
The Real Story: The Gap into Conflict
The Gap Cycle, Book 1
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Narrated by:
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Scott Brick
About this listen
Author of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, one of the most acclaimed fantasy series of all time, master storyteller Stephen R. Donaldson returns with this exciting and long-awaited new series that takes us into a stunningly imagined future to tell a timeless story of adventure and the implacable conflict of good and evil within each of us.
Angus Thermopyle was an ore pirate and a murderer; even the most disreputable asteroid pilots of Delta Sector stayed locked out of his way. Those who didn't ended up in the lockup - or dead. But when Thermopyle arrived at Mallory's Bar & Sleep with a gorgeous woman by his side, the regulars had to take notice. Her name was Morn Hyland, and she had been a police officer - until she met up with Thermopyle.
But one person in Mallorys Bar wasn't intimidated. Nick Succorso had his own reputation as a bold pirate and he had a sleek frigate fitted for deep space. Everyone knew that Thermopyle and Succorso were on a collision course. What nobody expected was how quickly it would be over - or how devastating victory would be. It was common enough example of rivalry and revenge - or so everyone thought. The REAL story was something entirely different.
In The Real Story, Stephen R. Donaldson takes us to a remarkably detailed world of faster-than-light travel, politics, betrayal, and a shadowy presence just outside our view to tell the fiercest, most profound story he has ever written.
©1991 Stephen R. Donaldson (P)2012 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Story
The daughter of rich but neglectful parents, Terisa Morgan lives alone in a New York City apartment, a young woman who has grown to doubt her own existence. Surrounded by the flat reassurance of mirrors, she leads an unfulfilled life - until the night a strange man named Geraden comes crashing through one of her mirrors, on a quest to find a champion to save his kingdom of Mordant from a pervasive evil that threatens the land.
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Thank Heavens, It's Finally Over!
- By Benjamin on 07-12-12
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The Dosadi Experiment
- By: Frank Herbert
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 10 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Generations of a tormented human-alien people, caged on a toxic planet, conditioned by constant hunger and war - this is the Dosadi Experiment, and it has succeeded too well. For the Dosadi have bred for vengeance as well as cunning, and they have learned how to pass through the shimmering God Wall to exact their dreadful revenge on the Universe that created them....
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The wrong narrator...again....
- By Stephen Hickman on 01-01-18
By: Frank Herbert
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City of Golden Shadow
- Otherland, Book 1
- By: Tad Williams
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 28 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Surrounded by secrecy, it is home to the wildest dreams and darkest nightmares. Incredible amounts of money have been lavished on it. The best minds of two generations have labored to build it. And somehow, bit by bit, it is claiming the Earth's most valuable resource - its children.
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Weird. Seriously weird.
- By Townsend on 05-15-15
By: Tad Williams
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Heroes Die
- The First of the Acts of Caine
- By: Matthew Stover
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 22 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Renowned throughout the land of Ankhana as the Blade of Tyshalle, Caine has killed his share of monarchs and commoners, villains and heroes. He is relentless, unstoppable, simply the best there is at what he does. At home on Earth, Caine is Hari Michaelson, a superstar whose adventures in Ankhana command an audience of billions.
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Don't Let the Cover Turn You Off
- By Paul on 08-13-12
By: Matthew Stover
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Gateway
- By: Frederik Pohl
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman, Robert J. Sawyer
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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When prospector Bob Broadhead went out to Gateway on the Heechee spacecraft, he decided he would know which was the right mission to make him his fortune. Three missions later, now famous and permanently rich, Robinette Broadhead has to face what happened to him and what he is...in a journey into himself as perilous and even more horrifying than the nightmare trip through the interstellar void that he drove himself to take!
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A human-focused SF classic
- By Ryan on 12-05-13
By: Frederik Pohl
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Dominion
- A Coldfire Novella
- By: C. S. Friedman
- Narrated by: R.C. Bray
- Length: 2 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Four hundred years after mankind's arrival on Erna, the undead sorcerer Gerald Tarrant travels north in search of a legend. For it is rumored there is a forest where the fae has become so powerful that it devours all who enter it, and he means to test its power.
