My latest listen was Return To Mars by Ben Bova...
The version I listened to was abridged, and I think the abridgement was quite heavy handed. There was at least one portion of the story that was removed which caused a continuity gap later in the story. From reading a few reviews of the book, I also got the impression that a lot of the subtleties of the story were lost. My preference is to listen to unabridged versions of books, but sometimes I have to take what I can get - especially if someone is nice enough to lend me a book. One time - I can't remember what book it was - I did a detailed comparison between the full printed version of a book and the audio abridgement. In that particular case, I found that the abridgement stayed quite true to the novel, and simply omitted some of the more detailed descriptive paragraphs and minor subplots which had no bearing on the main storylines of the book. I guess the extent of the impact of the abridgement depends heavily on the abridger and also on what the difference is between the length of the full version and the time allotted to the abridged version.
Anyway, even though the abridgement left some to be desired, the book was generally entertaining, containing a nice blend of science fiction, suspense and social commentary.
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Posted by David at February 28, 2005 08:22 AM