John Lee has narrated 329 audiobooks on Listento.it by 240 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.6★ across 25,868 ratings. The most-rated is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Book 7.
Salvation Lost
Summary
All the best in humanity rises to meet a powerful alien threat in the sequel to Salvation - part of an all-new trilogy from "the owner of the most powerful imagination in science fiction" (Ken Follett). The comparative utopia of 23rd-century Earth is about to go dreadfully awry when a seemingly benign alien race is abruptly revealed to be one of the worst threats humanity has ever faced. Driven by an intense religious extremism, the Olyix are determined to bring everyone to their version of god as they see it. But they may have met their match in humanity, who are not about to go gently into that good night or spend the rest of their days cowering in hiding. As human ingenuity and determination rises to the challenge, collective humanity has only one goal - to wipe this apparently undefeatable enemy from the face of creation. Even if it means playing a ridiculously long game indeed. But in a chaotic universe, it is hard to plan for every eventuality, and it is always darkest before the dawn.
©2019 Peter F. Hamilton (P)2019 Tantor
The History of the Medieval World
Summary
From the schism between Rome and Constantinople to the rise of the T'ang Dynasty, from the birth of Muhammad to the crowning of Charlemagne, this erudite book tells the fascinating, often violent story of kings, generals, and the peoples they ruled. In her earlier work, The History of the Ancient World, Susan Wise Bauer wrote of the rise of kingship based on might. But in the years between the fourth and the 12th centuries, rulers had to find new justification for their power, and they turned to divine truth or grace to justify political and military action. Right thus replaces might as the engine of empire. Not just Christianity and Islam but the religions of the Persians and the Germans, and even Buddhism, are pressed into the service of the state. This phenomenon---stretching from the Americas all the way to Japan---changes religion, but it also changes the state.
©2010 Susan Wise Bauer (P)2010 Tantor
The White Tiger
Summary
British Book Awards, Author of the Year, 2009. Man Booker Prize, Fiction, 2008. No saris. No scents. No spices. No music. No lyricism. No illusions. This is India now. Balram Halwai is a complicated man. Servant. Philosopher. Entrepreneur. Murderer. Over the course of seven nights, by the scattered light of a preposterous chandelier, Balram tells us the terrible and transfixing story of how he came to be a success in life - having nothing but his own wits to help him along. Born in a village in the dark heart of India, Balram gets a break when he is hired as a driver for a wealthy man, two Pomeranians (Puddles and Cuddles), and the rich man's (very unlucky) son. Through Balram's eyes, we see India as we've never seen it before: the cockroaches and the call centers, the prostitutes and the worshippers, the water buffalo and, trapped in so many kinds of cages that escape is (almost) impossible, the white tiger. With a charisma as undeniable as it is unexpected, Balram teaches us that religion doesn't create morality and money doesn't solve every problem - but decency can still be found in a corrupt world, and you can get what you want out of life if you eavesdrop on the right conversations.
©2008 Aravind Adiga (P)2008 Tantor
The Road to Sevendor
Summary
The very first Spellmonger anthology! Includes two audio exclusive stories, Stonesinger and The Ugliest Maid in Castal. Contains four previously unpublished Spellmonger short stories, "The Wizard of Birchroot Bridge", "The Secret of Westwood Hall", "The Road to Sevendor", and "The Iron Ring", including the full and complete versions of the previously published The River Mists of Talry, Victory Soup, and The Spellmonger's Wedding. Enjoy these scraps from the Spellmonger's table and the fantasy world of Callidore - where they put the evil back into medieval!
©2013 Terry Mancour (P)2020 Podium Audio
The Saints of Salvation
Summary
With refreshing determination and hopeful grit, humanity activates a bold endgame against an alien invasion in the finale of a series heralded as "a modern classic" (Stephen Baxter) from "one of the finest writers the genre has produced" (Gareth L. Powell). Humanity is struggling to hold out against a hostile takeover by an alien race that claims to be on a religious mission to bring all sentient life to its God at the End of Time. But while billions of cocooned humans fill the holds of the Olyix's deadly arkships, humankind is playing an even longer game than the aliens may have anticipated. From an ultra-secret spy mission to one of the grandest battles ever seen, no strategy is off the table. Will a plan millennia in the making finally be enough to defeat this seemingly unstoppable enemy? And what secrets are the Olyix truly hiding in their most zealously protected stronghold? With his trademark optimism about humanity's tenacity and capacity for greatness, Peter F. Hamilton wraps up this brilliant saga with a bang - and reminds us why freedom of choice is the most important freedom there is.
