Lift - The Rise of Mathe-Lingua-Musica written by Ray Anderson and narrated by Cindy Kay is speculative/ Science Fiction at its finest. A new common language is needed to save humanity from hurtling toward extinction at a screaming pace. It is 2489 and things are a little precarious to say the least. The clock is ticking before soceity implodes and the World Mathematics Council turn to LIFT to save humankind.

(LIFT - developed b the most famous minds from the past can come into the future - but people from the present cannot go into the past.)

What is the one type of language that can be understood despite geographical differences? Mathemetics. As such, the World Council of Mathematicians and a mathematics genius Charles De Costa use LIFT to consult with the greatest minds in history to develop this new common language before time, and humanity expires. The beauty of the book, is that it draws in linguistics and music, a la Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but takes a sharp right tangent, a loop de loop and creates a while new concept

Cindy Kay is a fantastic narrator and did a great job with some highly creative and closely scientific concepts. The audiobook was entertaining and the cadence complemented the storyline

A fascinating book but I think I will need to readalong so I can read back to be sure I have twigged on the concepts and not missed anything. Brilliant

Thank you to Netgalley, Dreamscape Media | Dreamscape Lore, the author Ray Anderson and narrator Cindy Kay for this intriguing ALC. My review is left voluntarily and all opinions are my own

Lift loosely reminded me of project Hail Mary and was such an interesting sci-fi book. In Lift the World Council of Mathematicians (WCM) recruit the most well known humans in history to try to create a common universal language. This was such an interesting concept and very different from my main reads that it was a good change up. Overall I found the storyline difficult to follow at times but enjoyed the story as a whole! 3⭐️

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

This was a very interesting book and the concept was well thought out. This futuristic world was so interesting.

Narrated by Cindy Kay
Presented by Dreamscape Media

Rubbish from start to finish.

The whole premise revolves around saving the world by creating a new language based on maths, linguistics and music. Which intrigued me but was actually so ridiculous, and was discussed in excruciatingly mundane detail.

It takes famous historical figures, implants them in the future to help solve this problem, and then treats them poorly. Zero respect for the actual people who contributed to changing the world for the better in their various fields. Also it was a revolving door of plucking people from the past and sending them back, which seemed like overkill to me.

The whole idea of ripping these people from their past lives with zero moral contemplation was incredibly frustrating. There was no decent reflection on how these people might feel; there was no compassion, there was no consideration. It was just, 'they took a week or so to adjust' and then 'when you go back this will be like a dream'. What a cop out. Maybe if you're using this idea, think about the consequences a little more.

The whole thing just made me so MAD!

There are also weird relationship dynamics and dolphins and the whole thing was so DULL I tuned most of it out. I was so bored.

I thought it was a cool idea but listening to it was really painful.

Narration was okay but there were so many characters they inevitably started to sound the same, and some of the voices were ridiculous.

There was just nothing about this book that I liked.

It's incredibly long, reads like a lecture, and none of the characters had me invested.

Maybe if you're into dull lectures on dull subjects, or dull characters doing dull things, you'll get a kick out of it, but it was not for me at all.

With thanks to NetGalley for an audio ARC

I stopped reading around the 30% mark. I found it really hard to get through this book and it never really captivated me. The subject matter - how to use math to build a universal language to save humanity - is interesting but very heavy. In order to deal with such a heavy topic, I wish the author had focused a lot more on the characters and made us as the readers care about them. I felt like I only ever got small glimpses of the characters and their personality and in the end, I didn't care much about any of them to continue pushing my way thorugh this book. It might be an interesting read for some but certainly wasn't a book for me.

What a wild ride! This book envisions a future where global society is so fragmented that the best and brightest solution is to create a universal language. We join the story with that process underway, headed by the World Council of Mathematicians (WCM). The new language being created combines elements of math and music. Yet the minds that come together to work on the language are not all those of our future human race. Instead, key individuals from the past are being "lifted" into the future to assist temporarily. DaVinci, Curie, and many other great thinkers are plucked from history and put to work on the problem.

