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Ultima
- Narrated by: Kyle McCarley
- Length: 21 hrs and 55 mins
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Ultima
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Summary
Fresh from his latest collaboration with Terry Pratchett on the Long Earth sequence Stephen Baxter now returns to the mysteries and challanges first hinted at in his acclaimed novel PROXIMA.
In PROXIMA we discovered ancient alien artifacts on the planet of Per Ardua - hatches that allowed us to step across light years of space as if we were stepping into another room. The universe opened up to us.
Now in ULTIMA the consequences of this new freedom make themselves felt. And we discover that there are minds in the universe that are billions of years old and they have a plan for us. For some of us. But as we learn the true nature of the universe we also discover that we have countless pasts all meeting in this present and that our future is terrifyingly finite. It's time for us to fight to take back control.
This is grand scale, big idea SF of the best possible sort. It is set to build on the massive success of PROXIMA and define Stephen Baxter's work going forward.
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What listeners say about Ultima
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Alan Nixon
- 22-09-16
Why, I remember once on campaign...
Performance: At first I thought there were one or two strange pronunciations: "shone" pronounced as "shown" which I had not heard before. However, the narrator's grasp of different accents from "northern English" to Australian to Roman to Inca was masterful, especially when switching between so many so quickly in a conversation. The most nuanced of all was the Col U.
You can feel the relish of both the author and narrator for Titus's wonderful catch-phrase, and the last utterance is particularly apt.
Story: the epic length through generations (a Baxter favourite device I think) and the different locations (in various ways) really developed wonderfully the promise of Proxima (mostly involving isolation and survival)
The two books are like ripples in a pond where the lives and deeds of Uri (initially) and Steph(growing) spread out to interact with, and affect, all the other characters.
At this time, this is the only series (Proxima and Ultima) that I have listened to twice. I recommend it to all.
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5 people found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Sarah D
- 19-10-15
OMG - Why would you write this drivel?
Would you try another book written by Stephen Baxter or narrated by Kyle McCarley?
Simple answer to this one is no! After working through Proxima and then suffering Ultima I've decided that Baxter has lost not only the plot but any respect that I once held for his talent.
Has Ultima put you off other books in this genre?
No, I will always read good science fiction. Proxima and Ultima however are rambling fantasy stories which Mr. Baxter should submit as his Ancient history thesis as there was more effort put into discourse about Roman/Mayan society than anything else really.
Would you listen to another book narrated by Kyle McCarley?
Not particularly. I'm British and even I found some of the pronunciations peculiar and by the end of 20hrs listening it was still irritating.
What character would you cut from Ultima?
The Author.
Any additional comments?
These books, Ultima and it's predecessor Proxima are really, really dull and lifeless. The main characters do not endear themselves to you in any way and the story limps tediously along in some weird time distorted Roman based tragedy. There are glaring holes all over the plot and if you removed the fixation on all of the social explanations and other non science fiction you could read both books in about an hour. Sorry Mr. Baxter but after your collaborations with Arthur C' I expected way better science fiction than this.
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5 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Csilla Sarosi
- 18-08-16
Great narrator, engaging storyline
The story is full of twists and turns, it is very engaging to read. The science is explained clearly.
The narrator uses voices that could be ealily separated from each other and give a distinct sound to each character.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- William Hayes
- 28-04-16
Full of grand ideas but not very well completed
This was both a frustrating and fascinating book to listen to. It was frustrating because it was badly narrated with the most fake RP accent I've ever heard. The pronunciation was sometimes quite bizarre. The book also laboured under several tonnes of exposition. An editor with a ruthless pair of scissors would have helped greatly.
That said, Baxter has some amazing ideas and it's hard to think of grander scale science fiction than this.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- James Livingstone
- 16-03-15
Disappointing
After the first book in the series, I had high hopes. This however, was disappointing.
I found it completely implausible, the fact that space travel could be achieved without advanced technology and no real attempt was made to explain this, ruined the book for me.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- John
- 16-04-15
this is a deep. thought provoking. masterpiece.
I have enjoyed it. at times it got a bit bogged down, but push on through and its well worth it
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- carl
- 07-03-15
Starts a bit rubbishand crappy voices buy BUY THIS
Now the voices are a bit suspect and the story a bit odd, I nearly returned this book and have returned scores but hey once you get into this book it's a keeper.
