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Pavane
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
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Publisher's summary
Earphones Award Winner (AudioFile Magazine)
Award-winning author, narrator, and screenwriter Neil Gaiman personally selected this book, and, using the tools of the Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX), cast the narrator and produced this work for his audiobook label, Neil Gaiman Presents.
A few words from Neil on Pavane: "When Old Earth Books told me they are reissuing Pavane, which was originally published in 1968, I told them: 'I read one story from Pavane when I was nine, and it scarred me…. I read the whole book as a teenager and learned where that story had come from, and the shape of the whole story and I felt the scars heal….' Pavane was Keith Roberts' masterpiece: profound and still remarkable."
Considered Keith Roberts' masterwork, this novel consists of linked short stories (six measures and a coda) of a 20th century in which the Roman Catholic Church controls the Western world, and has done so since Queen Elizabeth of England was assassinated in 1588. The Protestant Reformation never happened, and the world is kept in a Dark Age of steam-power transportation, with no allowance for electrical power, by a tyrannical Rome. Pavane shows the harshness of life in this society and details the generational struggle for independence by the citizens of Dorset, England. It's through this series of moving tales that Roberts interweaves a discussion of Destiny and History that take the book out of the ordinary. And the author's great love of his native country makes this the most English of novels, and one of the finest in fantastic literature.
Learn more about Neil Gaiman Presents and Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX).
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By: N. D. Wilson
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Amber Magic
- Haven Series, Book 1
- By: B. V. Larson
- Narrated by: Mark Boyett
- Length: 5 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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The humans have no magic and are hunted for sport, but that is about to change. War is coming.... The Sun Dragon spawned nine lesser dragons which devoured their parent for the power the elder possessed. These young dragons fought for choice bits of the Sun Dragon, but each only managed to eat a portion, thus giving them specific powers. Over time, these foul dragons were hunted down and slain by heroes of old.
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Not Undying Mercenaries Thats for sure
- By John on 10-21-15
By: B. V. Larson
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The Anubis Gates
- By: Tim Powers
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 15 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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When Brendan Doyle is flown from America to London to give a lecture on Samuel Taylor Coleridge, little does he expect that he will soon be traveling through time and meeting the poet himself. But Brendan could do without being stranded penniless in the teeming, thieving London of 1810.
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Yesterday… All My Troubles Seemed So Far Away
- By Doug D. Eigsti on 06-21-16
By: Tim Powers
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The Emperor's Railroad
- By: Guy Haley
- Narrated by: Tim Gerard Reynolds
- Length: 4 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Global war devastated the environment, a zombielike plague wiped out much of humanity, and civilization as we once understood it came to a standstill. But that was a thousand years ago, and the world is now a very different place. Conflict between city-states is constant, superstition is rife, and machine relics, mutant creatures, and resurrected prehistoric beasts trouble the land. Watching over all are the silent Dreaming Cities. Homes of the angels, bastion outposts of heaven on Earth.
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THE GONE BEFORE
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 04-09-18
By: Guy Haley
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Flesh and Spirit
- Lighthouse, Book 1
- By: Carol Berg
- Narrated by: Allen O'Reilly
- Length: 14 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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The rebellious son of a long line of pureblood cartographers and diviners, Valen has spent most of his life trying to escape what society - and his family - have ordained for him. His own mother has predicted that he will meet his doom in water, blood, and ice. Her divination seems fulfilled when a comrade abandons Valen in a rainy wilderness half-dead, addicted to an enchantment that converts pain to pleasure, and possessing only a stolen book of maps.
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FIGHTING TO ADD MORE WORDS TO THIS COLLECTION
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 07-13-14
By: Carol Berg
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Gravity's Rainbow
- By: Thomas Pynchon, Frank Miller - cover design
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 37 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Winner of the 1973 National Book Award, Gravity's Rainbow is a postmodern epic, a work as exhaustively significant to the second half of the 20th century as Joyce's Ulysses was to the first. Its sprawling, encyclopedic narrative and penetrating analysis of the impact of technology on society make it an intellectual tour de force.