I quite enjoyed the imagined personalities of the historical figures and how uniquely each approached both the language challenge and the future society. The WCM functioned like any bureaucracy with its internecine politics, enjoyable from this distance (some things will never change).

While I am generally well-educated, I am not a polymath of music or mathematics. Some detailed discussions were over my head but would likely engage someone more adept in these subjects. I've already recommended the book to someone like that!

There's a story here, but I can't help feeling that it was developed as a scaffolding for promoting the Mathe-Lingua-Musica language. In other words, it's less of a sci-fi novel than a thought experiment for an interesting idea about a universal language.

Bottom line, if you have a penchant for math, music, historical figures, or problem solving, there's stuff here to dig your teeth into. Even though I didn't know all the historical figures referenced, those I looked up added to my knowledge base (and I like to learn new things). I plan to read or listen to more books by Ray K. Anderson.

My thanks to the author, publisher, and #NetGalley for an advance copy of the audiobook for review purposes. Narration was very good.

The book takes on an incredibly exciting topic, but couldn’t really hold my attention. The first 25 to 30 per cent were marked by too many small “paragraphs” and time jumps.
Of course, I can understand that you have to bring the reader up to date first, but somehow it all happened too quickly for me and was like a time-lapse that would have made me switch channels on TV.
I also wasn’t a big fan of the scientists from the past who made appearances. It all just felt very contrived to me because these real people interacted with each other (even though they lived at different times in history) and then also with the created characters. It was too much of a mess for me.
Although, the “lifting” concept itself is really exciting! But maybe I would have liked it better with fictional characters.

From about 30 per cent onwards, the book won me over (at least for a brief moment) because we got more into the action and also into scenes. The characters from the book were given more space and were allowed to interact with each other. At some point, however, the story became too overwhelming for me and then the book wanted so much that I became light-headed.
There was MLM (the language); humanity on the brink of extinction; wars and internal political entanglements; “aliens” and then a plan B that only made things worse.
For my taste, the book could probably have been three times as long, because then the characters might have gained depth and the plot would have been allowed to unfold.
Yes, for my taste everything remained quite superficial because there simply wasn’t enough room.

Additionally, there was a sexual interaction between a minor (17) and an adult who I don’t even remember how old they were. (Or if it was ever brought up.) That was a moment for me - partly because of the scene it developed from - where I almost quit the book. The whole issue of sex and pregnancy made me sick to my stomach because it would have been extremely easy to at least give both characters their majority. In my opinion, this was completely out of place and inappropriate.

In general, the characters were unfortunately very flat for me and scenes/plot lines just happened so quickly that I didn’t care at all. So much just got lost somewhere between the pages ...

Sadly, very disappointing in the end ...


English audiobook:
Cindy Kay definitely has a pleasant voice and also read at a great pace.
After a while, I had the feeling that I was in a dream, as her tone was often so ...shallow and „breathy“.
Maybe that’s why it sounded very cool and matter-of-fact for the most part - which somehow also emphasised the narrative style.
However, I would have liked a little more play with the voice when it came to the characters and emotions, as everything was very calm and clinical.
The audio quality itself was excellent.

Great book, much different then I ever expected and this book really had me on the edge of my seat. Could not imagine being able to interact in present time with famous people from the past. Let alone trying to solve the worlds problems with math and music. If it was only that simple.

What an interesting premise! The pacing is patient (slow-ish) and the first 25% of the book is WCM figuring out how to properly cycle through bringing historical intellectuals back and getting them caught up with their task. Characters include Da Vinci (who acts inappropriately toward women because he feels intellectually inferior), Freud, Euclides, Curie, Bach, and Einstein. I would recommend this to fans of series science fiction that has elements of math and music. The narrator has a precise voice that draws you in, and I could see my library purchasing this title.