Great story spoiled by poor audio editing..

You really have to listen hard and be prepared to skip back. Whoever editing the sound removed every pause between scenes. Within a chapter the story is told from many perspectives. Without any pauses to e a change in scene they all merge in to one and you only realise after some time the scene has changed. Frustrating.

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51 people found this helpful

Outstanding but...

Great book and great narrative abs reading. However it's let down by one small but massive issue. Not enough of a pause between sections! This makes it easy to get confused as to who is saying what to whom or where the action is going on.

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49 people found this helpful

Great story, good narration, poor editing

The story is great - a sprawling space opera covering multiple viewpoints and locations. The use of bespoke terminology gets a little tiresome - e.g. far too many references to "neural nanonics" and "datavising". The narration is on the whole good - a good range of voices to cover the different characters, and read in an engaging manner.

But, and it's a big but, why are Audible so useless at putting in pauses between scene changes? Far too many audiobooks have this crucial flaw - and it makes listening to a multi-viewpoint book very difficult and confusing. Seriously, all you need is a 2 second gap when the viewpoint changes. That's all. Please, editors, listen up and take note.

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39 people found this helpful

Spoilt

Other reviews point out the editting problem - there are no gaps between chapters.
Why hasn’t it been resolved 9th March 2018
Could have been brilliant

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18 people found this helpful

Good author, don't like the narator - try a sample

I tried, but the narration was so bad I had to give up! first book I've ever given up on and I listen to about 50 per year!

the story seems confusing, but this may be because I just struggled to concentrate. the narrator sounds so weird, like he is reading in a second language or this is the first time he has ever read out loud.

not for me. some other reviewers seem ok with it, so I would definitely recommend listening to a sample first!

UPDATE I really struggle with John Lee as a narrator. I have managed to get into a few books he's done though, and eventually i stop noticing (what i think of as) his weird style.

I'm going to give this one another go, because i do really like Peter F Hamilton

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14 people found this helpful

The worst narrator I've ever heard

Peter F Hamilton is one of my favourite authors, and this series is one of his best. I can't begin to describe how disappointed I am that they gave the narration to this utter clod.

His characterisations are awful. Nobody anywhere speaks like most of the characters he portrays. He simply can't do accents - they all sound like a Welsh man who lives in Birmingham (or Newcastle, Scotland, Ireland, etc....). I've heard more believable American accents in Carry-On films. The only accent he can do is (unsurprisingly) a South Wales accent, which he gives to a captain described in the book as "a 68-year old oriental". He can't even pronounce a lot of the words properly, which you'd have thought would be the first requirement for a narrator. And surely a slight audio effect could have been used to denote affinity exchanges rather than the grating simper he uses for them (and, incidentally most of the female characters and children in the book).

His narration is bland and monotonous. His only inflection is a depressing down-note at the end of every matter-of-fact sentence. He doesn't sound like he'd get animated if his @ʁ$€ caught fire. There are also no gaps in the narration. Anywhere. Not even between chapters. It gives the impression of someone who has no interest in the book other than to get through it as quickly as possible so that he can go on to ruin the next book in the series (which, reading the reviews, he did).

I just can't believe that one of our best authors was given this turkey to narrate his works. I got half-way through this one and gave up. I'm returning it and won't touch another until they are withdrawn and re-published with a competent narrator. In the meantime I'll get some Iain M Banks volumes, which have been done properly. Or anything by Stephen Fry!

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12 people found this helpful

Weakest Hamilton Book So Far

What would have made The Reality Dysfunction better?

There are far too many characters to follow in this book, with change after change and sometimes many chapters before coming back to a character. Also.. it's like Hamilton read 50 shades of grey and decided to do a sci-fi version. I'm not a prude by any means and usually like the odd bit of zero-g space sex in Hamiltons other books.. but jesus christ did he really go for it in this one. Almost every chapter has some sort of sex, or sex driven theme. It's like each of the characters prime motivations are fucking the next thing that comes along, it's just poor character development.

Lee did a good job narrating, however.. I read some comments before purchasing the book and shrugged off the comments from people saying that the jump from scene to scene or chapter etc. is really jarring. But wow.. There's sometimes hardly even a pause between scenes, which makes listening frustrating. All of a sudden Lee is talking about new characters and a new scene when barely 2 seconds ago we were somewhere else.

All in all this book wasn't an enjoyable experience, which really is a shame as I've listened to the Void trilogy, Pandora and Judas so many times I've lost count.

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11 people found this helpful

Awful editing

Oh dear.
I like the story but it's a shame that whoever edited the audio made it sound like a single sentence without punctuation metaphorically speaking because it jumps from one scene to the next so that one sentence finishing one section which in the book presumably then had a gap after it runs straight into the next.

A bit like that last paragraph. This is very jarring and off putting.

If one can get beyond that then this is good. Otherwise spend your credits elsewhere...

