Listen free for 30 days
-
METAtropolis: Cascadia
- Narrated by: Rene Auberjonois, Kate Mulgrew, Wil Wheaton, Gates McFadden, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, Jay Lake
- Length: 12 hrs and 55 mins
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for £22.89
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
METAtropolis
- By: Jay Lake, Tobias Buckell, Elizabeth Bear, and others
- Narrated by: Michael Hogan, Scott Brick, Kandyse McClure, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Armed camps of eco-survivalists battle purveyors of technology in this exclusive, original production featuring five sci-fi masters and five all-star narrators.
-
-
Thoughts written down before i thought them
- By Mathew on 25-03-10
-
Star Trek: The Next Generation: First Contact (Adapted)
- By: J.M. Dillard
- Narrated by: Gates McFadden
- Length: 3 hrs and 5 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"Resistance is futile." The greatest threat the Federation has ever faced is the half organic, half mechanical Borg. Now more dangerous than ever, the Borg threatens the Federation's past, present, and future. Read by Gates McFadden, "Beverly Crusher" on Star Trek, The Next Generation!
-
-
"Borg...............Sounds Swedish"
- By DJ Morpheus on 17-11-08
-
The Collapsing Empire
- The Interdependency, Book 1
- By: John Scalzi
- Narrated by: Wil Wheaton
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Our universe is ruled by physics, and faster-than-light travel is not possible - until the discovery of The Flow, an extradimensional field we can access at certain points in space-time that transports us to other worlds, around other stars. Humanity flows away from Earth, into space, and in time forgets our home world and creates a new empire, the Interdependency, whose ethos requires that no one human outpost can survive without the others. It's a hedge against interstellar war - and a system of control for the rulers of the empire.
-
-
Juvenile
- By Sal on 14-04-17
-
We Are Legion (We Are Bob)
- Bobiverse, Book 1
- By: Dennis E. Taylor
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There's a reason We Are Legion was named Audible's Best Science Fiction Book of 2016: Its irresistibly irreverent wit! Bob Johansson has just sold his software company for a small fortune and is looking forward to a life of leisure. The first item on his to-do list: Spending his newfound windfall. On an urge to splurge, he signs up to have his head cryogenically preserved in case of death. Then he gets himself killed crossing the street. Waking up 117 years later, Bob discovers his mind has been uploaded into a sentient space probe with the ability to replicate itself.
-
-
An unexpected gem
- By Andrew on 29-01-17
-
American Gods: The Tenth Anniversary Edition (A Full Cast Production)
- By: Neil Gaiman
- Narrated by: Neil Gaiman, Dennis Boutskiaris, Daniel Oreskes, and others
- Length: 19 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After three years in prison, Shadow Moon is free to go home. But hours before his release, his beloved wife is killed in a freak accident. Numbly, he boards a plane where he meets an enigmatic stranger who seems to know Shadow and claims to be an ancient god - and king of America. Together they embark on a profoundly strange road trip across the USA, encountering a kaleidoscopic cast of characters along the way. But all around them a storm of unnatural proportions is gathering.
-
-
Just fantastic!
- By Miles on 12-06-13
-
Fall of Giants
- Century Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Ken Follett
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 30 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A huge novel that follows five families through the world-shaking dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for votes for women. It is 1911. The Coronation Day of King George V. The Williams, a Welsh coal-mining family, is linked by romance and enmity to the Fitzherberts, aristocratic coal-mine owners. Lady Maud Fitzherbert falls in love with Walter von Ulrich, a spy at the German Embassy in London.
-
-
Fantastic
- By Richard on 25-08-11
-
METAtropolis
- By: Jay Lake, Tobias Buckell, Elizabeth Bear, and others
- Narrated by: Michael Hogan, Scott Brick, Kandyse McClure, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Armed camps of eco-survivalists battle purveyors of technology in this exclusive, original production featuring five sci-fi masters and five all-star narrators.