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It is what it is
- By MrBoobo on 06-11-12
By: C. S. Friedman
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Revelation Space
- By: Alastair Reynolds
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 22 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Nine hundred thousand years ago, something annihilated the Amarantin civilization just as it was on the verge of discovering space flight. Now one scientist, Dan Sylveste, will stop at nothing to solve the Amarantin riddle before ancient history repeats itself. With no other resources at his disposal, Sylveste forges a dangerous alliance with the cyborg crew of the starship Nostalgia for Infinity. But as he closes in on the secret, a killer closes in on him because the Amarantin were destroyed for a reason.
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Defeated
- By Eoin on 07-15-12
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A Fire Upon the Deep
- By: Vernor Vinge
- Narrated by: Peter Larkin
- Length: 21 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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A Fire Upon the Deep is the big, breakout book that fulfills the promise of Vinge's career to date: a gripping tale of galactic war told on a cosmic scale. Thousands of years hence, many races inhabit a universe where a mind's potential is determined by its location in space, from superintelligent entities in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths, where only simple creatures and technology can function.
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What a wild, wacky, awesome book!
- By Noah Smith on 06-20-10
By: Vernor Vinge
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Consider Phlebas: Booktrack Edition
- By: Iain M. Banks
- Narrated by: Peter Kenny
- Length: 16 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Consider Phlebas: Booktrack Edition adds an immersive musical soundtrack to your audiobook listening experience! The first audiobook in Iain M. Banks's seminal science fiction series, The Culture. Consider Phlebas introduces listeners to a utopian conglomeration of human and alien races that explores the nature of war, morality, and the limitless bounds of mankind's imagination.
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Music is super distracting and constant
- By Anonymous1234 on 06-17-20
By: Iain M. Banks
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Dauntless
- Lost Fleet, Book 1
- By: Jack Campbell
- Narrated by: Jack Campbell, Christian Rummel
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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The Alliance has been fighting the Syndics for a century—and losing badly. Now its fleet is crippled and stranded in enemy territory. Their only hope is a man who’s emerged from a century-long hibernation to find he has been heroically idealized beyond belief… Captain John “Black Jack” Geary’s legendary exploits are known to every schoolchild. Revered for his heroic “last stand” in the early days of the war, he was presumed dead. But a century later, Geary miraculously returns from survival hibernation.
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Straightforward Action Based Science Fiction
- By David A on 07-07-22
By: Jack Campbell
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Wayward Galaxy
- Wayward Galaxy, Book 1
- By: Jason Anspach, J. N. Chaney
- Narrated by: R.C. Bray
- Length: 12 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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A company of Army Rangers is sent on an interstellar colony ship to secure a foothold on a dangerous, alien planet through violence of action. Leaving behind a warring Earth flung headfirst into a conflict of mutual assured destruction, the Rangers and the accompanying crew of first colonists are guided on a 40-year journey by an unprecedented artificial intelligence. But when they emerge from the frigid embrace of cryosleep, they awake to a nightmare, finding themselves greeted by the same ruthless enemy that brought about the ruin of Earth.
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A breath of fresh air
- By Anonymous User on 09-29-20
By: Jason Anspach, and others
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Tech, Lies, and Wizardry
- A Space Opera Fantasy Short Story (Black Ocean, Book 0)
- By: J. S. Morin
- Narrated by: Mikael Naramore
- Length: 49 mins
- Unabridged
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It started as a simple heist. It went to hell from there. On a space station orbiting a pale blue sun, a package changes hands. Data too sensitive to transmit will be exposed for one brief moment. The client is paying a crazy sum - if the job is clean. That’s not going to happen. Instead, the galaxy’s unluckiest crew of outlaws will have to put all their resources into salvaging what they can from the job. Even if it’s only avoiding blame for the fallout.