©2020 Peter F. Hamilton (P)2020 Tantor
The Reality Dysfunction
Summary
In AD 2600, the human race is finally beginning to realize its full potential. Hundreds of colonized planets scattered across the galaxy host a multitude of prosperous and wildly diverse cultures. Genetic engineering has pushed evolution far beyond nature's boundaries, defeating disease and producing extraordinary spaceborn creatures. Huge fleets of sentient trader starships thrive on the wealth created by the industrialization of entire star systems, and throughout inhabited space the Confederation Navy keeps the peace. A true golden age is within our grasp. But now something has gone catastrophically wrong. On a primitive colony planet, a renegade criminal's chance encounter with an utterly alien entity unleashes the most primal of all our fears. An extinct race that inhabited the galaxy aeons ago called it the Reality Dysfunction. It is the nightmare that has prowled beside us since the beginning of history.
©1996 Peter F. Hamilton (P)2016 Tantor
House of Suns
Summary
Six million years ago, at the very dawn of the starfaring era, Abigail Gentian fractured herself into a thousand male and female clones: the shatterlings. Sent out into the galaxy, these shatterlings have stood aloof as they document the rise and fall of countless human empires. They meet every 200,000 years to exchange news and memories of their travels with their siblings. Not only are Campion and Purslane late for their 30-second reunion but they have also brought along an amnesiac golden robot for a guest. But the wayward shatterlings get more than the scolding they expect: they face the discovery that someone has a very serious grudge against the Gentian line, and there is a very real possibility of traitors in their midst. The surviving shatterlings have to dodge exotic weapons while they regroup to try to solve the mystery of who is persecuting them and why---before their ancient line is wiped out of existence forever.
©2008 Alastair Reynolds (P)2009 Tantor
Chasm City
Summary
Named one of the best novels of the year by both Locus and Science Fiction Chronicle, Alastair Reynolds's debut Revelation Space redefined the space opera. With Chasm City, Reynolds invites you to reenter the bizarre universe of his imagination as he redefines Hell. The once-utopian Chasm City - a domed human settlement on an otherwise inhospitable planet - has been overrun by a virus known as the Melding Plague, capable of infecting any body, organic or computerized. Now, with the entire city corrupted---from the people to the very buildings they inhabit---only the most wretched sort of existence remains. For security operative Tanner Mirabel, it is the landscape of nightmares through which he searches for a lowlife postmortal killer. But the stakes are raised when his search brings him face to face with a centuries-old atrocity that history would rather forget.
©2008 Alastair Reynolds (P)2009 Tantor
The Dreaming Void
Summary
AD 3580. The Intersolar Commonwealth has spread through the galaxy to over a thousand star systems. It is a culture of rich diversity with a place for everyone. A powerful navy protects it from any hostile species that may lurk among the stars. For Commonwealth citizens, even death has been overcome. At the center of the galaxy is the Void, a strange, artificial universe created by aliens billions of years ago, shrouded by an event horizon more deadly than any natural black hole. In order to function, it is gradually consuming the mass of the galaxy. Watched over by its ancient enemies, the Raiel, the Void's expansion is barely contained. Inigo dreams of the sweet life within the Void and shares his visions with billions of avid believers. When he mysteriously disappears, Inigo's followers decide to embark on a pilgrimage into the Void to live the life of their messiah's dreams - a pilgrimage that the Raiel claim will trigger a catastrophic expansion of the Void. Aaron is a man whose only memory is his own name. He doesn't know who he used to be or what he is. All he does know is that his job is to find the missing messiah and stop the pilgrimage. He's not sure how to do that, but whoever he works for has provided some pretty formidable weaponry that ought to help. Meanwhile, inside the Void, a youth called Edeard is coming to terms with his unusually strong telepathic powers. A junior constable in Makkathran, he starts to challenge the corruption and decay that have poisoned the city. He is determined that his fellow citizens should know hope again. What Edeard doesn't realize is just how far his message of hope is reaching.
