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The Expert System's Brother

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The Expert System's Brother

By: Adrian Tchaikovsky
Narrated by: Shaun Grindell
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Best-selling British master of science fiction Adrian Tchaikovsky brings listeners a new, mind-expanding science fantasia in The Expert System's Brother. 

After an unfortunate accident, Handry is forced to wander a world he doesn't understand, searching for meaning. He soon discovers that the life he thought he knew is far stranger than he could even possibly imagine. 

Can an unlikely savior provide the answers to the questions he barely comprehends?

©2018 Adrian Czajkowski (P)2019 Tantor Adventure Fiction Genetic Engineering Science Fiction Computer Science Artificial Intelligence
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First you think it’s a clever mix of fantasy and magic with a touch of steampunk, but it’s pure sci-fi and it’s very good.

However, audiobooks need to have awards for best performances and punishments for worst renditions: this clever tale was all but buried under a robotic delivery which had me yelling sentences and phrases back with revised human intonations all the way through.

It’s a tribute to Adrian Tchaikovsky’s world-building imagination and prose that I was able to persevere to the end (and it’s worth doing) whilst wading through the hostile environment created by the narrator.

Presumably the narrator hates reading aloud and/or he was bullied by nerds and/or bibliophiles to wreak his revenge so profoundly. Or perhaps he only recorded three or four words in every session and had a break of several days between each one. What else can explain the repetitive tone in which this is relentlessly droned?

Fascinating Story, appalling narration.

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The story is okay. The "twist" is made clear fairly early on which is fine for this story, but it kind-of just plods on from this stage and you can guess where it will be going, but an interesting concept and fairly enjoyable.

However, the narration - oh lordy the narration. To get a feel for it, imagine you decided to get an AI to do the narration but used the free version so you could only narrate it a sentence at a time. Now, image to get each line you said "Read this line in the style of an asthmatic William Shatner but one you've ordered from Temu".

The narration IS very OFFPUTting ...with odd paus...es ... AND strange inflLECTions,

Every sentence that isn't dialogue has exactly the same delivery style. I nearly abandoned it after a few chapters. It never improves. It may not bother you, but I would listen to the preview before you commit to check you can cope with it.

Narrated by Temu William Shatner

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Another Adrian Tchaikovsky triumph!
I'm continually surprised by how much he can fit into a Novella, the world building and character development make you invest in the people and themes that are written about which is difficult to achieve in so few pages. First rate intelligent science fiction as I've come to expect from this author. Some recurring themes from his other books but spun in a new way which keeps things fresh. I'm currently ploughing my way through his back catalogue and have not been disappointed so far.
I enjoyed the narrator too just upped the speed a little to make the delivery a little less stilted.

Smart and enjoyable sci-fi Novella

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I f you loved Children of Time and Children of Ruin you should really enjoy this.

Another classic Sci Fi Story from Tchaikovsky

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Adrian Tchaikovsky has done it again, creating an interesting story that seems woven from the threads of some of his other works. No, you don't need to have read his entire back catalogue to follow this, but if like me you've had the pleasure of exploring some of his other work, you'll probably see their shadows hovering at the edges of your perception.

However, and it is a big "HOWEVER", the narration delivered by Shaun Grindell is truly some of the most painful I have come across. To the extent that in this case I felt compelled to leave a review. The narrator's broken, oddly-metred delivery left me wondering if he'd felt it necessary to channel his inner Captain James T. Kirk due to the Sci-Fi nature of the title. Not a single... sentence can be gotten... through without a misplaced pause... or a strange shift in timbre that strays erringly close to an implied interrogative.

Thankfully in this case, the story was short enough that I could grit my teeth and get through it, but so unusual was the delivery that I checked out some of the narrator's other work to see if my suspicions regarding his possible 'vocal homage' were correct... alas, no. It seems that all the examples I listened to were similarly rendered, which means that someone out there feels that they were a good fit for this or any other prose.

I sadly cannot concur and will be avoiding Mr. Grindell's work like the plague in future.

A great story inexplicably read by a budget Kirk

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