DNF Audiobook Review – The Quantum Thief (Jean le Flambeur Book 1) by Hanna Rajaniemi, Narrated by Scott Brick (3/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Science Fiction
Length: 10 hours and 53 minutes
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Release Date: May 10, 2011
ASIN: B00506WPFM
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the Jean le Flambeur
Source: Borrowed Audiobook from Library
Rating: 3/5 stars

“Jean le Flambeur is a post-human criminal, mind burglar, confidence artist, and trickster. His origins are shrouded in mystery, but his exploits are known throughout the Heterarchy – from breaking into the vast Zeusbrains of the Inner System to stealing rare Earth antiques from the aristocrats of Mars. Now he’s confined inside the Dilemma Prison, where every day he has to get up and kill himself before his other self can kill him. Rescued by the mysterious Mieli and her flirtatious spacecraft, Jean is taken to the Oubliette, the Moving City of Mars, where time is currency, memories are treasures, and a moon-turned-singularity lights the night.

What Mieli offers is the chance to win back his freedom and the powers of his old self – in exchange for finishing the one heist he never quite managed. As Jean undertakes a series of capers on behalf of Mieli and her mysterious masters, elsewhere in the Oubliette, investigator Isidore Beautrelet is called in to investigate the murder of a chocolatier, and finds himself on the trail of an arch-criminal, a man named le Flambeur…. “

Series Info/Source: This is the first book in the Jean le Falmbeur series. I borrowed this on audiobook from the library.

Thoughts: My husband and I were listening to this on audiobook while driving and neither of us really liked it. It jumps around too much, too much info-dumping, and the characters are lackluster at best. The narrator also had a very monotone voice which was hard to listen to and stay engaged with.

The story starts with Jean le Flambeur being trapped in a quantum prison where he is being replicated. He is rescued by Mieli who needs him to steal something. We then jump to a different character (whose name I can’t remember right now). The story felt fractured because you spend a bit of time with Jean and then a lot of time with the other characters and then suddenly you are back to Jean again.

We didn’t like either Jean or Mieli, both characters did not seem to have any depth to them and were very standoffish. We also didn’t find the story very engaging. My husband mentioned he was a tad curious about what Jean had stolen to get put into prison, but beyond that they story just wasn’t engaging.

I had borrowed this from the library so I ended up just returning it. After listening to a few hours of it (about 25% of the way in) neither of us wanted to listen to more. Which is kind of a bummer because I was excited to read this.

My Summary (3/5): Overall this wasn’t for me (or my husband). The poor narration quality was part of this. That coupled with the way the story jumped around, the un-engaging story, and stiff characters just made this a no go. I was disappointed because I was really looking forward to reading this. We stopped at 25% of the way through the story and returned the book.