Chris

Pretentious shit

Revisado: 10-25-16

Sounds as if it was written by some dude at a three a.m. bar that's had just enough community college polysci and sociology with a generous helping of jagermeister to think he's got shit all figured out. And by god he's going to alliterate while he does 'cause he's pretty sure that's cool!

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Ramble and padding.

Revisado: 10-21-15

Way over long. The story is heavily padded and the prose is tangential and rambling. It might have been good if it were much shorter. The background music and sounds go from incongruous at times to flat out annoying.

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Unimaginative and cliche

Revisado: 03-10-15

Pretty much every creative or interesting thing about this book is right there in the cover blurb. Aliens have been guiding humanity via human hosts and one takes a fat sloppy schlub and turns him into a super agent by sitting in his head going, "you can do it, Bob!". Gimme a friggin' break.
It's really formulaic and extremely predictable. I think I successfully predicted all the major plot points by the second chapter and most of the minor ones by half way through. Just look at one of those summer movie beat sheets while you're reading it and you can pretty much see everything coming.
Aside from the lazy, formulaic plot and the predictability, it's not exactly an original idea. Aliens have been manipulating man kind for 1000's of years unbeknownst to us. Yeah. Basic sci-fi pulp story or 70's b movie plot. We've all seen about 50 versions of this. Yawn.
Further adding to the general shittiness of this book is that pretty much every character in it is some kind of stereotype or cliche: smart-assed but well-intentioned best friend, beautiful but unattainable woman, cute girl-next-door love interest, the tough love trainer, etc. etc. etc.
This book is basically wank fodder for fat middle-aged losers that think comic books should be considered literature and haven't come to grips with the fact they're wasting their lives. It's cheap, unimaginative crap that should insult your intelligence. Skip it. I wish I had.

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Basically a Generic Zombie Story

Revisado: 02-07-14

This is basically every B-movie zombie flick ever made without the charm of the cheap effects and crappy acting. Joe Everyman, salesman and loving father and husband, goes into work one day only to witness the beginning of the zombie apocalypse and see his best friend eaten. By lunch time he's a grizzled survivor, by noon break he's a tough-talking, knee-breaking action hero with his own cliche catchphrase. It reads like it was written by a room focus group of advertising executives as they ticked off a list of zombie tropes and contrived plot points. Thankfully this was a free offering but it'll still take up two hours of your life and unless you're totally into anything with zombies, I wouldn't bother.

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Solid characters and great narration, okay story.

Revisado: 09-25-12

I listen to and watch alot of Doctor Who and this one not only stays true to the series, but it is one that I think a more causual fan could get into. Jacqueline Rayner captures the esscense of the characters, especially the 9th Doctor, Rose and even the ol' Tin Dog Mickey perfectly. She also obviously did her homework when she made this one as it stays well within the continuity of the Whoniverse and even keeps up with most of the themes of series 1 of the TV show. I could have easily seen this one being made into an episode and would have loved it if they had. The story itself isn't great but it is well executed and very entertaining, though the villians in this one are a tad on the silly side. And while I was not expecting much from Camille Coduri (Jackie Tyler on the show) when I pick this one up, I was very pleasantly surprised. She did an absolutely brilliant job narrating this one and I hope they get her for some more. Well worth a listen, especially if you like the 9th Doctor and Rose. Give it a go.

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A huge let-down

Revisado: 05-14-12

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

At first look this looked like an exciting book about the results of theoretical genetics gone wrong. The science behind it was facinating and well thought out, but the story itself is drier than a popcorn fart. Most of the book consists of scientist sitting around calmly over-explaining technical details and discussing ethical and legal concerns brought up by a genetic apocolypse. Meanwhile the fact that the human race is ending and society is falling to pieces around them is treated as a footnote. The story presents plenty of opportunity for emotion and human drama but instead spends the majority of its time slogging through tedious and largely unnecessary dialogue. I'm not a big fan of action stories but this book seriously needed something. It was like reading a text book except that by the time I was through it I hadn't learned anything. It's a great idea that never gets off the ground. Mind-numbingly dull. Skip it.

Would you ever listen to anything by Greg Bear again?

At this point, it seems unlikely.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

He added very little character or inflection. It was difficult to distinguish one characters dialogue from anothers, leading to a complete train wreck of boredom in a largely dialogue-driven book.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

The science seemed like an exciting notion and even seemed believable, but the the lack of humanity and story just made it like sitting through a 18 hour long genetics lecture. While there is nothing wrong with that, it's not what I expect from a work of fiction.

Any additional comments?

Don't waste your credits on this one.

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