The Great Hunt (Wheel of Time book 2)

I reviewed the first book of this series awhile ago. I must say, I found the second book even better (much better, in fact) than the first. It seems like the voice actors did a better job this time around. Also, story-wise the characters were much less annoying. Some were a little too predictable for my taste, and some things were repetitive (for example, characters always complaining about the same thing, or not getting over things at all really). Besides the minor character issues, I liked the story and the adventure much more in this one, after the first book it really opens up the world further.
I'm quite looking forward to the rest of the series (and there are like a bajillion more books!)
Also, a side-note: I don't really like how Ogier are drawn,because I envisioned Loial to be much different, so perhaps I'll post a more refined version of a sketch I made of what MY Ogier would look like. I mean, the wiki link above and the cover here --> show them as being just too human-like, which bugs me for some reason.

Judas Unchained

Judas Unchained by Peter F. Hamilton

Narrated by John Lee

I wrote earlier that I had listened to Pandora's Star (the first in this series) and I LOVED it. Well this one was no different, it was just as good, if not better. 

I swear, I now dream in this universe, that's how awesome it is. I am so in love with Ozzy Isaac, his character is just awesome. :)
I'm gonna do some Commonwealth art... Yeah, I should do that.
I'm not gonna talk about much else that happens cause I don't want to give anything away, but this series is definitely worth listening to.
I will say however, that I am extremely impressed by how Hamilton weaves together everything he writes about. He handles a LOT of characters, places, and events, and doesn't even stumble.

Pandora's Star

Pandora's Star by Peter F. Hamilton

narrated by John Lee

I was apprehensive at first about getting this book from audible.com for my next commuting entertainment, however it was long (37 hours 26 mins, which is a bonus, more bang for your buck) and had decent ratings (4.1/5 stars overall) so I went for it.
The reason I was apprehensive is because it was coined a "Space Opera" in some of the reviews, which made me think that it would be overly long, drawn-out, detailed to death and the story would be lost. However, it was not what I thought. YES, this story is very involving! There are many characters and worlds and subplots that merge and diverge, so you have to have somewhat of an attention span for this. Also, I wasn't sure of the extent of my sci-fi maturity, I mean sure I love Firefly and Star Trek and I, Robot and X-files and and and... but was I READY? Could I HANDLE IT? I mean, this shit looked legit. LOOK AT THE COVER, STRAIGHT UP SPACE, DAWG!
My god, I am SO glad I listened to this. It was like slipping into a bath after poking it with your toe for an hour to determine if it was too hot. Except the bath turns out to be a wormhole opening to an awesome new UNIVERSE of BEAUTY and ADVENTURE and AWESOMENESS.
Okay, okay, enough with the terrible praise using horrible analogies.
Peter F. Hamilton built a universe, and he had god-like thoroughness. Not only did he think everything out, but he then went on to share it with you in a rich platter of delectable scenes, characters, places, and events. It was never boring, if you paid attention. If humans reach the stars, I hope its in the way he described (minus the frightening events at the end of the book, haha). Everything he described seemed incredible real, so real that I honestly believed this WAS humanity's future, until I came back to reality and remembered it was only 2013. Humans are still incredibly human in this book, and he portrays them fantastically well.
My favorite characters are Wilson Kime, Paula Myo (of course, since she's described as having Filipino ancestry ;) and being incredibly sexy!), Ozzie (his plot is one of my favs).
I can't get over how incredibly well-woven Peter F. Hamiltons universe is. Truly amazing. I mean, the concepts of the individual components such as the High Angel, the Silfen paths, the colonization of new worlds, the concept of rejuvination,  organic circuitry tattoos... they would ALL make fantastic stories all by themselves, and yet we get the whole package in Pandora's Star.

5 stars, would recommend!

Possible Minor Spoiler alert: There is one thing I REALLY want to praise Peter F. Hamilton for, which is how he took the reader into the dyson alien's lives. Well, not just their lives, but there evolutionary and technological history, from the dawn of their existence. I could really appreciate the depth of the problem that the Commonwealth faced against such a foe, because I could understand just why the Primes were the way they were.