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"Time to touch the person next to you"
- By Jefferson on 07-04-16
By: Thomas Pynchon, and others
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The Queen's Lady
- By: Barbara Kyle
- Narrated by: Barbara Kyle
- Length: 21 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Abducted as a child-heiress, Honor Larke escapes to London seeking justice from the only lawyer she knows: the brilliant Sir Thomas More. With More as her affectionate guardian, Honor grows to womanhood, when the glitter of the royal court lures her to attend Her Majesty, Queen Catherine of Aragon. But life at Henry VIII’s court holds more than artifice for an intelligent observer, and Honor knows how to watch - and when to act.
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Very Disappointing
- By elizabeth on 03-27-14
By: Barbara Kyle
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Daughters of the Storm
- By: Kim Wilkins
- Narrated by: Lucy Price-Lewis
- Length: 15 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Lying in a magic-induced coma, the King of Thyrsland is on the brink of death: if his enemies knew, chaos would reign. In fear for his life and his kingdom, his five daughters set out on a perilous journey to try to save him, their only hope an aunt they have yet to meet, a shadowy practitioner of undermagic who lives on the wild northern borders. No one can stand before the fierce tattooed soldier and eldest daughter, Bluebell, an army commander who is rumoured to be unkillable....
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Boring, could not even get through half…
- By Diana M Meredith on 10-30-23
By: Kim Wilkins
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Bloodleaf
- By: Crystal Smith
- Narrated by: Nicola Barber
- Length: 10 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Princess Aurelia is a prisoner to her crown and the heir that nobody wants. Surrounded by spirits and banned from using her blood-magic, Aurelia flees her country after a devastating assassination attempt. To escape her fate, Aurelia disguises herself as a commoner in a new land and discovers a happiness her crown has never allowed. As she forges new bonds and perfects her magic, she begins to fall for a man who is forbidden to rule beside her.
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Not Understanding All the Praise
- By GPChlorine on 08-23-19
By: Crystal Smith
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The Red Wolf Conspiracy
- By: Robert V. S. Redick
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 19 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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The Imperial Merchant Ship Chathrand is the last of her kind. Six hundred years old, the secrets of her construction long forgotten, the massive vessel dwarfs every other sailing craft in the world. It is a palace with sails, a floating outpost of the Empire of Arqual. And it is on its most vital mission yet: to deliver a young woman whose marriage will seal the peace between Arqual and its mortal enemy, the secretive Mzithrin Empire.
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Not Bad, not great.
- By Aerindel on 10-15-09
What listeners say about Pavane
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Jim "The Impatient"
- 06-08-13
Pre-steampunk
Years ago, while reading an anthology I came across "The Signaller" by Keith Roberts. This was over ten years ago and the story has haunted me every since. I had never heard of KR, but I did find a old book called "Kite World" by KR. I never got around to reading it, but I will listen to it since I can get on audible. Gaimen recommended this book, so I went with it first. To my surprise "The Signaller" ended up being the second story in this book. It was still just as haunting.
This is a book of short stories or novellas. The First two "The Lady Margaret" and " The Signaller" are five star stories. Roberts prose is beautiful and very descriptive. I usually don't like descriptive type books, but Roberts is so good at it, that he puts you right into the story. When he talks about a cold night with a full moon in the sky, you shiver, even if you are reading the book on a beach in July. He gives the best description of the death of a loved one I have ever heard. When someone you love dies, it is like the pulling of a thread from your life.
Why, only three stars? The five stories that remain are not near as good as the first two, matter of fact it was painful to get through them. The prose was not as good, the stories not as compelling, they sucked.
Warning: Roberts does not believe in happy endings and he will break your heart.
This is not steampunk, but kind of a precursor to steampunk.