Now this book is good enough for me to want to leave a review despite the stupid system saying I have not typed enough
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Fraze
- 18-04-22
Dreadful, Romans in space? As bad as that sounds….
Really a painful attempt at sci-fi and the reading is woefully inadequate to try and drag something as trite into a readable community.
Save yourselves and leave this one in the boneyard of audible has beens.
I wish I had.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- spencerhudson
- 18-02-15
Wonderful , engaging , why did it have to end?
The second book continued directly from where the first left off. An impossible idea with a huge story to tell. Permitting glimpses of what would come the characters grew , we felt the exhilaration and sometimes sadness but always onwards. "In fact it reminded me of the time" .... (Read the book an in story.
I doubt there will be a follow up but if there is I will read it 110% sure of that .
Well done
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- rbreslin@markcare.co.uk
- 05-07-23
Entertaining if a bit badly written and read
The reading of these books is a bit odd, but you get used to it. The nooks both use a device whereby characters explain things but it’s clumsily done, like a child explaining an imaginary game, “I imagine we stepped onto another planet where x y z was different” you’d have to know it was different to explain it - bu why would an alien do that when it has no idea about where you have come from and what is different. But despite the weak characterisations and the fairly obvious story line, i enjoyed the playing out of the ideas, like all science fiction, and I stuck with it to the end.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Nicholas
- 20-03-15
Baxter's laziest work yet?
Would you try another book from Stephen Baxter and/or Kyle McCarley?
When you buy a Stephen Baxter book you know certain things about the plot; it will span generations and end in an astronomical catastrophe. A new technological development will enable new expansion, usually spearheaded by a billionaire philanthropist. The West will be thrown into rivalry with China; the Chinese will always be repressed statists with a penchant for heavy engineering. A Machiavellian AI has its own plans for humanity. The ending will be a let down.
Ultima breaks none of these Baxterisms, and indeed seems to borrow many of them directly from his earlier books. But I wanted a moderately listenable doorstop to entertain me on long bus rides, and with Baxter that's exactly what you get (and no more).
What was most disappointing about Stephen Baxter’s story?
Baxter often likes to mess about with parallel worldlines, and Ultima is no exception; but here he seems to have gone for the utter laziest of possible worlds. We are first introduced to the inevitable Roman empire which never fell, which (of course) seems like a carbon-copy of the Empire of the 3rd century, despite its possession of interstellar spacecraft. Baxter has done precisely zero work extrapolating the historical, technological and social development of Rome. This gets even worse when we're later introduced to an Incan empire which never fell - an empire powerful enough to /disassemble the Moon/ into a giant space habitat but which still fights with swords and spears. Again, they appear to be a carbon-copy of the Empire of the 15th century; Baxter has done precisely zero work extrapolating the historical, technological and social development of Cuzco.
Having destroyed the Earth in Proxima (those damnable Chinese!) and then the inner Solar System (the Chinese again. Baxter really is a Sinophobe), Baxter moves on to ramming the dwarf planet Ceres into Mars. The only way he can think of to top this - since all Baxter books MUST end with an astronomical catastrophe - is to destroy the Multiverse. This is accomplished via specious handwaving about "infinities being a human construct, therefore the Multiverse has an edge" and "it is statistically unlikely for humanity to not be in the middle of the Universe's life span, therefore it'll end much sooner than current physics predicts" - this is known as the Doomsday argument, and the fact that it is anthropocentric nonsense born of a misunderstanding of statistics has not prevented Baxter using it in the past, or from recycling it here with minimal effort.
Ultimately, the Universe drifts into the edge of the Multiverse (rather like a sailing ship falling off the edge of the world) with little fanfare, and it comes largely as a relief.
Would you listen to another book narrated by Kyle McCarley?
McCarley's narration is ... odd. I'm not sure what accent he's using, or what accent he's trying for - it seems like he's attempting British Received Pronunciation and is overdoing it. This is a little distracting, but it's not ruinous - most of the time you can forget he's speaking and just listen to the book, if that makes sense.
You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?
I always know what I'm getting into with a Baxter book, including the fact that it will be a disappointment; Ultima did not disappoint. It was a mildly entertaining way to distract myself on the bus. The primary draw of Ultima was its length; for one ticket you get 22 hours of mildly entertaining distraction, which - depending on how often you take the bus - can last quite a while.
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