Humans and Hybrids (Books 2 and 3 of the Neanderthal Parallax Series)

Okay, so I reviewed the first book here. A positive review. I liked that book, so I went ahead and got the next 2 books of the series to listen to. And, well, the first book is certainly the best out of them. The first half of the second book, Humans, was exciting, and the last half of the third book, Hybrids, was good, but the rest seemed to be rather annoying to me. It became very relationship-y with Ponter and Mary and got quite boring and frustrating to listen to Mary's insecurities and them working out the details of their complicated relationship. Also, I found Mary's religiousness to be frustrating too, she was a Catholic despite being a geneticist and understanding life at a molecular level, she didn't agree with the conservative stances of her church, and even when proof was evidently presented to her, she still denied it and she struggled with the fact that the Neanderthals never had religion, and she couldn't really defend against Ponter's argument that religion had allowed Homo sapiens to justify our wars and violence and awfulness, and instead she stubbornly just said she knew there was a God... As a scientist, I would have expected differently from her character. At the end, she did seem to reconcile her religious beliefs with scientific/worldly beliefs, but it took a world-wide event to make her do so.
Anyway, to sum up my review: If you liked the first book and want to leave yourself with the wonder of another parallel world, with all the wonderful possibilities of a different culture and government, and a society not founded on large-scale agriculture, and an unspoiled earth, you might want to stop after the first book. The second and third books get more complicated, and like I said, relationship-y. If you just want to read about Neanderthal sex, get to like the first half of the second book. Otherwise, it kind of stagnates after that. 
Spoiler alert: At the end of the third book, I'm disappointed that there seemed to be no consequences to the whole 'trying to wipe out the Neanderthals from that earth' thing, because it wouldn't have happened at all if Mary hadn't brought the stupid codon-writer into her earth, despite it being banned in the Neanderthal earth! I mean, the High Grey Council (the Neanderthal government) had banned it for a reason! And yet she still got to use it to make a baby, despite the fact that it almost obliterated the whole Neanderthal species, and did end up killing 2 people. Okay, okay, I know that the codon-writer was just a machine, but still, were there no consequences for it getting into the wrong hands?!

Hominids: Volume One of the Neanderthal Parallax

Once again, I listened to the audio version of this book during my commutes, and sometimes while walking around. I got through it quite quickly, of course it wasn't as long as some of the other books I listened too, but I sacrificed quantity for what I hoped would be quality. And I really enjoyed it! I can see why it won the Hugo Award.
The characters were great-- Ponter is loveable, Mary, Louise, and Reuben are all interesting.
I enjoyed the details of the Neanderthal version of earth, somethings were delightfully surprising about it, I enjoyed the possibilities that I hadn't considered. I thought it was wonderfully inventive, but not too unbelievable. The bisexuality discussion scene is hilarious.
Some scenes were very emotional, and definitely sucked me right in.
There were a couple of points that I didn't like, such as Mary and Louise's religious discussion that I felt somewhat unnecessarily convoluted what would become Louise's theory on the quantum-mechanical split between the two parallel universes 40,000 years ago.
I'm about halfway through the second book in this series now, called Humans.

The Eye of the World

I just finished up listening to The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan. I have a long commute to school and I tire of the radio easily, so awhile ago I started listening to audiobooks.
I picked The Eye of the World because it was long (29 hours!) and because it had some good reviews on audible.com.
It's kind of weird listening to a book instead of reading it-- you're at the mercy of the narrator's voice, and pace, and inflections, but it's quite relaxing too, and it makes my commutes much, much less awful.
Overall, I enjoyed this book. Sometimes the characters seemed too quaint and naive (just enough to be annoying at times), but then again, the author certainly justified it. Some of the characters personalities were just plain annoying, I kept wishing Nynaeve would stop her bitching about everything that Moiraine said and did, and Mat's descent into emo-ness made me want to slap him. The ending was a little... depressing, I had hoped for a more uplifting end, a clearer resolve, a sharper climax.  There are many many more books in the series, however, so I can understand why the ending was the way it was, at the very least.

But I did enjoy the world, the imagery and the journey. My favorite characters were Loial, Thom, and Elyas.
I'm not sure I could've gotten through it if I had just read it, but listening to it was quite entertaining.