In trying to figure out if this is worth buying, let me say figure on getting about 2 and half hours of really good writing and the rest you may want to skip.
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15 people found this helpful
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- Ryan
- 11-01-14
Gorgeously-written alternate history classic
Keith Roberts's 1968 novel, Pavane, imagines an alternate 20th century in which England's 16th century split from the Catholic Church had never happened. As a result, all of the Western world is ruled from Rome, whose hierarchy has kept a jealous lid on science and technology. That which is permitted has taken on some pretty baroque forms, such as great steam-powered hauling vehicles and a communication system based on hilltop-mounted semaphors, run by a powerful paramilitary guild.
Such inventions might have been labeled "steampunk" had Pavane been published 30 years later, but that term is too hackneyed to do this book justice. While technology is part of Roberts's vision, it's also a window into a more mystical, pastoral England, where the ancient, primal religion of the past hasn't yet been supplanted by progress, and the supernatural world of Faerie still swirls around the edges of the Christianized one, playing its mischief on hearts and minds. For perhaps the old ways, both pagan and Christian, are meant to guide humanity, but in ways not fully revealed.
Pavane isn't a conventionally plotted novel, but consists of six loosely-connected "movements" that build on each other in layers. Each, centered around a different character, can be read as a self-contained story set in a shared world, but, together, they comprise a meditation on the way change can take hold of a person or society, the themes and actions of the earlier pieces taking on greater significance in the later ones.
A brief summary of the movements:
1. A young steam train driver suffers a broken heart, then is tested by bandits.
2. A semaphor operator in a lonely post is badly injured, but by who or what, we don't know at first. Flashbacks reveal his history and the nature of his guild.
3. An adolescent fisher-girl's transition to womanhood is associated with her encounters with a strange white boat, which the local folk aren't supposed to acknowledge.
4. An artistic monk is broken by a terrible assignment from his superiors, and leads a spiritual rebellion.
5. A significant death and a significant love affair lead to a vision.
6. A noblewoman faced with an unjust demand rebels against Rome. Maybe the most riveting piece.
Coda: the scientific revolution has begun at last, but with a significant difference from our own world.
While some of the stories, taken on their own, are more interesting than others, I loved seeing the connections between them unfold. I found Robert's prose to be lovely and sensory, and his storytelling quite good as well. It's not at all a surprise that Neil Gaiman used his influence to have this one brought into audio form. The major themes of the novel (discipline, change, awakening, the mystery of the unknowable) are more insinuated than spelled out, which might put off readers who require a strong, well-defined plot to hold their attention, but I'm not such a reader.
If, like me, you're drawn to the intersection between science fiction, fantasy, and literature, this book probably deserves a place on your shelf. For me, the wistful mood of Pavane, aided by Steven Crossley's fine, classically rich-voiced audiobook performance, secure it a place among my favorites. Kudos to Gaiman for calling attention to it.
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9 people found this helpful
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- Jill
- 05-09-16
Wonderful! Great for history and fantasy lovers
I heard this as a Neil Gaiman presents production. Fell right into the alternate world with a real appreciation for the basis in factual history that underlies the fiction. I highly recommend it.
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- Paul M. Floyd
- 12-15-14
some chapters better than others...
If you could sum up Pavane in three words, what would they be?
A series of stories down through the years assuming there was no Reformation in England.
What did you like best about this story?
The first 3 chapters were excellent.... I quickly got into the stories. But the last couple of chapters with the older woman who was rebelling was less convincing.
What does Steven Crossley bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
His voice was good and his performance was exceptional.
If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?
England with the Reformation....
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- G. Parish
- 01-17-19
Just Buy It
I recently finished listening to Pavane, by Keith Roberts. Thus is part of Audible's Neil Gaiman presents series. The series, as I understand it, are made up of books admired by Neil Gaiman, though perhaps not as well known to the general public.
