Clockwork Lives

by Kevin J. Anderson, Neil Peart Narrated by Morgan Hallett, George Guidall, Barbara Rosenblat, Brian Hutchison, Jim Jenner, Pete Bradbury, Richard Poe, Tandy Cronyn

Overview

Some lives can be summed up in a sentence or two. Other lives are epics. In Clockwork Angels, #1 bestselling author Kevin J. Anderson and legendary Rush drummer and lyricist Neil Peart created a fabulous, adventurous steampunk world in a novel to accompany the smash Rush concept album of the same name. It was a world of airships and alchemy, clockwork carnivals, pirates, lost cities, a rigid Watchmaker who controlled every aspect of life, and his nemesis, the ruthless and violent Anarchist who wanted to destroy it all. Anderson and Peart have returned to their colourful creation to explore the places and the characters that still have a hold on their imagination. Marinda Peake is a woman with a quiet, perfect life in a small village; she long ago gave up on her dreams and ambitions to take care of her ailing father, an alchemist and an inventor. When he dies, he gives Marinda a mysterious inheritance: a blank book that she must fill with other people's stories - and ultimately her own. Clockwork Lives is a steampunk Canterbury Tales, and much more, as Marinda strives to change her life from a mere "sentence or two" to a true epic.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

08/03/2015
After the success of Anderson and Peart’s diverting first fantasy novel, Clockwork Angels, they return to expand the mythology of their steampunk world. Forgoing a recap of the previous novel, this book instead introduces Marinda Peake, a woman unwillingly charged by her late father, an inventor, with seeking out “the true gift of life.” Forced to collect the life stories of others via a magical journal, Peake embarks on wide-ranging adventures that become interspersed with these new tales in a panorama of stories, à la Canterbury Tales. As Peake travels the shores of Albion and beyond, reading the lives of a pickpocket, a bookseller, and a fisherman, she learns that her own life, like the lives she collects, is quickly becoming “a novel no one else has read.” This concept—that all lives share the capacity to become epics—is an especially fine idea for a fantasy, but this book is not up to the challenge. The many stories become repetitious, each narrated in the same flat voice. The prose is mundane where it should take flight. The book may preach the importance of storytelling, but it’s held back by the limits of its own style. Agent: John Silbersack, Trident Media Group. (Sept.)

From the Publisher

Clockwork Lives is a highly satisfying assortment of stories of characters marked by a common theme: unique lives lived on a grand scale.” — Popdose.com

“Clockwork Lives is a highly satisfying assortment of stories of characters marked by a common theme: unique lives lived on a grand scale.” — Popdose.com

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171169350
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	09/15/2015
Series:	Clockwork Angels , #2
Edition description:	Unabridged

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