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buy the whole series already
- By cooper bright on 10-22-19
By: J. S. Morin
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The Collapsing Empire
- The Interdependency, Book 1
- By: John Scalzi
- Narrated by: Wil Wheaton
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Our universe is ruled by physics, and faster-than-light travel is not possible - until the discovery of The Flow, an extradimensional field we can access at certain points in space-time that transports us to other worlds, around other stars. Humanity flows away from Earth, into space, and in time forgets our home world and creates a new empire, the Interdependency, whose ethos requires that no one human outpost can survive without the others. It's a hedge against interstellar war - and a system of control for the rulers of the empire.
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THE STUPIDITIES OF COURT
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 04-01-17
By: John Scalzi
What listeners say about The Real Story: The Gap into Conflict
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Sailfish
- 01-22-17
A Bit Too Depraved For My Tastes
Stephen Donaldson is very good at telling a story about a truly wretched man, a half-crazed female captive and a would-be hero and Scott Brick's narration provides an excellent voice in which to explore the demons and passions that each character are both tortured by and benefited from.
Regrettably, the cruelty and perversity explored in the novel was not something I found any inspiration in.
Note: I did find the author's honest discussion on the haphazardness of tuning in his muse. In addition, his telling of Richard Wagner's music dramas was likably appealing.
I'll not continue on with the series,
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9 people found this helpful
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- Greg Costello
- 09-11-17
very dark,very entertaining.
this is just what I was seeking,something with a ton of real artistic story set in space,the darkness was an unexpected bonus. I'm in on the rest of the series & the authors other works
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- Ron P
- 01-22-18
Dark, but worth it as the setup for what follows
If you've read Donaldson, you know he can be dark.
Well, this is *dark.* The plot is interesting, and if some of the techie ideas are dated, conceptually, they make sense and have analogs to what might be out there today (script vs. 'batch' files, whatever). It's strong work.
But cripes, I understand why some call this misogynistic. I don't think it is, but that's because it's Donaldson and I've read the whole series. There's some brilliant writing in this book, but overall, reading it is sort of the price of admission to the series as a whole.
It's worth it. Remind yourself of that when you squirm and contemplate bagging it. It's worth it.
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- Zachary
- 12-15-20
just a fantastic bleak story
this is one of the most memorable series I have ever read. I love dark stories that abandon traditional hero's and gives you characters with many demons and flaws. this is possible my favorite sci fi series. it has some unique concepts and the story is great but it's not for the faint of heart.
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- Nevermore
- 01-29-13
Stop it with Scott Brick
What did you like best about The Real Story: The Gap into Conflict? What did you like least?
An excellent and traditionally dark Donaldson story.
What did you like best about this story?
The layer-upon-layer of story. The peeling away of those layers...
How did the narrator detract from the book?
Scott Brick is possibly the single worst narrator ever. He routinely gets the overall tone for a book wrong, and he has an incredibly odd and annoying rhythm and inflection. He overdoes "sympathy" horribly. Maybe a tollerable reader for some kind of happy/sappy romance, but godawful for all the SciFi and Fantasy he is ruining.
Could you see The Real Story: The Gap into Conflict being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?
Anyone except Scott Brick.Would be a great series if done "darkly" like Battlestar Galactica (the new one).
Any additional comments?
Please get the publishing houses to stop using Scott Brick. Please request that they have all works read by Scott Brick re-read by someone competent. Please provide those new performances free to those of us here who have the misfortune of finding some many of their favorite works destroyed by him...
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7 people found this helpful
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- Dave
- 12-09-12
A Galactic Adventure into the human condition
Would you consider the audio edition of The Real Story: The Gap into Conflict to be better than the print version?
the unabridged version is as good as, or better than the print version.
What was one of the most memorable moments of The Real Story: The Gap into Conflict?
The conflict of Angus and Nick at the space station canteena, the secret message and instruction to Morn.
Have you listened to any of Scott Brick’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
Yes, and I feel this is one of his signature performanes. I look forward to more programs read by Scott Brick.