©2007 Peter F. Hamilton (P)2008 Tantor
Agent Zigzag
Summary
Eddie Chapman was a charming criminal, a con man, and a philanderer. He was also one of the most remarkable double agents Britain has ever produced. Inside the traitor was a man of loyalty; inside the villain was a hero. The problem for Chapman, his spymasters, and his lovers was to know where one persona ended and the other began. In 1941, after training as a German spy in occupied France, Chapman was orders orders from the Abwehr to blow up an airplane factory in Britain. Instead, he contacted MI5, the British Secret Service. For the next four years, Chapman worked as a double agent, a lone British spy at the heart of the German Secret Service. Crisscrossing Europe under different names, all the while weaving plans, spreading disinformation, and, miraculously, keeping his stories straight under intense interrogation, he even managed to gain some profit and seduce beautiful women along the way. The Nazis feted Chapman as a hero and awarded him the Iron Cross. In Britain, he was pardoned for his crimes, becoming the only wartime agent to be thus rewarded. Sixty years after the end of the war, and 10 years after Chapman’s death, MI5 has now declassified all of Chapman’s files, releasing more than 1,800 pages of top secret material and allowing the full story of Agent Zigzag to be told for the first time.
©2007 Ben MacIntyre (P)2007 Books on Tape
Redemption Ark
Summary
Late in the 26th century, the human race has advanced enough to accidentally trigger the Inhibitors---alien-killing machines designed to detect intelligent life and destroy it. The only hope for humanity lies in the recovery of a secret cache of doomsday weapons---and a renegade named Clavain who is determined to find them. But other factions want the weapons for their own purposes---and the weapons themselves have another agenda altogether.
©2008 Alastair Reynolds (P)2009 Tantor
The Naked God
Summary
The Confederation is starting to collapse politically and economically, allowing the "possessed" to infiltrate more worlds. Quinn Dexter is loose on Earth, destroying the giant arcologies one at a time. As Louise Kavanagh tries to track him down, she manages to acquire some strange and powerful allies whose goal doesn't quite match her own. The campaign to liberate Mortonridge from the possessed degenerates into a horrendous land battle, the kind that hasn't been seen by humankind for 600 years; then some of the protagonists escape in a very unexpected direction. Joshua Calvert and Syrinx fly their starships on a mission to find the Sleeping God, which an alien race believes holds the key to overthrowing the possessed. The Naked God is the brilliant climax to Peter F. Hamilton's awe-inspiring Night's Dawn trilogy.
©1999 Peter F. Hamilton (P)2016 Tantor
Stephen Fry
Summary
In this interview Stephen Fry talks to us about the process of narrating the complete adventures of London's greatest detective, Sherlock Holmes. He touches on the genius of Arthur Conan Doyle and reveals how joining the 'Sherlock Holmes Society' played a part in his expulsion from school and subsequent imprisonment. Coming round full circle, Stephen admits to having jumped at the chance of voicing Sherlock Holmes: The Definitive Collection. Keen to delve once more into the 'majestic swing, rhythm and pulse of the text,' Stephen describes his experience in the recording studio, all the while expressing a general fondness for the magic of stories told aloud. As a renowned and beloved actor, writer, and presenter, Stephen Fry has imprinted himself into British culture. He has voiced all seven of the Harry Potter audiobooks, as well as titles such as The Picture of Dorian Gray, Mythos and Winnie the Pooh. His flawless rendition of literary classics is always second to none and in Sherlock Holmes: The Definitive Collection, Stephen immediately draws you in and leaves you wanting more. Including personal introductions written by and narrated by Stephen, The Definitive Collection is a truly unique literary gem. Audible Members' Choice Winner of the Year, the audiobook has been described by listeners as 'superb' and 'over 70 hours of pure brilliance.'
