
Empress of Forever
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Narrated by:
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Natalie Naudus
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By:
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Max Gladstone
About this listen
A wildly successful innovator to rival Steve Jobs or Elon Musk, Vivian Liao is prone to radical thinking, quick decision-making, and reckless action. On the eve of her greatest achievement, she seeks to outrun people who are trying to steal her success.
In the chilly darkness of a Boston server farm, she sets her ultimate plan into motion. A terrifying instant later, she is catapulted through space and time to a far future where she confronts a destiny stranger and more deadly than she could ever imagine.
The end of time is ruled by an ancient, powerful Empress who blesses or blasts entire planets with a single thought. Rebellion is literally impossible to consider - until Vivian Liao arrives. Trapped between the Pride - a ravening horde of sentient machines - and a fanatical sect of warrior monks who call themselves the Mirrorfaith, Viv must rally a strange group of allies to confront the Empress and find a way back to the world and life she left behind.
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Odd narrator choice
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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A very pleasant surprise
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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Advertised as funny. Not funny.
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Critic reviews
“A classic space opera that impossibly becomes a thrilling dungeon crawl fantasy through a universe we’ve never seen before. So smart it makes me jealous.” (Delilah S. Dawson, New York Times best-selling author)
What listeners say about Empress of Forever
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- Tino Benson
- 03-19-25
Phenomenal world building weighed down by generic story and characters
Truly one of the most creative sci fi worlds I’ve explored. Unfortunately the pacing gets repetitive and the characters are not very engaging or dynamic. The dialogue is also a bit shallow. There are some great moments of deep philosophical insight here and there but not enough to make up for the overall story.
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- kurt
- 01-10-20
Started well...
Overall the story was good it just dragged on for a lot longer than nessary...I almost didn't finish it because after a time I stopped caring about the characters as not much seemed to be happening...
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4 people found this helpful
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- Sean Malay
- 07-03-19
great book
this was a great book I only have one point of criticism. I feel that the end was a bit rushed how ever the adventure as a whole was captivating and you fell in love with the characters.
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3 people found this helpful
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- taosaur
- 07-29-19
Wild psychedelic space opera
What a stroke of luck tripping over this book on Audible! Gladstone has a unique sensibility that starts from a foundation of '70s psychedelia like Heavy Metal and Fantastic Planet, dumps in a hefty dose of Dragonball Z, and filters the whole thing through a TED Talk by a lesbian Jeff Bezos. Natalie Naudus' character voicing is phenomenal, right on point with how Gladstone undercuts the godlike beings our Last Simple Meatbag in the Universe protagonist has to wrangle at every turn.
The book does suffer from a slow start, but once it gets going it rarely slows down. The closest comparison I'd make would probably be Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep.
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11 people found this helpful
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- Beth Yacoub
- 08-02-19
Epic Space Opera with an awesome narrator!
A pirate that was caught
A servant that refused to serve
A pilot without wings
A woman without a soul
WOW!!! Where do I start? Well, I listened to this using Audible and man oh man was it epic!! The narrator, Natalie Naudus, was ingenious with her portrayals of each character. She was so good that I never had to question who was speaking at any given time and she brought to life every beloved persona with style.
This book boasted excellent writing. There were loads of scenarios that were hard to envision though. Deep concepts with sweeping, unfathomable grandeur. How do you picture eating moons and spitting out galaxies? Being so large that whole solar systems are dwarfed? Shifts and metamorphosis in and out of dimensions and through a galactic network, called the Cloud? Where bodies are no longer necessary and the matter of having a soul is directly linked to ones ability to connect with and manipulate the Cloud?
The Character Development was beautific, rich. The world Development was immense, extremely confusing at times yet so dynamic I felt like I lived this life in this place with these characters. I know them so well as to be affected by the things that shaped them and terrified and in peril as they were...and they were in CONSTANT peril. There was absolute non stop action and it was unbelievably grand in scope and breadth.
What was it all for?? For the liberation of all sentient beings of course.
Was it worth it? Well you'll just have to see for yourself but as for my time and devotion? Heck yeah it was worth every nanosecond spent listening to this masterpiece.
~ Enjoy
*** I was given a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review ***
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4 people found this helpful
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- A. J. Murphy
- 09-06-19
Just doesn't grab me.
I picked this title because it was on a list of books to read for fans of Farscape. I got about 50% of the way through and the story just doesn't grab me as I'd hoped. It's a bit disappointing considering all the great things I've heard. The narrator is quite good.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Zachary
- 10-12-23
Journey to the West iiiiin spaaaaaace
Except not really - it's more like the author lifted the best characters and some of the situations from Journey and used them to create a new story. The Pirate Queen is obviously the Monkey King, Vivian and Hong together are Tripitaka, and Gray is Piggsie, but the direct translations kind of end there.
This is a rich world of far future tech that might as well be magic, full of characters both ordinary and larger than life, and it's one of those stories where you can KINDA see the villain's point, and it's more their methods you disagree with. The book spends more time than I'd like on 21st century Earth before it gets to the pew pew pew, but it's important for the overall plot and it's not like the first part of the book is a dissertation on taxes or something - the main character is faking her own death in a bold scheme to overthrow an increasingly tyrannical system, for heaven's sake - it's just not as cool as computers made of black holes and ppl who can move at bullet speed
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- Amazon Customer
- 10-02-19
very entertaining
I liked the story. some of the descriptions were repetitive, but good book. the reader was fantastic!
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2 people found this helpful
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- Connor
- 09-26-20
Not Enough Brain Capacity
Enjoyed the book, but afraid my mind lacks capacity to fully appreciate. Needed two of me.
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- Daniel G. Kysela
- 01-01-24
A Unique Space Epic
3.5 stars for me, rounded to 4 because Gladstones unique worlds are really interesting and the narator was great. Not as good to me as his other works, but I enjoyed my way through this one, even though it felt like it was working to lose me me every now and then.
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