Ethan of Athos

From AudioFile The Reader's Chair plunges us into the world of Ethan Urquhart, a doctor specializing in child "birth" from a world without women. Ethan travels to Kline Station to discover why a shipment of genetic cultures never arrived on Athos. After initial confusion, he tangles with killers, telepathy, and a mercenary named Elli Quinn. The story takes many diverse twists, and not until the climax are we finally satisfied with the ending. Michael Hanson's warm, rich voice brings sympathy to Ethan, and Carol Cowan speaks with the perfect mix of worldliness and dry humor for the jaded Quinn. Excepting the lack of "end of side" markers, this production is great. A.Z.W. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine Product Description Our hero is a quiet, upstanding citizen of Athos, an obstetrician in a world in which reproduction is carried out entirely via uterine replicator, without the aid of living women. Problem: the 200-year-old cultures are not providing eggs the way they used to, and attempts to order replacements by mail have failed catastrophically. But when Ethan is sent to find out what happened and acquire more eggs, he finds himself in a morass of Cetagandan covert ops and Jackson Whole politics - and the only person who's around to rescue him is the inimitable - and, disturbingly, female - Elli Quinn, Dendarii rent-a-spy. From Library Journal Fortunately for sf aficionados, Reader!s Chair is wending its audio way through the canon of esteemed Hugo and Nebula Award?winning author Bujold. Hard upon the well-received release of Cetaganda comes this rendition of one of her earliest works. Ethan Urquhart is an obstetrician and chief of biology at the Severin District Reproduction Center on Athos, a planet forbidden to women. When the centuries-old cultures used to provide eggs for the uterine replicators start going south and a replacement shipment is inexplicably flawed with bogus surrogates, the Athosian Council dispatches Urquhart on a galactic quest to retrieve new ovarian tissue cultures for the survival of Athos. Along the way, he encounters twisted interplanetary political machinations, Cetagandan covert operatives, and, perhaps most disturbing, Elli Quinn, a Dendarii mercenary?and woman. The in-house reading tandem of Michael Hanson and Carol Cowan collaborate on another professional effort. The mellifluous Hanson is dead-on as Urquhart, but Cowan comes off a little too matronly as Quinn, especially given the cybervixen graphic on the cover. The plot-driven story moves swiftly and will engage sf fans of all subgenres. Recommended for all collections.?Barry X. Miller, Austin P.L., TX Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.