©2016 Audible Studios (P)2016 Audible Studios
A Night Without Stars: A Novel of the Commonwealth
Summary
The planet is isolated from the rest of the universe, unable to seek help as it's targeted by hostile aliens. Bienvenido's ruling authorities have slowly responded to this gradual infiltration, but they have no idea that a highly organized invasion is now under way, designed to wipe out all human life on the planet. All factions must work together to survive. Unfortunately, due to prejudice against enhanced Eliter humans and crippling technophobia, the parochial government won't collaborate. Kysandra, known as the Warrior Angel, heads up the Eliter resistance. With their enhanced capabilities and technological know-how, they could avert disaster, but only if the authorities stop hunting them at every turn. Then, as both resistance and government are caught in a desperate race to save lives, the planet receives an unexpected visitor. As events escalate, petty power-plays, politics, and age-old prejudices may prove fatal. And as the more sophisticated hostiles can hijack a human body, humanity is undermined by spies within - wearing the faces of family and friends.
©2016 Peter F. Hamilton (P)2016 Tantor
Perdido Street Station
Summary
Beneath the towering bleached ribs of a dead, ancient beast lies New Crobuzon, a squalid city where humans, Re-mades, and arcane races live in perpetual fear of Parliament and its brutal militia. The air and rivers are thick with factory pollutants and the strange effluents of alchemy, and the ghettos contain a vast mix of workers, artists, spies, junkies, and whores. In New Crobuzon, the unsavory deal is stranger to none - not even to Isaac, a brilliant scientist with a penchant for Crisis Theory. Isaac has spent a lifetime quietly carrying out his unique research. But when a half-bird, half-human creature known as the Garuda comes to him from afar, Isaac is faced with challenges he has never before fathomed. Though the Garuda's request is scientifically daunting, Isaac is sparked by his own curiosity and an uncanny reverence for this curious stranger. While Isaac's experiments for the Garuda turn into an obsession, one of his lab specimens demands attention: a brilliantly colored caterpillar that feeds on nothing but a hallucinatory drug and grows larger - and more consuming - by the day. What finally emerges from the silken cocoon will permeate every fiber of New Crobuzon, and not even the Ambassador of Hell will challenge the malignant terror it invokes. A magnificent fantasy rife with scientific splendor, magical intrigue, and wonderfully realized characters, told in a storytelling style in which Charles Dickens meets Neal Stephenson, Perdido Street Station offers an eerie, voluptuously crafted world that will plumb the depths of every reader's imagination.
©2003 China Mieville (P)2009 Random House Audio
Gai-Jin
Summary
The heir to the magnificent English trading company, the Noble House; the direct descendant of the first Toranaga Shogun, battling to usher his country into the modern age; a beautiful young Frenchwoman forever torn between ambition and desire - their lives intertwine in an exotic land newly open to foreigners, gai-jin, and torn apart by greed, idealism, and terrorism. Their passions mingle with monarchs and diplomats, assassins, courtesans, and spies. Their fates collide in James Clavell's masterpiece set in 19th-century Japan - an unforgettable epic seething with betrayal and secrets, brutality and heroism, love and forbidden passions.
©2015 James Clavell (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
The Evolutionary Void
Summary
An innovator praised as one of the inventors of "the new space opera", Peter F. Hamilton has also been hailed as the heir of such golden-age giants as Heinlein and Asimov. His star-spanning sagas are distinguished by deft plotting, engaging characters, provocative explorations of science and society, and soaring imaginative reach. Now, in one of the most eagerly anticipated offerings of the year, Hamilton brings his acclaimed Void trilogy to a stunning close. Exposed as the Second Dreamer, Araminta has become the target of a galaxywide search by government agent Paula Myo and the psychopath known as the Cat, along with others equally determined to prevent - or facilitate - the pilgrimage of the Living Dream cult into the heart of the Void. An indestructible microuniverse, the Void may contain paradise, as the cultists believe, but it is also a deadly threat. For the miraculous reality that exists inside its boundaries demands energy - energy drawn from everything outside those boundaries: from planets, stars, galaxies...from everything that lives. Meanwhile, the parallel story of Edeard, the Waterwalker, as told through a series of addictive dreams communicated to the gaiasphere via Inigo, the First Dreamer, continues to unfold. But now the inspirational tale of this idealistic young man takes a darker and more troubling turn as he finds himself faced with powerful new enemies - and temptations more powerful still. With time running out, a repentant Inigo must decide whether to release Edeard's final dream: a dream whose message is scarcely less dangerous than the pilgrimage promises to be. And Araminta must choose whether to run from her unwanted responsibilities or face them down, with no guarantee of success or survival. But all these choices may be for naught if the monomaniacal Ilanthe, leader of the breakaway Accelerator Faction, is able to enter the Void. For it is not paradise she seeks there, but dominion.
