Brooks Talley

Good story, mid book

Revisado: 03-07-25

This was one of those frustrating books where the story was interesting enough to keep me from giving up, but the writing and narration were exhausting.

There’s a kernel of good story here. Some sophisticated world building, an intriguing premise, even a good payoff.

But… the book is full of petulant characters being outraged and offended, all the time. The story relies on constant “no, I refuse to listen to the vital information you want to tell me, and will run off and do something dumb instead” tropes.

There’s a moment towards the end where a character is described as having a hard time choosing between grief and outrage. That is exactly what the whole lengthy book is like.

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Painful to listen to

Revisado: 09-18-20

It’s unfortunate the a book and recording with so much work and care put into them are just really not enjoyable at all.

Yelling, shouting, whispering, loud whistles, intentionally distorted audio, loud outrage and STRIDENT CRESCENDOS every few sentences! It’s just annoying.

And the book itself is good and interesting, but trying far too hard to be clever and funny. It obsessively explains every bit of technology, both real and speculative, every character speaks in endless asides and self-commentary, and.... it just goes in forever.

I loved Reid’s Year Zero, but this... is disappointing.

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Great and imaginative read

Revisado: 06-26-20

Systemic manages to be an engaging character-driven story while also exploring big picture ideas, like whether a future full of benevolent AI assistance is truly happier, and what it would mean for individual well-being. Not quite a techno-thriller, not quite hard SF, not quite road trip... but a little bit of each. Narration is spot-on and expressive, with the single narrator giving each character a distinct voice.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Just not that good

Revisado: 11-22-19

The narrator has an impressive ability with accents, which makes it easy to tell what character is speaking, even if what they’re actually saying is difficult to understand. That would make it hard to follow the book if it wasn’t so cliche and predictable.

The whole thing is paint-by-numbers SF, with a couple of clever concepts providing an environment for cookie-cutter characters to run around for mostly-empty dramatic effect.

All in all it’s a perfectly serviceable book that you will be no worse off for skipping.

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Decent but frustrating

Revisado: 04-30-19

The story was good enough to keep me listening until the end, and the narration is quite good given kind of weak material.

The book is frustrating because it is somewhat like the Martian, except the characters have the emotional maturity of drunk adolescents and respond to every adversity with some combination of panic, recrimination, and suicidal impulses.

Characters oscillate between love, hate, contempt, distrust, trust, respect, despair, you name it. Huge minute-by-minute swings that seem arbitrary and disappear as quickly as they appeared.

It’s a good premise for a book, but it’s not a great book.

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Decent story, hard to listen to

Revisado: 03-12-19

The good: imaginative world, with a novel approach to gods and good characters.

The bad: most of the story is told in an off-putting first person + second person voice; it is a narrator talking to one of the characters.

The really bad: overwrought performance, alternating between whispering, yelling, wailing, shrieking, crying, whimpering... often in very thick accents. Listen with one hand on the volume controls to turn it up and down frequently.

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas