Cage of Souls

By: Adrian Tchaikovsky

Narrated by: David Thorpe

Length: 23 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's summary

Humanity clings to life on a dying Earth in an epic, far-future science fiction novel from an award-winning author.

The sun is bloated, diseased, dying perhaps. Beneath its baneful light, Shadrapar, last of all cities, harbours fewer than 100,000 human souls. Built on the ruins of countless civilisations, Shadrapar is a museum, a midden, an asylum, a prison on a world that is ever more alien to humanity.

Bearing witness to the desperate struggle for existence between life old and new is Stefan Advani: rebel, outlaw, prisoner, survivor. This is his testament, an account of the journey that took him into the blazing desolation of the western deserts; that transported him east down the river and imprisoned him in the verdant hell of the jungle's darkest heart; that led him deep into the labyrinths and caverns of the underworld. He will meet with monsters, madman, mutants.

The question is, which one of them will inherit this Earth?

©2019 Adrian Tchaikovsky (P)2019 Head of Zeus

original and not random

never thought I would hear a voice actor this versatile. makes me want to speak with a posh accent the rest of the day. the story was very unique to me and I love how AT finds ways to make future/other worlds palpable, realistic, and surprising. I did indeed feel like I was living amongst the prisoners of the island for a good portion of the story. i love how the story concluded, which is rare for me.

I liked it

It seemed a little long in parts, but overall it was a beautiful story about a very different and similar world. I loved it and would recommend it to anyone with attention span and patience. Significantly different than his Children of X books, but very good nonetheless. Narration was solid.

Compelling story, interesting concepts

A far cry from my typical diet of technological sci-fi, but immediately engaging with a range of excellent characters, even the narration is superb. I'll be recommending this book very highly to anyone even vaguely interested 👍👍

Very entertaining!

I really enjoyed the plot in this book. The characters were very multidimensional and the author did a wonderful job with imagery. Would definitely recommend!

obsessed

i was obsessed with this book and listened to it with a fervor. I loved the narration too. Probably one of the best narration out there.

a journey worth the purchase

I don't think this is a strong as some of his other work, and I'm still not sure how I feel about the storys overall framing device... but this tale had all the unexpected character and world building that Tchaikovsky is well known for. Definitely a bleaker story but it still had plenty of hope, and I felt for the characters whenever they had to go through physical or emotional distress.

What a pair (author and narrator)

I’ve heard some great narrators so I don’t want to hyperbolize, but this guy is as good you could ever need.

I teared up instantly after the last sentence. What a great story!

interesting but meandering and disjointed

some interesting ideas that really didn't integrate well and seemed very padded. the prison parts were much less interesting than the underworld parts. feels like he made it up as he went instead of having a real cohesive vision. The narrator is extremely good, easily top 5.

The best

Really remarkable. I have truly enjoyed the five other books I e read by AT, esp. children of Time, but none had the delightfully flawed and self effacing Stefan Advani to guide me through the end of the world. These are far and away the best characters I’ve encountered by AT and the feeling of intimacy and sometimes morbid fascination with such a miserable and even appalling cast. The narrator, and I have high standards, has a staggering range of voices and cadences. The characters: Peter, Hermione, The Marshal, Gacki —all of them really, are enthralling buuuut it’s the endless and looping ideas that AT keeps calling back to, echoing through layers of character, environment, event, and tossed off line of dialogue that really held the whole thing together. I take issue with critics complaining that ideas weren’t followed through on because I suspect they missed their solutions by failing to see where they’d jumped from a piece of background and then revisited through relationships or plot points. I also saw AT very purposefully leave an open loop to drive home the unknowability of parts of life through the mind of a narrator who willfully closes his own mind to situations he does not wish to explore.

wow

a fantastic story. I went Into it with little expectations and had a great time.