If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?
The Gritty Reality of Humans in Space
Any additional comments?
I read the book back in the early nineties and had hoped there would be more stories to follow. This is an adult adventure that Disney cannot touch, I hope they don't touch. The only way to have this story made into any visual narration, would be to have the Japanese anime masters develope a series. (See Ghost in the Shell or Akira) Then again they wouldn't do it justice either. I look forward to listening again, but not too many times, I don't want to get burnt out on this story as i did with Bladerunner and Star Wars: A New Hope. I look forward to the next four stories. The Gap series still needs to have the fifth book, with Scott Brick, for me to add to my growing library. If I can discover another space adventure, it will have to stand up to my comparison of the Gap series, as my standard of comparison.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Lore
- 09-18-16
Oddly compelling
The Real Story starts with the patrons of a bar experiencing something that doesn't make sense. Angus Thermpylae walks into the bar with a beautiful woman at his side. Angus is an evil man and a suspected pirate/smuggler with a reputation for being a loner. The young attractive woman at his side is Morn Hyland, a law enforcement officer who should want nothing to do with someone like Angus. It is obvious to many of the patrons that she is a captive of some sort but she doesn't seem to be acting like one. Enter the dashing Nick Succorso, who confronts Angus and appears to rescue Morn away from him. The patrons of the bar then speculate on what they just witnessed and it is clear to many that this is a classic case of a hero (Nick) rescuing a victim (Morn) from an evil villain (Angus.) While that is indeed true, it is also not "The Real Story."
Donaldson wrote this novella because he wanted to take the classic character triangle of hero, victim, and villain and have his characters switch roles as the story progresses. And while this is the case in "The Real Story" what happens is actually far more complicated than that. As is typical of Donaldson, he weaves uncomfortable subject matter into his story and grabs your attention with it. In The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever he offered up the subjects of rape, leprosy, and possession and forced the reader to be conflicted by manipulating them into rooting for an undeserving anti-hero. In The Real Story the subject matter is even more uncomfortable and all of the main characters are deeply flawed.
In Donaldson's future there is a psychosis known as Gap Sickness. After an interstellar craft uses hyper-space to cross "The Gap" on rare occasions a member of the crew may start to commit despicable atrocities. This illness can cause a person to do violence to themselves, attack or kill other members of the crew, or even to destroy the ship itself. Gap Sickness is incurable and unpredictable and the only solution to the problem is to insert a "zone implant" into the affected person. Such an implant allows the individual to be remotely controlled in order to prevent them from being a threat to themselves and the rest of the crew. Due to the nature of the technology misuse of such an implant is classified as a capital crime and punishable by death. This is the stage upon which The Real Story unfolds.
Without spoiling too much suffice it to say that all 3 of the main characters in this tale are deeply flawed and despite the disturbing nature of how they treat each other I found myself eager to continue reading. I aligned with none of the characters but still needed to know how it was all going to play out. It seemed that Donaldson had once again grabbed my attention with subject matter I could do without. Is it like slowing down to view a traffic accident or watching footage of a disaster on the news? Perhaps but the tale was interesting enough for me to pick up the second book after I was done with this one so I could see what happens next. This is a short story and complete in nature, but as the first book of a series it did leave me wanting to know more.
Scott Brick is a well known narrator and he and Donaldson often team up together. Scott's narration on The Real Story is solid as usual and he remains the narrator for all 5 books of The Gap Cycle so the entire series is in good hands.
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- Ra-Sodor
- 07-31-18
Amazing story.
Angus is my favorite, he is how humanity really is. Self Preservation is his number one goal.
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- fourindigo
- 04-30-22
Timeless
Great story that works whatever the year is. Loads of imagined technology that is very believable. Get the whole series!
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- Tony S
- 11-28-17
Dark
I haven't begun the next books in the series, but this book is interesting, but has absolutely no lightness to it. It is humorless, and the characters are all dark. Interesting, but I needed to read some comedy relief before attacking the next one.
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3 people found this helpful