-
-
Thoughts written down before i thought them
- By Mathew on 25-03-10
-
Star Trek: The Next Generation: First Contact (Adapted)
- By: J.M. Dillard
- Narrated by: Gates McFadden
- Length: 3 hrs and 5 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"Resistance is futile." The greatest threat the Federation has ever faced is the half organic, half mechanical Borg. Now more dangerous than ever, the Borg threatens the Federation's past, present, and future. Read by Gates McFadden, "Beverly Crusher" on Star Trek, The Next Generation!
-
-
"Borg...............Sounds Swedish"
- By DJ Morpheus on 17-11-08
-
The Collapsing Empire
- The Interdependency, Book 1
- By: John Scalzi
- Narrated by: Wil Wheaton
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Our universe is ruled by physics, and faster-than-light travel is not possible - until the discovery of The Flow, an extradimensional field we can access at certain points in space-time that transports us to other worlds, around other stars. Humanity flows away from Earth, into space, and in time forgets our home world and creates a new empire, the Interdependency, whose ethos requires that no one human outpost can survive without the others. It's a hedge against interstellar war - and a system of control for the rulers of the empire.
-
-
Juvenile
- By Sal on 14-04-17
-
We Are Legion (We Are Bob)
- Bobiverse, Book 1
- By: Dennis E. Taylor
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There's a reason We Are Legion was named Audible's Best Science Fiction Book of 2016: Its irresistibly irreverent wit! Bob Johansson has just sold his software company for a small fortune and is looking forward to a life of leisure. The first item on his to-do list: Spending his newfound windfall. On an urge to splurge, he signs up to have his head cryogenically preserved in case of death. Then he gets himself killed crossing the street. Waking up 117 years later, Bob discovers his mind has been uploaded into a sentient space probe with the ability to replicate itself.
-
-
An unexpected gem
- By Andrew on 29-01-17
-
American Gods: The Tenth Anniversary Edition (A Full Cast Production)
- By: Neil Gaiman
- Narrated by: Neil Gaiman, Dennis Boutskiaris, Daniel Oreskes, and others
- Length: 19 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After three years in prison, Shadow Moon is free to go home. But hours before his release, his beloved wife is killed in a freak accident. Numbly, he boards a plane where he meets an enigmatic stranger who seems to know Shadow and claims to be an ancient god - and king of America. Together they embark on a profoundly strange road trip across the USA, encountering a kaleidoscopic cast of characters along the way. But all around them a storm of unnatural proportions is gathering.
-
-
Just fantastic!
- By Miles on 12-06-13
-
Fall of Giants
- Century Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Ken Follett
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 30 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A huge novel that follows five families through the world-shaking dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for votes for women. It is 1911. The Coronation Day of King George V. The Williams, a Welsh coal-mining family, is linked by romance and enmity to the Fitzherberts, aristocratic coal-mine owners. Lady Maud Fitzherbert falls in love with Walter von Ulrich, a spy at the German Embassy in London.
-
-
Fantastic
- By Richard on 25-08-11
-
Shibumi
- By: Trevanian
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 16 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nicholai Hel, born in the ravages of World War I China to an aristocratic Russian mother and a mysterious German father, raised in the spiritual gardens of a Japanese Go Master, survives the destruction of Hiroshima to emerge as the world's most artful lover and its most accomplished and highly paid assassin. Genius, mystic, master of language and culture, Hel's secret is his determination to attain a rare kind of personal excellence, a state of effortless perfection: shibumi.
-
-
Unusual and interesting
- By ThePuss on 23-08-10
-
Sandstorm
- Sigma Force, Book 1
- By: James Rollins
- Narrated by: John Meagher
- Length: 16 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twenty years ago, a wealthy British financier disappeared near Ubar, the fabled lost city buried beneath the sands of Oman. Now, an expedition of scientists, led by the financier’s daughter, is finally setting off for the legendary metropolis to unlock the desert’s secrets. What they find, however, is more beautiful than they ever dreamed — and far deadlier. Within Ubar is a powerful energy source that could fuel the entire earth above — if it can be harnessed.
