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Distress
- Narrated by: Adam Epstein
- Length: 14 hrs and 16 mins
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Publisher's Summary
Investigative reporter Andrew Worth turns down a documentary on a mysterious new mental illness - "Distress," or acute clinical anxiety syndrome, for another assignment. He's on his way to the artificial island of Stateless, where the world's top physicists are gathering to decide on a new TOE, or Theory of Everything, to replace Einstein's outmoded legacy.
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What listeners say about Distress
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- David
- 12-06-13
A good book ruined by a poor (and strange) reading
This was all a sad and irritating experience. When I saw that Egan's books were coming to Audible, I pre-ordered this one and expected I would be ordering the rest of the set. Unfortunately, after this rather bizarre reading, I don't think I can handle any more of Adam Epstein. Of the 200 or so audiobooks I've 'read', there have been only a couple that I thought were ruined by the reading. This is one. There are some very interesting ideas and some good science in Egan's science fiction, but Epstein reads this as though it is some goofy teenage comedy. Most of the characters are given cartoon style accents. Even the more serious scientists in the story are given the accents of buffoons. The main character is not so silly, but Epstein uses an odd rhythm (raising the pitch at the end of most sentences) and this also distracts from the reading. A good reader should be transparent and allow the story to flow through. But here, you are constantly wondering why the reader is reading like that. The story itself might be better than four stars, but it is hard to tell. I was too distracted.
Sadly, Epstein was hired to read the other Egan books, so I will reading those the old fashioned way.
12 people found this helpful
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- James Fields
- 05-22-16
Stick with the Kindle version
Same reader as Permutation City. I believe there is something in the Geneva Convention about not having to listen to this person.
Scott Brick where are you?
4 people found this helpful
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- Sehra
- 07-09-19
Good book, bad narration
Better to be read than listened to. Narrator does over the top, heavy accents for almost all characters to the point I can't even focus on what's being said.
Intersting book though that delves into asexuality as a choice and how a theory of everything could cause the world to be observed and thus change in accordance.
3 people found this helpful
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- Peter A. Palmadesso
- 04-09-16
So sad
While Egan has some great ideas, they're too mired in atheist humanist preaching to rise to the level of anything character driven or even plot driven. You don't need a Christian worldview to tell a good story. Isaac Freaking Asimov signed the Humanist Manifesto. But Egan's disdain of Christianity presses him all the way to the point of making him a caricature of himself on every page. It turns his story into no more than a very wordy rehashing of the Techno Rapture pipe dream---the humanist's "pie in the sky"--all but completely devoid of characters.
2 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 04-20-16
this is the worst book.
I spent hours of my life on this book and don't even care that I'm not finishing it. it sucks that badly.
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- Samuel Brooks
- 02-20-20
Terrible narrator, decent story
The narrator's unnaturally repetitive intonation made this extremely hard to listen to and enjoy.
1 person found this helpful
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- Gadget
- 12-31-18
Book and narration both OK, but not great.
Narration: the narrator is clear and easy to understand, but severely lacks variation in his intonation. Basically, he says every sentence pretty much the same, regardless of the context or meaning. The best narrators (IMHO) inject at least a little performance into their reading, adding some emotion, and varying the speed or loudness as the situation demands. Adam Epstein does none of this. The result is a production that frequently sounds dull and flat.
There were a number of mispronounced words, with the narrator having a particular weakness for non-English words.
The narrator's accents are not great. Some of them would be more at home in South Park, and his Australian accent in particular I found extremely unconvincing
Story: some interesting ideas and world building. Unfortunately, it takes a long time for the story to get going; there are occasional dialogues that appear to serve no purpose other than to allow the author to air a particular topic; and I found the premise of the ending somewhat preposterous - and anti-climatic. (Incidentally, Neal Stephenson is guilty of the first two of these, but I really like his books, so make of that what you will!)