©2010 Peter F. Hamilton (P)2010 Tantor
The Temporal Void
Summary
Long ago, a human astrophysicist, Inigo, began dreaming scenes from the life of a remarkable human being named Edeard, who lived within the Void, a self-contained microuniverse at the heart of the galaxy. There, under the beneficent gaze of mysterious godlike entities, humans possessed uncanny psychic abilities, and Edeard's were the strongest of all. Equally strong was his determination to bring justice and freedom to a world terrorized by criminal violence and corruption. Inigo's inspirational dreams, shared by hundreds of millions throughout the galaxy-spanning gaiafield, gave birth to a religion - Living Dream. But when the appearance of a Second Dreamer seemed to trigger the expansion of the Void - an expansion that is devouring everything in its path -the Intersolar Commonwealth was thrown into turmoil. With the adherents of Living Dream determined to set forth on a dangerous pilgrimage into the Void, interstellar war threatens to erupt. With time running out, the fate of humanity hinges on a handful of people. There is Araminta, only now awakening to the unwelcome fact that she is the mysterious Second Dreamer - and to the dire responsibilities that go with it; Inigo, whose private dreams hint at a darker truth behind Edeard's legendary life; Paula Myo, the ruthless field operative of the Commonwealth, whose search for Araminta and Inigo is about to yield a most unpleasant surprise; and Justine, whose desperate gamble places her within the Void, where the godlike Skylords hold the power to save the universe...or destroy it.
©2008 Peter F. Hamilton (P)2009 Tantor
A Banquet of Consequences
Summary
The number-one New York Times best-selling author's award-winning series returns with another stunning crime drama featuring Scotland Yard members Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley and Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers. The unspoken secrets and buried lies of one family rise to the surface in Elizabeth George's novel of crime, passion, and tragic history. As Inspector Thomas Lynley investigates the London angle of an ever more darkly disturbing case, his partner, Barbara Havers, is looking behind the peaceful façade of country life to discover a twisted world of desire, deceit, and murder. The suicide of William Goldacre is devastating to those left behind. But what was the cause of his tragedy, and how far might the consequences reach? Is there a link between the young man's leap from a Dorset cliff and a horrific poisoning in Cambridge? After various career-threatening issues with her department, Barbara Havers is desperate to redeem herself. So when a past encounter with a best-selling feminist writer and her pushy personal assistant gives her a connection to the Cambridge murder, Barbara begs Thomas Lynley to let her pursue the crime. Full of shocks, intensity, and suspense from beginning to end, A Banquet of Consequences reveals both Lynley and Havers under mounting pressure to solve one of the most complex cases they have ever encountered.
©2015 Elizabeth George (P)2015 Penguin Audio
Knife
Summary
Brilliant, audaciously rogue police officer Harry Hole, from The Snowman and The Thirst, is back and in the throes of a new, unanticipated rage - once again hunting the murderer who has haunted his entire career. Harry Hole is not in a good place. Rakel - the only woman he's ever loved - has ended it with him, permanently. He's been given a chance for a new start with the Oslo Police, but it's in the cold case office. What he really wants is to be investigating cases he suspects have ties to Svein Finne, the serial rapist and murderer who Harry helped put behind bars. And now, Finne is free after a decade-plus in prison - free and, Harry is certain, unreformed and ready to take up where he left off. But things will get worse. When Harry wakes up the morning after a drunken night with blood that's clearly not his own on his hands, it's only the very beginning of what will be a waking nightmare the likes of which even he could never have imagined.
©2019 Jo Nesbo (P)2019 Random House Audio