-
-
Please don’t waste your time
- By Kevin on 02-02-22
-
Ring of Fire I
- By: Eric Flint - editor
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 18 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The battle between democracy and tyranny is joined, and the American Revolution has begun over a century ahead of schedule. A cosmic accident has shifted a modern West Virginia town back through time and space to land it and its 20th century technology in Germany in the middle of the Thirty Years War. History must take a new course as American freedom and democracy battle against the squabbling despots of 17th century Europe.
-
Hyperion
- By: Dan Simmons
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor, Allyson Johnson, Kevin Pariseau, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the world called Hyperion, beyond the law of the Hegemony of Man, there waits the creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all.
-
-
A fantastic combination
- By Mr. S. Gibson on 15-08-10
-
Ball Lightning
- By: Cixin Liu
- Narrated by: Bruno Roubicek
- Length: 12 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Chen's parents are incinerated before his eyes by a blast of ball lightning, he devotes his life to cracking the secret of this mysterious natural phenomenon. The more he learns, the more he comes to realise that ball lightning is just the tip of an entirely new frontier in particle physics. Although Chen's quest provides a purpose for his lonely life, his reasons for chasing this elusive quarry come into conflict with soldiers and scientists who have motives of their own.
-
-
Author's afterword contains spoilers
- By Jed1314 on 28-04-20
-
Reflex
- By: Steven Gould
- Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews
- Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Davy has always been alone. He believes that he's the only person who can teleport. But what if he isn't? A mysterious group of people has taken Davy captive. They don't want to hire him, and they don't have any hope of appealing to him to help them. What they want is to own him. They want to use his abilities for their own purposes, whether Davy agrees to it or not. And so they set about brainwashing him and conditioning him. But there's one thing that they don't know....
-
-
The best fictional universe in the world!
- By Anonymous User on 26-05-19
-
Elantris
- By: Brandon Sanderson
- Narrated by: Jack Garrett
- Length: 28 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Elantris was built on magic, and it thrived. But then the magic began to fade, and Elantris began to rot. Now its shattered citizens face domination by a powerful Imperium. Can a young Princess unite the people of Elantris and lead a rebellion against the imperial zealots? Brandon Sanderson's debut fantasy showed his skill as a storyteller and an imaginer of baroque magical systems to be fully developed from the start.
-
-
Awesome!
- By BM on 19-11-14
-
Sleeping Giants
- Themis Files, Book 1
- By: Sylvain Neuvel
- Narrated by: Andy Secombe, Christopher Ragland, Charlie Anson, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Deadwood, USA. A girl sneaks out just before dark to ride her new bike. Suddenly, the ground disappears beneath her. Waking up at the bottom of a deep pit, she sees an emergency rescue team above her. The people looking down see something far stranger.... That girl grows up to be Dr. Rose Franklin, a brilliant scientist and the leading world expert on what she discovered.
-
-
One of the best audio books I've ever listened to
- By JBL on 13-05-16
-
Childhood's End
- By: Arthur C. Clarke
- Narrated by: Greg Wagland
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the silent spacecraft arrived and took the light from the world, no one knew what to expect. When the Overlords finally showed themselves it was a shock but one that humankind could now cope with, and an era of peace, prosperity and endless leisure began. But the children of this utopia dream strange dreams of distant suns and alien planets, and soon they will be ready to join the Overmind...and, in a grand and thrilling metaphysical climax, leave Earth behind.
-
-
Perfect example of how a bad narrator can ruin a great book.
- By Ed Scott on 13-07-18
-
Interface
- By: Neal Stephenson, J. Frederick George
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 25 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this now-classic thriller, he and fellow author J. Frederick George tell a shocking tale with an all-too plausible premise. There's no way William A. Cozzano can lose the upcoming presidential election. He's a likable midwestern governor with one insidious advantage - an advantage provided by a shadowy group of backers.
-
-
Not Stephenson's best & poor choice of narrator.
- By David K. on 24-01-18
-
The City and the Stars
- By: Arthur C. Clarke
- Narrated by: Mike Grady
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Men had built cities before, but never such a city as Diaspar; for millennia its protective dome shut out the creeping decay and danger of the world outside. Once, it ruled the stars. But then, as legend had it, the Invaders came, driving humanity into this last refuge. It takes one man, a Unique, to smash the legend and discover the true nature of the Invaders.