The book is named Pavane after the processional dance of the renaissance era. It was a formal Spanish dance comprised of six parts and a coda. This book is an alternate history that assumes that Elizabeth I was assassinated, the Spanish armada won, and Philip not only extended his own power but that of the church, putting an early end to any chance of a religious Reformation.
This book is written as six separate tales followed by a coda, similarly to the dance after which it was named. This is unusual for an alternate history novel. Most well written alternate history novels, such as 1632, go into great detail about the world they are in. They go to equally great pains to describe the differences in as brief a portrait as possible. If they didn't keep it brief the information would overwhelm any chance of a decent tale.
This is a serious departure from that model, once again reminiscent of the Pavane. Each story is extremely personal, extremely well crafted, and oft heart wrenching. The world of this alternate history is oft shown only as a backdrop, though not one even the fictional characters can ignore. In some areas it is extremely detailed and in other areas it is strangely vague. This style of dancing around the subject, rather than focusing on it directly not only draws one into the story, but also fires the imagination.
Conclusion: This is an excellent choice for any adult. I wouldn't suggest it as a YA novel, however, almost anyone else will find something of value here. It may be alternate history, but it is also made up of some of the best short stories I have had the good fortune to encounter.
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- Stephen M. Irwin
- 12-16-11
Seminal alternative history
If you could sum up Pavane in three words, what would they be?
Listen to this.
What did you like best about this story?
In Pavane, Keith Roberts painted in beautiful, bittersweet detail complicated characters in a complex world that could, but mercifully does not, exist.
Which character – as performed by Steven Crossley – was your favorite?
Eleanor. Kudos to Steven Crossley.
If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?
Come now to a place that never was.
Any additional comments?
Until such time as human struggles are not defined by religious beliefs, this will remain an important, groundbreaking work of fiction.
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7 people found this helpful
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- Andrew
- 01-15-15
Decent Classic Sci-Fi Alt History
Any additional comments?
A very interesting classes Sci-Fi/Fantasy short story collection all set in an alternate history. I'm not going to go into the plot as others have already done this.
The stories are all loosely connected in one way or another. And I found some to be a lot better than the others, I personally thought the last story was the best of the lot. They are all well written, it's just that one tends to enjoy some stories over others.
A recommended read for all fans of Sci-Fi.
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1 person found this helpful
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- R. Moore
- 11-27-12
If the Spanish Armada defeated England...
An alternate history of 20th century England, where giant semaphore towers are the main means of communication. The book is divided into six "measures" and a coda. It took me a while to get into it, but overall I enjoyed it.
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1 person found this helpful
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- J Landau
- 03-13-14
thoughtful bursts of story
This is one I have listened to one story at a time. Each takes me into the the alternative world through a different lens, complete in its own framing and development. A thoughtful book which is a counterpoint to action-oriented fantasy/science fiction.
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- Michael
- 11-15-12
Listen to learn you need to read it yourself.
Would you consider the audio edition of Pavane to be better than the print version?
Audio performances are about the only way I can find the time to take in a book, but around the third story I realized the prose was so lush, so magnificent, it demanded I read it myself. It's a dry, dark world Roberts creates, but when he cranks his descriptive engine to full, I sit back in awe. Were I to passively listen I could only take in a fraction of its beauty. Don't get me wrong, the performance is excellent. Just understand, this is the most beloved book from a writer's writer. I started it while driving and eventually turned it off when I realized I couldn't give it the attention it deserved and stay on the highway. Buy this performance, but don't be surprised if you find yourself buying it in print as well. I bought two copies so I could give one as a gift.
Have you listened to any of Steven Crossley’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
I've listened to hundreds of audio books, but this is the first I've heard him read. Gaiman describes this as a book that touched him deeply, and Crossley's performance had to have pleased him. The characters were rendered with care and surprising depth. The man is damned good at his job!
Any additional comments?
Never read anything like it. Thanks Neil for turning us on to it.
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