Jeff

COVID....really?

Revisado: 10-17-23

Vaccine. Mask. Covid. Trump. Do these topics interest you? If so, then you found a masterpiece. These 4 words are uttered no less than 363 times in this book. Oh, and poetry. Lots of poetry. Unfortunately, this book is a stain on the otherwise excellent series. Also, the Holly character is unrecognizable from the other books. She has none of her old uniquely odd charms from previous books. She is now just a normal, bland woman who happens to share the name of King's previous Holly. A real disappointment to the series. What was King thinking?

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Needs a better reader

Revisado: 07-12-22

The reader is aweful. He has weird inflections, pauses, and sentence run-ons. He doesn't alter his voice for different characters, so conversions sound like one long monologue. It's really a shame, because other Crouch books have had excellent readers. This one is really hard to listen too. Did anyone listen to this performance before uploading it to Audible?

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This is a clip show.

Revisado: 07-07-21

I heard about this book from a very famous podcast. That episode was very interesting so I bought this associated audiobook.

This is a clip-show story told in three acts.

Act one, about poppies, is actually a re-edit of a story the author wrote and published 25 years ago. It's an interesting topic that piqued my interest to do my own research.

Act two, about caffeine, is also a re-edit of a story the author told in 2020. The inclusion of this act seems misplaced and added as an afterthought to stretch the book.

Act three, about mescaline, is the only new source material, and is the heart of this book. It encompasses two mild hallucinogenic experiences the author has. While the story is mildly entertaining, it's a milquetoast experience stretched out from rather thin material.

In summary, the composition of this book feels a bit deceptive. Clip shows are something I dispise in television, and aren't any better in print. Selling an eight hour audiobook centered around 3 hours of fresh material is a practice that I do not appreciate. I do not recommend this book.

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no thank you.

Revisado: 05-18-21

I really like many of Blake Crouch's books, but this series takes an unenjoyable bad turn. No more for me.

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boring

Revisado: 06-21-19

I'm an hour from finishing this book, and I just can't go on. The first two books were very good, and the first half of this one was too, but the second half is just "filler". Unfortunately, this story ends with a fizzle instead of a bang. It's a too-long goodbye, from an author who seems to love his characters more than he should. This trilogy should have been a duo.

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a dissapointment

Revisado: 11-20-18

This Mortal Coil sets up an apocalyptic future, overrun by a virus that causes exploding corpses, and requires reverse zombie-ism for survival. Airborne particles of the virus constantly threaten the few remaining above-ground survivors as they use genetic engineering to find a cure. It was a great concept, and I loved the book. I was very excited for This Cruel Design.

Unfortunately, the author decided to abandon the survival/apocalypse theme and instead focused on the "tech" aspect of the story for the sequel. What a pity.

"Tech" is supposed to be short for "technology", but apparently the author is unaware of this definition. The super-human feats performed by some of the characters are simply "Magic", not "Tech". ie. Throwing virus that insta-kill your enemies, seeing through walls, and destroying flying vehicles and pilots with only a thought are examples of "Magic", not "Tech". You could literally replace every mention of the words "Tech", "Code", and "Panel" with "Magic", "Spell", and "Wand" respectively, and not break the story. It's a real shame that the author hammers on these concepts so hard. By the way, If I ever read about "Tech" or "Coding" ever again, I'm going to break something. seriously, every other paragraph contains these 2 generic words. For a group of characters that can alter human genetics with a simple thought, I would expect a better vocabulary to describe their tools.

By 2/3rds of the way into this book, I was bored and lost most interest. I continued to listen to it as background noise during my commutes. I will not be reading anything else in this series.

The disappointing change in direction from the first book to the second stinks of publisher influence on the author to write something that caters to a CG based movie script instead of a good story. The M. Night Shamalan type twists backs up my theory.

I'm sure the 3rd book will have Cat and Jun Bei swapping places and the disembodied Cat will battle the also disembodied Lachlan in a war fought exclusively in VR and networked "Code". at the end Cat will become a sentient "Code" and will protect all human kind from any future virus. Blech.

The reader, Skye Bennet, sounds like a teenage girl, and does a fine job speaking for a couple of the characters, including Cat. However, Skye lacks any range beyond a 16-20 year old girl, and she can't do "voices". This fact is constantly surfacing as most of the characters in this book are male and/or middle-aged. It really distracts from the flow of the story. Skye also consistently mispronounces or improperly emphasizes several words. It is very odd. She speaks "Broadcast English" but mispronounces several words with a British flair.
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This Cruel Design is not a futuristic Sci-Fi story as it wants you to believe. It is a magic fantasy viewed through "Ocular Tech" and rule-breaking physics to enable it's impossible "twists". The story abandons it's origin flavor and drowns in the syrupy mediocrity of inexplainable Technology as it tries to alter is genetic makeup to resemble Kat, The Girl Who Was on Fire.

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really bad

Revisado: 09-17-18

this isn't an audio book. it's a poorly voiced and ham-handedly produced screenplay. couldn't finish.

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