-
-
Ahead of its time
- By BM on 28-11-14
-
The Mote in God's Eye
- By: Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle
- Narrated by: L J Ganser
- Length: 20 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Mote In God's Eye is their acknowledged masterpiece, an epic novel of mankind's first encounter with alien life that transcends the genre. No lesser an authority than Robert A. Heinlein called it "possibly the finest science fiction novel I have ever read".
-
-
Listen before you buy!
- By Curates egg on 04-05-10
Editor reviews
It’s the 2070s. The United States is no longer united, and the breakaway territory of Cascadia in the Pacific Northwest has created its own myths and realities. In this sequel to the first METATROPOLIS anthology (2008), six award-winning science fiction writers share a brash, finely detailed world. Each narrator is a recognizable Star Trek series alumnus. This is a bonus, especially in the cases of Wil Wheaton’s reading of "Byways" by Tobias Buckell and Gates McFadden’s reading of "Confessor" by Elizabeth Bear. Their voices are so familiar that they envelop the listener in the fascinating unfamiliar territory. It’s like listening to old friends tell new tales. These are well-crafted novellas about a brave, new near-future.
Summary
This provocative sequel to the Hugo and Audie Award nominated METAtropolis features interconnected stories by today’s top writers of speculative fiction – performed by a galaxy of Star Trek stars.
As the mid-20th century approaches, the Pacific Northwest has been transformed - politically, economically, and ecologically - into the new reality of Cascadia. Conspiracies and secrets threaten the tenuous threads of society. The End of Days seems nearer than ever. And the legend of the mysterious Tygre Tygre looms large.
METAtropolis: Cascadia is the creation of Hugo and World Fantasy Award nominee Jay Lake; Mary Robinette Kowal, winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer; New York Times best-selling author Tobias S. Buckell; Hugo Award winner Elizabeth Bear; Aurora Award winner Karl Schroeder; and critically acclaimed author Ken Scholes. The team of narrators is any Star Trek fan’s dream: Rene Auberjonois (“Odo”); Kate Mulgrew (“Capt. Kathryn Janeway”); Wil Wheaton (“Wesley Crusher”); Gates McFadden (“Dr. Beverly Crusher”); Jonathan Frakes (“Cmdr. William Riker”); and LeVar Burton (“Geordi La Forge”). Jay Lake, who also served as Project Editor, introduces this stunning sequel, written and produced exclusively for digital audio.
Critic reviews
- Audie Award Winner, Original Work, 2012
More from the same
What listeners say about METAtropolis: Cascadia
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
- Mr. C. I. Siddall
- 13-04-13
Futures to aim for rather than avoid
Take the finest organic creative talents, stew them over an apocalyptic dystopia, then carefully refine and mature in optimism. Stir in a balanced amount of green and blue sky thinking. And you'll have Metatropolis: Cascadia.
As the follow-up to the original Metatropolis it benefits from the lessons learned there. A tighter geographical focus and a shared backstory that ties in several pieces.
A capable crew of narrators; all of whom are Star Trek alumni, adds a little more geek credibility to garnish the dish. And the duties are ably handled. There is one common ingredient to the stories and it's a rare one. Hope. In sci-fi there's a lot of endless boots stamping on faces that the protagonists have to fight; here that boot has landed, moved on and this is what happens afterwards. Quite a while afterwards.
This means some of you are going to hate it. That's okay. The two key pieces for me are The Bull Dancers by Jay Lake which ties into the backstory more so than the others. And the fascinating Water Into Wine by Mary Robinette Kowal. Don't let anyone tell you that Viniculture isn't fertile ground for speculative writing.
Overall a fine body of work and one which I hope will bear further fruit.
