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Places in the Darkness

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Places in the Darkness

By: Chris Brookmyre
Narrated by: Robin Miles
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About this listen

Million-copy-selling Chris Brookmyre takes his fiction further than ever before in this wildly inventive and sharply-plotted novel set in the unforgiving emptiness of space.

Longlisted for the Mcilvanney Prize for Crime Writing 2018

"This is as close to a city without crime as mankind has ever seen."

Ciudad de Cielo is the 'city in the sky', a space station where hundreds of scientists and engineers work in earth's orbit, building the colony ship that will one day take humanity to the stars.

When a mutilated body is found on the CdC, the eyes of the world are watching. Top-of the-class investigator, Alice Blake, is sent from Earth to team up with CdC's Freeman - a jaded cop with more reason than most to distrust such planetside interference.

As the death toll climbs and factions aboard the station become more and more fractious, Freeman and Blake will discover clues to a conspiracy that threatens not only their own lives, but the future of humanity itself.

©2017 Chris Brookmyre (P)2017 Little, Brown Book Group Science Fiction Fiction Space Station

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Critic reviews

"Fascinating, fast-paced but thoughtful." (Iain M. Banks)
"Entertaining and intelligent." (Patrick Ness)

"Razor sharp." (The Big Issue)
All stars
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Big fan of the author but find science fiction quite tricky sometimes. Ended up wanting more of this style and these characters. Highly recommended.

Not the standard presentation, but that works well

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Having read a lot of the authors older works I was interested to see how his skills would translate to a genre I enjoy massively. This book does not disappoint!

It retains some of his signature style, along with fresh and interesting ideas in terms of technology and story.

Would highly recommend for both fans of the author and sci-fi fans alike.

Interesting Foray

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Not only is this one of the best Chris Brookmyre novels, it is an excellent sci-fi work and can be ranked with the greats. It offers a glimpse into an entirely believable near future set in a city in near Earth orbit. The tech details are intriguing and credible. The storyline twists and turns and surprises. Top marks too to the excellent narration.

Top Quality SciFi

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I’m not normally a sci-fi fan but I am a fan of Chris Brookmyre so I thought I’d give it a go. It took me ages to get into and I started from the beginning at least 3 times, determined to tough it out with a new genre. It was ok - although I found it difficult to care about eventual outcome for any of the characters. Don’t know if this is going to be a series, but I doubt I’d bother with any more if so.

I sort of enjoyed this … I think

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Always a good plot and characters. The narration was excellent. The setting was believable and the science possible

Good twists

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enjoyed the Parlabane series so have this a go. very happy that I did. great story and performance.

excellent

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This is some seriously good writing. One of the few audiobooks that I could not fall asleep to.

The narrator did a superb performance. I've heard some of her other work and she is very gifted.

But the world building, characters and plot ... oh, my, I had forgotten how good Brookmyre can be. I do enjoy a Sci-Fi backdrop for the stories I read, so I was interested when a good crime/thriller writer moved from their usual Earth-bound scenery to the wilds of space. It has worked out wonderfully in this case.

Impressive, compelling reading

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This is a good story re realistic future some of the technologies they are playing around with today and all-female cast that does not detract from the story there is male characters but not important once the female rolls being masculine and feminine enjoying and intelligent well worth a listen

Good story

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It was with surprise, and delight, that I discovered one of my favourite authors had written a murder mystery based science fiction novel, a step outside of his more usual crime stories. As meticulous as ever in his visual impressions and well developing characters, Meet Alice Blake, arriving at space station Ciudad de Cielo (City in the Sky, more commonly referred to as CdC) to take up her new appointment: to clean up the.crime endemic amongst much of the population. To help.acid e this, she's paired with a middle aged ex earth cop, nicknamed Nikki Fix, with whom Alice frequently found herself in opposition. A gang war had apparently just started up with full ferocity as the dismembered remains of someone were discovered on the day of Alice's arrival, the first murder of the City.

Written with Brookmyer's skills of vivid picture painting and conversation, with good science fiction aspects without swamping the reader in technicalities and an exciting and intriguing plot to keep the readerguessing, this is a most enjoyable book, happily lasting almost fifteen hours with just a few repetitious lines which courage been omitted but did also serve to remind about points made earlier.

The narration was also good, although Robin Miles' voicing for the two main protagonists should have been more differentiated to more clearly reveal the speaker at that time. Not a major problem, however, and she was a pleasure to hear, her voice warm, it at all shrill as are many female narrators, with full range of emotion as she obviously involved herself in the understanding of what she was reading g. A slightly slower than I like delivery was easily resolved by a slight increase in the playback speed. Overall, a good and enjoyable performance which helped enhance the story.experience.

To move to a different genre cannot be easy for an established author but Mr.Brookes succeeds well in this stand alone SF murder mystery, also incorporating some ideas to make his audience think. I hope that there will be more to come.
Recommended.

"For the greater good."

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Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Its a good story to keep your interest, but at times full of some techincal stuff. Maybe suitable for the techy, but still has a good thread for the murder mistery and twists and turns though out.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Places in the Darkness?

The unusual description of a dead body, cut up and floating in space due to a lack of gravity... now that would be unusual to see!

Which character – as performed by Robin Miles – was your favourite?

Detective Freeman

If you made a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

Space Station Dodgy

Any additional comments?

Not Bad for Chris, still doing the mostly serious and not as funny as the old stuff though. I guess as we all get older we get more serious.

Keeps you interested.

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