A full cast capably adapts this complex novel with many nested narratives within narratives and frequent thematic digressions. Narrators Michael Crouch, Jonathan Davis, and Hillary Huber carry the first half as three disparate characters who are captivated by the works of obscure science-fiction writer Eduard Salgado-MacKenzie. Together they seek out the elusive author and his lost manuscript, THE INFINITE FUTURE. Though we know early on that they'll eventually find it, their quest is still full of surprises. Then, it's to infinity and beyond as narrators Phoebe Strole and Kristen Sieh read the title sci-fi story, a curious mix of space adventure and scholarly satire. Not everyone will love the unconventional storytelling. But the strong leading performances, plus several effective supporting roles, should win over many listeners.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2018
Duration: 13 hrs, 15 mins
DD ISBN: 9780525498605
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
American colleges are favorable locales for ghastly event and hair-tearing circumstance. There is, for instance, a good deal of pleasure to be had out of professor and past-prodigy Grady Tripp's awful life, as portrayed by Michael Chabon in WONDER BOYS. There is a certain amount of slapstick here, but it's balanced by Chabon's superb portrait of a gale-force mid-life crisis, a soul-destroying albatross of an unfinished novel and the mind-numbing inconsequence of writers' conferences. David Colacci sounds a little starved for oxygen in his reading, but that's not exactly out of keeping with Grady Tripp's personal gestalt.
Pub Date: N/A
Duration: N/A
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Class lurks in varying degrees behind every great English comedy, its ineffable code being so endlessly conducive to ironic subtlety. QUEEN LUCIA, the first of the great Lucia novels of E.F. Benson, is imbued with it. Nonetheless, social striving rather than class per se gives the novel its real comic force. At its center is Lucia, the regnant, self-appointed social and cultural leader of a genteel, middle-class circle. She’s a schemer and poser of awesome theatricality and self-delusion. Although the narrative is conducted in the third person, the characters’ doings, most especially Lucia’s, are as often as not reported in the light in which the perpetrators hope to be viewed. Still, the true facts and motivations, usually base, shine luminously through. Geraldine McEwen’s reading truly enhances the work, being a model of cultivated discretion and ironic pacing.
Pub Date: N/A
Duration: 9 hrs
Publisher: ISIS Audio Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
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