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Hoerbuch-fan
- 31-03-11
Lots of SciFi goodness
I thought it would be impossible to top the original Metatropolis, but Cascadia does it - in spades. There is a greater unity to the stories - all set in a plausible near-future in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. Jay Lake's opening story and Ken Scholes' closing story are especially connected, and provide perfect bookends. The added bonus is terrific narration by some of the most memorable actors of the Star Trek franchise. It would be hard for me to pick a favorite, but you can't go wrong with the likes of LeVar Burton, Kate Mulgrew or Wil Wheaton. A great listen all around!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Andrea Clarke
- 14-09-21
excellent narrators!
really well written and really well narrated! highly recommended! I would definitely listen to this again
-
Overall

- Stephen
- 21-11-10
Some good, some bad
When I saw that Audible did a follow up to the original METATropolis, I was interested to see what they had done to one of my favorite programs.
"The Bull Dancers": Extension of "Forests of the Night" the original leadoff. Pretty decent story other than the fact that it went on for much too long (3 hrs). Rene Auberjonois was decent, however most of his characters sound like Odo from Star Trek.
"Water to Wine": A wonderful tale that fits well in the Cascadia cycle. Definiteley a good choice of narrator
"Byways": Extension of "Stochasti-city". Didn't work as well as the other stories, but Wil Wheaton definiteley got the same rhythm/pacing that the original had.
"Confessor": Right length, however all the characters (male and female) all sounded the same, so identifying which story line we were on is difficult.
"Deonand": The Bad of the book. While the text is spot on, Frakes is not the right person to be narrating this segment. His butchering of Gennady (pronounced Go-Knot-ee) Malianov is so disjointed as compared to "To Hie from Far Cilenia"
In short I can tell which narrators had gone over the previous work (if there was one) and which did not. Audible, If you care about this book and the series please bring Stefan Rudniki in and re-record Deonand.
49 people found this helpful
-
Overall

- Tony Loman
- 23-12-10
Science fiction for thinkers
This is an exceptionally good book of speculative fiction. What a relief from ridiculous vampire novels and vapid space operas. The book builds on the first volume and the stories are all as good and most are better. Like good speculative fiction they are not predictions of the future but vehicles for looking at current issues--ecological breakdown, privatized military and law enforcement, genetic experimentation, adding intelligence to formerly unintelligent things, and many other ideas. And they are great stories by some of the best new scifi writers. And I thought the reading was superb. On the contrary, actors often make the best readers. Next task for me is to see what else each these authors have written.
18 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Issy
- 24-11-11
Another great Metatropolis Series
After hooked on the first series of Metatropolis, I had to also listen to the sequence. It's great to catch up with some of the characters from the initial series and to see how things developed. Each story is brilliant, filled with many inventive details, that are scarily likely to develop at the same time. Metatropolis Cascadia plays entirely in the USA/Canadian area, it would be interesting to read Metatropolis stories from other parts of the world.
13 people found this helpful
-
Overall

- John
- 28-11-10
METAtropolis: Cascadia
Great narration but very weak story lines. A great disappointment. I actually regret buying the series. That is a first for me.
10 people found this helpful
-
Overall

- Glen A. Murie
- 02-12-10
Disappointing
I should have known better when I didn't see either the original readers or John Scalzi associated with this project. In this sort of collection the editor has a strong influence over the course of the stories. The replacement of the original readers with Star Trek cast when no less than four characters were recycled from the previous Metatropolis was a very bad decision.
9 people found this helpful
-
Overall

- C. Paget
- 29-11-10
Disappointing
I guess it's a penalty of getting actors to read books aloud, they often want to act. As a listener all I want is clarity and PUNCTUATION, both of which are in variable supply here. As an example, one of the most irritating things is where a reader changes scene without even pausing for breath, maybe they think that the dislocation is fun, but it's just annoying.
8 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Julie W. Capell
- 10-03-14
Outstanding narration carries the day here
This is the second anthology in a series that began with METAtropolis: the Dawn of Uncivilization. This collection riffs off the first story in that anthology, taking place in a transnational entity that includes the geographical areas formerly known as British Columbia, Washington and Orgeon states. The stories are set around the year 2070 in post-industrial, post-capitalist, post-national world and are all read by actors from various incarnations of Star Trek.
