Metaphase

By: Vonda N. McIntyre

Narrated by: Gayle Hendrix

Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's summary

With the ship still recovering from sabotage even as new mechanical problems arise, J.D. Sauvage and the first contact crew prepare to meet the reclusive alien squidmoth. Though civilized worlds have shunned them both, human and alien hope to find friendship in each other. Now, as the first contact team explores the fibrous tunnels of the small planetoid that houses the alien, an awesome secret waits inside. But before J.D. can discover what it is, she and the rest have a terrible decision to make: set course for Earth and return home as heroes - before they're stranded in space; or trust an offer from the bizarre and enigmatic squidmoth - before it dies.

©1992 Vonda N. McIntyre (P)2013 Audible Inc.

Wonderful Story...Too Much Detail

This is the second McIntyre book I've purchased and listened to. I truly like her imagination and writing. However, I have two issues with this book that I didn't have with the first one (Dreamsnake). First, although all information/details flowed quite seamlessly, the staggering amount of detail became exhausting to process; to pay attention to. The narration was almost 13 hours long, and 2-3 hours could have easily been edited out with no harm to quality.

The second issue I had was with the narrator's speech pattern. Approximately 40-50% of the time she used a pattern I find unpleasant to listen to. It's a pronounced raised-lowered and/or lowered-raised inflection at the end of the sentence, called, I believe, a fall-rise of rise-fall intonation. Seriously, my brain just doesn't like it.

The difference between this book and Dreamsnake was first, no annoying speech pattern (different narrator), and secondly, although there was massive amount of detail, much of it wasn't about or between people, but rather the fantastic dichotomy between rich narrative and harsh land. For whatever reason, less people minutiae, better read.

However, I confess that speech pattern and overwhelming details notwithstanding, I couldn't stand not knowing what happens next, and just bought Nautilus.

Awesome book!

This entire series is one of my favorites!
I reread them frequently! I love it!

Written like sci-fi cover for women's erotic book

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

I just hated this. I wanted to like it, I tried to like it, I was persistent, hoping at some point it would be redeemed, but I just hated it. Largely because of the reader's vocal mannerisms, but also because of the authors choice of words and phrases for various situations. The story line was confusing for me from the beginning but what actually got me vocally irritated was that it kept on striking me as a bate and switch for a woman's erotic novel disguised as a sci-fi.