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The Actual Star

A Novel

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The Actual Star

By: Monica Byrne
Narrated by: Carolina Hoyos, Kareem Ferguson, Gisela Chipe
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About this listen

David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas meets Octavia Butler’s Earthseed series, as acclaimed author Monica Byrne (The Girl in the Road) crafts an unforgettable piece of speculative fiction about where humanity came from, where we are now, and where we’re going—and how, in every age, the same forces that drive us apart also bind us together.

""A stone-cold masterpiece.""—New Scientist

The Actual Star takes readers on a journey over two millennia and six continents—telling three powerful tales a thousand years apart, all of them converging in the same cave in the Belizean jungle.

Braided together are the stories of a pair of teenage twins who ascend the throne of a Maya kingdom; a young American woman on a trip of self-discovery in Belize; and two dangerous charismatics vying for the leadership of a new religion, racing toward a confrontation that will determine the fate of the few humans left on Earth after massive climate change.

In each era, a reincarnated trinity of souls navigates the entanglements of tradition and progress, sister and stranger, and love and hate—until all of their age-old questions about the nature of existence converge deep underground, where only in complete darkness can they truly see.

 Fiction Genre Fiction Literature & Fiction Metaphysical & Visionary Science Fiction
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I didn't, but still got loads of joy out of the audiobook. I have a little Spanish and love the language but again don't believe that to be necessary either. I realised that while listening I may have missed some detail while considering what this or that meant, and those constructions are explained in the PDF.

The performances are excellent especially given the length of the piece. It flattened a little for me about three quarters through, but recovered pace soon enough. There are some surprising character twists and plenty of interesting philosophy, it's one that a week after finishing the book I'm still thinking about.

Overall a highly entertaining read, with a satisfying ending which, heads up, you'll need to make time to read or listen to properly.

Do spend a bit of time with the PDF

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Took a couple of chapters to warm to it but then I was sucked in by this tale of lives interweaving through time. At the end I still had questions, but in a good way. Would have loved for the author to explore Xander’s journey in later life, but perhaps that would have defeated the point.

Different!

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Gripping story across three millennia, I enjoyed the balance between historical inspiration and sort-of-just-plausible sci fi, and a few bits where you have to make up your own mind what’s happening.

Good audio version with 3 narrators for the 3 different time periods (with each also covering a few phrases in 3 languages - Ch’ol Maya, Creole, and Spanish). That helped imagine the different worlds, almost more than if I’d read the languages on a page I think. I wish there were a proper preview on Audible though, listening to a bit of the author’s note is not very inspiring.

Gripping story, good recording

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I was attracted to this book via the Guardian wrap up of best sci fi of 2021, and was not disappointed. While I would call it speculative rather than science fiction, it weaves an epic story across two thousand years of Maya history, present day tourism and far future post climate change society. The characters are richly drawn and the world building is top notch. The audio performances (three different narrators) are uniformly excellent, really bringing the text to life. Highly recommended!

An ambitious triumph

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There wa far too much Spanish to make sense of the context, especially in the future story setting. This was very alienating, especially as a listener.

I'm sure that a fluent Spanish speaker would be able to take cues to understand the future context, but as an English and French speaker, I was just lost and frustrated. I gave up after the introduction to the third character.

This may well be an impressive piece of storytelling, but I wouldn't know because the language was completely inaccessible. I don't expect to have to reach for a language dictionary every 5 words just to follow what's going on in book ostendibly published in English.

Disappointing.

You Need to be Bilingual to Understand this Book!

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