The first story, written by Jay Lake and read by Rene Auberjonois (immediately recognizable as Odo from Deep Space Nine) details a very old, very rich man’s final days as he searches for the answers to an event that occurred forty years earlier. I really enjoyed this story and the chance to revisit some of the characters from the original METAtropolis.
The second story was written by Mary Robinette Kowal and narrated by Kate Mulgrew (Captain Kathryn Janeway of Voyager). This was probably my least favorite of all the stories so far. It was mostly a love letter to the art of wine making that could have been set in any era and lacked a clear connection to the rest of the stories in these anthologies. For instance, as soon as I realized it was going to be about wine, I anticipated an explanation of a concept that has come up in a few of the other stories, where instead of money, some people have currency called ”winos.” But the term never even gets mentioned in this story . . . did Ms. Kowal miss the world-building sessions??
The third story was written by Tobias S. Buckell and read by Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher of The Next Generation). The setting for this story presented another cool idea that was new to me. The main character is part of a crew whose job it is to de-construct expressways and empty suburban housing tracts. Having grown up in one of these anonymous suburbs (and escaped as soon as I could to a densely populated downtown neighborhood) I have to admit that I loved the scenes where the bulldozers crashed through the paperboard houses. If that’s not a big enough hint, other parts of the narrative extoll the virtues of cities, such as that more patents are produced by city-dwellers and city dwellers use less energy, particularly if you can figure out a way to grow food nearby. Like the stories in the first METAtropolis, this one has an extremely positive view of the future of cities, which is not all that common in post-apocalyptic literature.
The next story was by Elizabeth Bear and read by Gates McFadden (Dr. Crusher in The Next Generation). This is a bit of a more conventional scifi story involving genetic engineering, combined with a murder mystery plot. The twist at the end is foreshadowed pretty heavily and so was really no shock.
Karl Schroeder once again takes the prize for most cool ideas in one story with his entry here, read by Jonathan Frakes (Comander Riker of The Next Generation). It begins with the protagonist wearing something like Google Glasses. Since he is a visitor to Cascadia without proper paperwork, he is mandated to wear them whenever he is out in public, and the glasses are programmed by the authorities to restrict what he sees. It’s a frightening vision of how state censorship could be implemented on a person-by-person basis in the future, just by using technology. And that’s just a side thought. The overall plot asks how will we recognize when computers and machines become self-aware, and mixes in questions about the rights of corporations . . . and others . . . to be treated as individuals in certain situations. It’s a complex plot that only a master like Schroeder can pull off.
The final story in this collection was by Ken Scholes and narrated by LeVar Burton (Geordi LaForge of The Next Generation). This one takes on home-grown terrorism, religious fanatics, and questions of faith in a post-apocalyptic era. A mediocre story that was significantly uplifted by Burton’s fantastic reading.
7 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Joey
- 17-09-12
One of the first books I ever listened to
I've now been through this title twice - it was just as good the second time around as it was the first. Its a wonderful read - a future that could happen and who knows, might. I like the collaborative style that the different short stories bring and well, the reading talent, amazing. If I could suggest two titles that every audio book nut should read - METAtropolis and METAtropolis: Cascadia are the two!
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall

- Chris
- 21-12-10
Forget the politics
The introduction used to grind a political axe (pointlessly). I enjoyed the stories but strongly disagree with the politics. Back to nature would be wonderful for a world with under 1 billion people - we are rapidly approaching 7 billion. We either need technology (something the characters in the book use) or we need a euthanasia program.
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Lisa
- 28-03-14
Excellent - one of the recent best!
I held off on this series for a long time because of the not so stellar reviews. I am quite perplexed now. Not only was this very refreshing from just the style point of view, each story was excellent and each reader did a superb reading. All I can think of that some of the people that bought this expected shoot-em-up vapid adventure/action stories.
These stories are very like both the old and new Star Trek series - they make you think about ethics and morals.
Unlike many other stories, both long and short, I was interested in what the future held for our characters.
This was very interesting, refreshing and even suspenseful. I'm going to go and the the first book now.
5 people found this helpful