Almost ready!
In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.
Log in Create accountShop Small Sale
Shop our limited-time sale on bestselling audiobooks. Donโt miss outโpurchases support local bookstores.
Shop the saleLimited-time offer
Get two free audiobooks!
Nowโs a great time to shop indie. When you start a new one credit per month membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, weโll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.
Sign up todayThe Sunborn
This audiobook uses AI narration.
Weโre taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn moreThe award-winning author of Timescape and Eater returns with a gripping new novel set in the same dynamic future as his wildly popular The Martian Race.
Their historic mission to Mars made Julia and Victor the most famous astronauts of all time. Now, decades later, they are ordered by the Consortium to Pluto, where they will rendezvous with another starship led by the brilliant, arrogant Captain Shanna Axelrod. Here, on the frozen ammonia shore of Pluto's methane sea, Shanna has discovered intelligent creatures thriving in the -300โฌโ degree temperatures. But even as their findings shift from the amazing to the inconceivable, the two crews must overcome their own intense rivalry to work together, for the most remote reaches of the solar system are filled with unimaginable wonders โฆ and countless forces that will crush all human life.
Gregory Benford is a physicist, educator, and author. He received a BS from the University of Oklahoma and a PhD from the University of California, San Diego. Benford is a professor of physics at the University of California, Irvine, where he has been a faculty member since 1971. He is a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and a Visiting Fellow at Cambridge University. He has served as an advisor to the Department of Energy, NASA, and the White House Council on Space Policy. He is the author of over twenty novels, including In the Ocean of the Night, The Heart of the Comet (with David Brin), Foundation's Fear, Bowl of Heaven (with Larry Niven), Timescape, and The Berlin Project. A two-time winner of the Nebula Award, Benford has also won the John W. Campbell Award, the British Science Fiction Award (BSFA), the Australian Ditmar Award,ย and the 1990 United Nations Medal in Literature. In 1995 he received the Lord Foundation Award for contributions to science and the public comprehension of it.ย He has served as scientific consultant to the NHK Network and for Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Gabrielle de Cuir is a Grammy-nominated and Audie Award-winning producer whose narration credits include the voice of Valentine in Orson Scott Cardโs Ender novels, Ursula K. Le Guinโs The Tombs of Atuan, and Natalie Angierโs Woman, for which she was awarded AudioFile magazineโs Golden Earphones Award.ย She lives in Los Angeles where she also directs theatre and presently has several projects in various stages of development for film.
Richard Gilliland is a veteran television and film actor.
Susan Hanfield is an Audie Awardโwinning narrator who comes from a strong classical theater background and loves bringing deep characterizations to all of her work. She has narrated over twenty books, including Ru Emersonโs six-book Night-Threads series.
Stefan Rudnicki is a Grammy-winning audiobook producer and an award-winning narrator who has won several Audie Awards and been named one of AudioFileโs Golden Voices. Stefanโs early singing career included choral and solo concerts at Carnegie Hall, Judson Hall, and Lincoln Center.
Reviews
โBenford is a scientist who writes with verve and insight not only about black holes and cosmic strings but about human desires and fears.โ
โA novel about the discovery of anaerobic life on Mars? Trust physics professor and Nebula Award winner Benford to pull it off.โ
โWorking from a thrilling premise and with original, speculative science, Benford, a premier practitioner of hard SF, is in top form.โ
โBenford has always been fascinated by the possibilities inherent in extraterrestrial life, and he takes advantage of his own scientific specialty, plasma physics, to create some extraordinary creatures.โ
โBenfordโhere, as always, at his best when portraying scientists discussing ideas and hammering out hypothesesโoffers up some absorbing scientific speculations.โ
โGabrielle de Cuir opens the narrative with the voices of astronauts Julia, an Australian, and her husband, Victorโฆ[and] succeeds beautifully in keeping both accents distinct and accurate and in giving the characters added dimension. Stefan Rudnickiโs rumbling tones seem to convey the majesty and expanse of deep space, which Richard Gilliland echoes with his own low timbre. Susan Hanfield rounds out the cast with a clipped, authoritative voice for Captain AxelrodโฆThis stellar ensembleโฆmakes the action sequences positively shine.โ
Expand reviews