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Falling Free cover art

Falling Free

Written by: Lois McMaster Bujold
Narrated by: Grover Gardner
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Publisher's Summary

Leo Graf was just your average highly efficient engineer: mind your own business, fix what's wrong, and move on to the next job. But all that changed on his assignment to the Cay Habitat, where a group of humanoids had been secretly, commercially bioengineered for working in free fall.

Could he just stand there and allow the exploitation of hundreds of helpless children merely to enhance the bottom line of a heartless mega-corporation?

He hadn't anticipated a situation where the right thing to do was neither safe, nor in the rules. Leo adopted a thousand quaddies. Now all he had to do was teach them to be free.

©1988 Lois McMaster Bujold (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

What the critics say

Nebula Award Finalist, Best Novel, 1988

"Superb....Read, or you will be missing something extraordinary." (Chicago Sun-Times)

"Bujold's best work in my opinion." (Science Fiction Chronicle)

Featured Article: 11 Best Sci-Fi Audiobooks to Listen to Right Now

For the listener who craves exploring new worlds, extraterrestrial life, galaxies, technologies, weapons and even threats and political machinations, there’s nothing quite like an imaginative sci-fi listen. If you’re looking for your next escapist journey full of wonder, discovery and excitement, look no further. These listens are some of the best sci-fi book series available. Each of the titles on this list will whisk you away to another time, place or dimension, and wrap you up in an unpausable story that engages and entertains from the first second to the last.

What listeners say about Falling Free

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VERY GOOD

Miles Vorsokigan stories are from not bad to excellent they keep me focused and entertained. I could listen to GROVER GARDNER, read the phone book and enjoy it , I am glad there are several books to enjoy.such a great change from TV.

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Outstanding story telling, satisying conclusions

Bujold's Vorsokigan series is an example for other authors in so many ways. First, each volume tells a complete tale, usually with several subplots being completely and satisfyingly told as well. The point is that you can listen to any one of the series and not be held hostage to the next edition. It is best to read them chronologically, in my view, and this Book 4 I think actually is chronologically the first. There are connections, clearly, between each of the stories and it is very, very helpful to have the preceding context. But most of them can be heard without even knowing other volumes exist. They really are complete.

Secondly, Bujold demonstrates phenomenal topical range within and between different volumes. There are elements of political intrigue, comfortable romance and epic battles. She also draws out the full range of human emotion in her characters, who are complex and growing beings, so that we actually care about them. Sub-genres don't get in the way, as for example "romance" not being so dominant or distracting as to distract from the actual story. (I despise the whole harem-for-men and romance-for-women sewage that has infected sci-fi and fantasy genres).

Thirdly, she doesn't just keep retelling the same story because she's found a "formula" that readers will buy. This book and all of them in the series are genuinely new and different stories, not merely reworking the same framework. Indeed, some of the volumes in the series are dramatically different in tone and texture from the others, with some being primarily space operas of grand conflict and others being limited location spy thrillers.

A great listening adventure.

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1 person found this helpful