of listening to Arcadia the most enjoyable?
The combination of science-fiction, magic, romance, human imagination and mystery. interlocking worlds, time travelling. A many-layered narrative in which real and imagined worlds continually collide.
Have you listened to any of John Lee and Jayne Entwistle ’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
I found this book because of John Lee. I am not familiar with the second reader, but both did an exceptional job.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
I gabbled this book too fast...yes it made me laugh.
Any additional comments?
Amazing story, excellent reading. One of the best books I've experienced.
10 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Angela B
- 02-19-16
a wonderfully complicated genre hopper.
Pleasantly complicated. a touch of everything, including sci-fi, old fashioned mystery, romance and beyond, all wound together beautifully.
8 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Maine Colonial 🌲
- 03-22-16
Delightful genre fiction mash-up
Is this novel adventure, fantasy, sci-fi, romance, murder mystery, espionage thriller, dystopian speculation? The answer is yes. It’s actually all of those things. As the description says, we begin with Henry Lytten, gratefully retired from the British intelligence service and now living (in 1962) in Oxford, where he is noodling with writing a fantasy novel of Anterwold, an arcadian world, and one that he hopes will be better than those created by Tolkien and C.S. Lewis.
In Anterwold, the young peasant, Jay, experiences a visitation from a lady mysteriously conjured from nothingness. This vision will change his life and Anterwold.
Lytten’s teenage neighbor, Rosie, comes to feed the cat and have a chat with him, as usual, and becomes entangled in Lytten’s fantasy world. At the same time, one of Henry’s old intelligence comrades comes calling and asks him (though there’s never really an “ask” in that world) to take on one more assignment crucial to the Cold War then raging.
In another thread of the story, Angela Meerson is an eccentric genius in a dystopian future where all of society is rigidly controlled, except for exiled renegades, who scrape out an existence without the resources provided by the establishment, but also without the drugs that turn people into drudges. Angela is working on a machine that was supposed to generate infinite parallel worlds, but she suspects it will actually prove the possibility of time travel.
Though the interweaving of all these story threads is complex, it doesn’t seem so at all while you’re reading. This is a deceptively simple and straightforward story, and one with a large cast of winning characters.
This is a long book, but the stories stay engaging in their separate ways. Then, in the last quarter or so, Pears masterfully brings all the threads together in an exciting and delightful climax.
Iain Pears is a fascinating writer because all of his books are so different from each other. His other titles, like An Instance of the Fingerpost and Stone’s Fall, have weightier themes, but Arcadia is fun to read and may appeal to a broader audience.
A note about the audiobook: The principal reader is John Lee. Lee seems to be everywhere in audiobooks, and I am probably in the minority when I say that’s unfortunate. I’ve reached the point where I can barely stand to hear his voice. It’s oily, pompous and he doesn’t have a good sense of tone or cadence. Jayne Entwistle reads the Angela Meerson chapters. Entwistle is the reader for the Flavia de Luce novels and I think is more suited to younger characters’ voices. I didn’t object to her in this novel, but I don’t think she was the best choice for an older woman like Meerson.
21 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- S. Barnum
- 05-02-16
Engaging story
Any additional comments?
I took a risk getting this book, as I had never read anything by Iain Pears before and the book was so new when I got it there were no reviews. The description sounded interesting so I went for it. I was glad I did! I really enjoyed the story. John Lee sounded a little stiff at first, but I got used to his narration and enjoyed it after a while. Then they introduced Angela Meerson (not sure of the spelling) and all of her pov chapters were narrated by Jayne Entwistle, who I think did a marvelous job. My one complaint is that Angela's character was voiced by both narrators (because Ms. Entwistle only narrated Angela's pov, and Mr. Lee narrated everyone elses pov). They each made her sound different. This was a little distracting.
The story is hard to categorize. It takes place in three different worlds- one is 1960, the second is definitely in the future, and the third is a mystery. I had fun gathering clues and guessing what was going on.
The characters were interesting, some were better developed than others.
Overall I really enjoyed the story, and I will definitely read other works by this author in the future.
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Steven Fuller
- 03-02-16
Fantastic book!
This book rather defies categorization: spy novel? Murder mystery? Steam punk? Historical fiction? Fantasy? Sci Fi? Brit Lit? Apocalyptic? Nuclear war? Shakespeare? Robin Hood? Time Machines and alternate universes?
Utterly and charmingly superb.
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Lars
- 04-20-16
Slow-moving Time-Travel Epic
PROS:
- I found the time-travel theoretical science pretty engaging. Essentially, the 'alternate realities' theory is shown to be false, and it turns out any given entry-point will affect all others. The paradox issue was still a bit of a problem for me, and it was a little tough to grasp at times, but I liked the analogy they used with a piece of paper and a string running over it. Provided the starting point ("the big bang") and the endpoint ("the big crunch," which really wasn't elaborated on...) are the same, the string can take any number of configurations along the way to those ends.
- The writing is great, and the character interactions are entertaining (and funny), in a 'British' flavor. Personally, I thought the narration was excellent. The two separate (male and female) narrators for the different chapters/character perspectives worked well.
- This novel incorporates a lot of different genre types, from medieval sword-and-shield to 60s spy novel, to dystopian future, and pulls it off pretty well. Things are tied together nicely at the end, which I liked.
CON:
- It was a little slow-moving at times. This novel was mainly character-driven, so if you are looking for action or thrills, this probably isn't the ticket.
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ms.
- 03-03-16
Great story, unfortunate choice of narrator (Lee)
If you could sum up Arcadia in three words, what would they be?
Such a fun story! Time-hopping, world hopping! Social commentary with a light-ish touch. An interesting discussion of the ways societies organize themselves, the benefits and the difficulties. Also, an interesting way to look at how our perceptions are limited by the times/places we live in. I enjoyed Jayne Entwistle's performance. John Lee, on the other hand, drove me to buy the book and read the second half in print. I guess he was trying to distinguish different male characters, but the result is some unendurably cartoon-like voices.
12 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- J. Kahn
- 01-02-17
Tiresome
Like others, I thought this might be ingeniously crafted, but it was just too convoluted. Pears' attempt to cram in science fiction (with absolutely no concept of real science), dystopia and some Shakespearean allusions thrown out in was rambling and bloated.
I used to like John Lee until I realized that he reads everything in the same way, with the utmost pomposity.
3 people found this helpful