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10 people found this helpful

Vivid And Epic

Having recently finished Peter F Hamilton's superb Night Without Stars that
is so far the last book of his Commonwealth series which I thoroughly
enjoyed, I was unsure whether to dip into his other epic series of books,
the Night's Cross trilogy. Seeing that the book was some 41 hours in length,
I knew that this would indeed be an opening chapter in a trilogy of truly
epic proportions. A brief synopsis left me in a little doubt as to whether
the book was something I was even able to cope with and then seeing the
article on WIkkipedia about it, I felt a little unsure whether the apparent
complexity of this story would be enjoyed by me. Seeing the extended list of
key characters in the Wikki article put me in serious doubt but given
Hamilton's superb work with the Commonwealth saga, I figured I ought to try
the Reality Dysfunction .

As with other Hamilton stories, the reader is brought right into a world
where to begin with, they are somewhat confused about the terms readily
used. Things like "Affinity" and "Datavise" were terms that had no meaning
for
me initially given the sparse context but Hamilton tends to do this and let
the reader work it out rather than go into lengthy exposition. This can put
some off but a quick read of the aforementioned Wikki article may be a good
primer for this book.

Hamilton is an exceptional author and just reading his description of the
evolution of life on a world is indicative of the extent of his
understanding and knowledge of biology, ecology in addition to physics. He
weaves this knowledge into his books effortlessly which lends an air of real
credibility to much of the science that's used as a framework for the future
he depicts.

The Reality Dysfunction is basically a story about souls of the dead coming
back and infesting the bodies of the living. This process was made possible
by
the chance interaction of an alien life form unknown and unseen by the
public at large. Once this chance combination of devil worship and the
ability of the invisible alien to detect and manipulate energy, the doorway
had been opened. The "possessed" have various abilities that make life very
difficult for those trying to combat them and so the stage is set for the
premise of our story.

The stage in question, initially and primarily in this first book is a
primitive planet recently opened up for colonization by those less fortunate
souls that want to make a new life for themselves and have to do so in the
toughest and most primitive of conditions. One of the areas Hamilton excels
is in his vivid and highly detailed depictions of such alien worlds and
their flora and fauna. Time is taken to paint this richly detailed world and
its hapless inhabitants and it's this level of involvement and the sense
that this aspect is not rushed by the author that really adds depth and the
sense of immersion into this alien jungle world. Some authors fail to take
time to develop the platform onto which the narrative is written and so we
really are brought into the trials and tribulations of a group of colonists
trying to make a new life for themselves. Quite a bit of the first half of
the story is dedicated to this and the plight of the colonists and this
goes some way to account for the length of this mammoth book. Some might
find the fairly "slow burn" build phase rather too lengthy but if you're a
Hamilton fan then you will relish this aspect as I did.

However, The Reality Dysfunction is not perfect and I believe I can see how
Hamilton refined his art since writing these books back in the late 90's.
Where I think this story errs is in the very large number of primary and
secondary characters the reader is confronted with. I think at one time
during the book I made a mental count of some 28 but this only expanded
further as the story went on. I can see why Hamilton went this route as it
lent massive scope to his story but it could sometimes mean the reader was
left slightly confused at the mention of a name not heard of in many hours
or the difficulty trying to hold them all in your head. This is not a major
stumbling block but although Hamilton does like to have a large cast of
characters in his books, by the time he writes the Commonwealth saga, the
numbers have come down to more manageable levels.

In addition, the pace of the narrative slowed somewhat in the second half or
so as Hamilton brought sub plots into play such as the trade mission to the
planet Norfolk. Within the context of this first book certainly, I felt that
this entire section could've been excised without taking anything away from
the story. In fact, it would've kept the pace of the overall narrative
flowing faster. the other speed bump in the plot was Hamilton's tendency to
go off into far too much detail by providing lengthy back stories to a
couple of characters and places when those elements were only a tiny part of
the main story.

That minor niggle aside, The Reality Dysfunction is a superb story. What I
found interesting was the utter juxtaposition of the poorest colonists
living a hard life and meagre existence and the total hedonistic lifestyles
of the shallow that litter the story.

If you've not read a story by Peter F Hamilton before but like your science
fiction stories to be unhurried, richly detailed and immersive as well as
exciting and superbly written then this is the book for you. if this sounds
a little too heavy or lengthy then I would recommend stories by the
excellent B. V. Larson who's straightforward military-orientated novels are
very digestible and entertaining.

John Lee as ever provides crisp competent narration and is a welcome
consistency to Hamilton's major sagas like this one. I spotted what I
consider to be a minor editing glitch in the production of this story which
occurs during one characters first visit to Atlantis. A sentence or two can
be heard in broken parts before narration continues normally. Also, a
general production note, I find that the lack of any pause between switches
of scene or thread can cause some initial confusion. I seem to remember that
such things would often be dealt with in printed form by a notable gap
between paragraphs or even a series of spaced asterisks. I think the
production should insert longer pauses to help the listener realize that the
scene or thread has now shifted.

All in all, The Reality Dysfunction is a superb and satisfying read and I
look forward to the second in the trilogy.

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8 people found this helpful

audio editing non existent completely ruins the ex

audio editing non existent completely ruins the experience to the extent I would ask for my money back.

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6 people found this helpful