Faster Than Falling

Jayme Mattler doesn’t just narrate *Faster Than Falling*—she conducts it. Her voice shifts effortlessly between the protagonist’s raw, earthbound frustration and the story’s ethereal detachment, making every revelation land with weight. The quiet moments, like a character’s hands trembling before a leap, feel more vivid than they would on the page. That said, the middle act drags like a boulder in still water; Van Coops lingers too long on the mechanics of his world’s gravity system, and Mattler’s performance can’t fully compensate for the static prose. Still, the payoff is extraordinary. By the final third, when the sky’s mysteries unfurl, Mattler’s voice takes on a metallic edge, as if the air itself is vibrating. The production is pristine—no distracting gaps or volume shifts—just a seamless, immersive soundscape. If you’ve ever wanted a story that treats science fiction like folklore and folklore like a survival manual, *Faster Than Falling* will leave you breathless, albeit a little sore from holding your attention so stubbornly during its slower stretches.