Fievel

Intrigue lit RPG with a hint of action.

Revisado: 06-17-24

The story has well developed characters with their own complex motivations. I can't wait for book 2.

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good story, well told

Revisado: 12-10-18

This story is exactly what it says it is. Dragons, knights, game mechanics, a hard magic system, what is not to love. The readers bring out the different characters with a really good, but not overdone, mixed media performance. By mixed media I mean some music or background sound effects at specific moments in the story (e.g. rain sounds during a flash back).

More than most litrpg I've read this book establishes the different characters' backgrounds and world without lengthy boring expose. It is a hard balance to strike but this story establishes background through dialogue and that works really well for it.

Overall I liked it and am looking forward to reading the next in the series.

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esto le resultó útil a 18 personas

surprisingly good

Revisado: 08-15-18

Engaging main character, interesting premise. While "person in another world, reincarnation" is an established genre in anime and manga, it is underdeveloped in fiction writing and I appreciated this take on it.

Similar to the bobivese series in how it reads (told form inside the head of the protagonist) and well narrated.

Problematic theems around the roles of women but mostly consistent and good sifi world building. The femail characters are underdeveloped but sense it is told from the perspective of someone who is mostly indifferent to others in general it doesn't come off as a glaring omission.

I really enjoyed reading it and I am looking forward to more coming out.

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esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

good premise, good exicution, good book

Revisado: 04-11-18

Interesting premise that let me think about the nature of experience and what I consider my reality. High point, the dialogue between all of the well developed characters. Low point, it ended too abruptly with several unresolved threads. Can't wait for the sequel to come out on audible.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Chuck meets H.P. Lovecraft

Revisado: 04-06-18

As disturbing as it is boring, this book fails to establish a strong motivation for any of the main characters. To avoid an assault charge the protagonist agrees to a pact with a dark god that gives him unspecified powers in an alternate world he knows nothing about. Supposedly he is driven to not be a bad boss to his underlings, which promptly he doesn't think about again for twenty chapters. He meets a couple of minions who are similarly aimless. One appears to just be along for the ride and the other is the token gold-digger who, of course out of greaf, decides to have sex with the person who recently murdered her last boss. Couple this with profoundly disturbing imagery, like waking open heart surgery and brain eating slugs that crawl in your ear when your asleep. Despite not being my cup of tea I can actually respect for the imagery as an homage to the works of HP Lovecraft. I think the narrator actually greatly enhanced how disturbing the monsters are with eerie, creepy voices. However, in some places the narration is too overwhelming with overlaid sounds that make it difficult to hear. With litrpg becoming a more flushed out subgenre I advise you that your credit is likely to bring greater satisfaction if spent elsewhere.

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

"I was discussed!"- a self-aware action commentary

Revisado: 09-02-17

This was a brain bending and very enjoyable book. On a surface level this is an engaging and action packed speculative fiction about near future AI emergence. We follow the story of interesting characters that grow through the changing circomstances of their startup, their work, then global events, and finally AI, all while fighting shadowy organizations, governments, and jerks alike.

Below the surface, this is a deeply chilling commentary on the culture of Silicon Valley. The book highlights several competing moralities in this culture and the underlying structural assumption that morality is self-constructed by rationality and action rather than externally imposed by law or religious beliefs. Throughout these pages many hard moral questions are posted to the characters, and hence to the reader, and lense though with these questions are explored says a lot about the cultural context of the folks exploring these questions in Silicon Valley today. Frankly, this context is deeply subversive. Example: several chapters are spent on a single meeting where they discuss weather or not to design prostitution into their sotial network platform, becoming the UberX of sex. These chapters are well spent exploring the question from many different perspectives and angles including the human trafficking market impacts, women's empowerment, and that yuck feeling they would get from becoming the world's biggest pimp. However underlying all of this their discussion reflects the utter irrelevance of legality. This is only one of the many unsavory aspects of the culture that is laid bare in these pages and reading the book is like getting to know how a the mind of a CEO of a startup in SV works. To that end, it's narrative often follows seemingly random tangents, vacillating between urgent moral questions and lighthearted or even flippant humor. It has non-PC or even downright offensive moments which are matched by constant self awareness and introspection mirroring the good and bad habits of mind that it is trying to convey to be common in the culture.

A master class on the hubris and morality in tech culture, this page-turner was an uncomfortable pleasure to read.


PS: The performances and production of the audio book we're nothing short of spectacular. They allowed me to become completely absorbed in the characters and the narrative and I have not higher complement to pay them.

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esto le resultó útil a 4 personas

Damn good sifi

Revisado: 07-09-17

This book explores the nuances of the consciousness we are given as humans. It was a pleasure to read.

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if you liked the first one you will love this

Revisado: 04-24-17

Great follow-on to the first. Slow at times but that fits with the pace of the characters. can't wait for the third.

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Scientific review of the benefits of mindfulness

Revisado: 05-09-16

What did you love best about Siddhartha's Brain?

This book walked a fine line between religion and science and walked it well. It used the stories in Buddhist theology as an effective narrative tool to explore the effects of mindfulness on the very structure of the human mind. James Kingsland neither proselytizes the religion nor does he dismiss it. Rather, he invites us to embrace the benefits of practiced attention in our daily lives through a critical review of numerous scientific studies on the effects of mindfulness.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Siddhartha's Brain?

A common theme in many areas of the book is that mental “illness” could be a trait of the human condition rather than a something which afflicts only a few. Depression, as one example, is something that many people struggle with, even without the number of symptoms that would qualify as diagnosable in clinical psychology. This book cites research showing that a specific type of mindfulness intervention was particularly effective over active controls at preventing depressive episode relapse. By simply learning to pay attention, without grasping or aversion, subjects in similar studies were able to suppress activity in a part of the brain associated with automatic thought. This was able to help some people stop the cycle of negative thoughts and emotion that would lead to this kind of depression.

What does Steven Crossley bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

The performance was great. I was particularly impressed by how Steven Crossley was able to bring out the comedic timing implied by the text at several points. As there were also several Briticisms in the writing his British accent allowed the reading to sound cohesive.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

I was particularly impressed by the author’s humility of understanding in that he made repeated efforts to present counter points and highlight where the scientific evidence is still inconclusive. However, the story that the research is starting to tell will emerge in the context of the tenants of one of the world’s major religions. Because of this, I also salute the author’s bravery in not ignoring Buddhism as would have been the easier choice for this kind of book. Instead this book weaves them together beautifully. I was most impressed by the books objectivity toward the benefits of practices that were, until very recently, cast aside by the novelty of scientific thought.

Any additional comments?

I deeply enjoyed listening to this audio-book and I feel like it brought me a deeper understanding of the phenomena of life. I would compare this to one of my favorite books, Born to Run by Christopher McDougall, as it alternates between scientific lens and narrative storytelling to explore the complexities of one of the most simple things that humans do. I look forward to listening to it again and again.

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esto le resultó útil a 5 personas

interesting take on food

Revisado: 08-28-15

This book really gets you thinking about what goes into the food we all eat.

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esto le resultó útil a 5 personas