Frank

You Can't Hide in Virtual Reality

Revisado: 03-15-15

I just finished listening to Threshold of the Mind and enjoyed it thoroughly. There is plenty of action to keep the story moving along briskly, and plenty of hard science fiction to keep the listener questioning his own view of reality.

There are many ideas which you could call, our present condition fast forwarded 75 years into the future. For example, everyone spends their lives jacked into virtual reality, and genetically engineered plants modified to grow in the harshest climates. But Magidson pushes the envelope even further: what would happen if we all joined minds to create several larger minds, or one super mind? Would we lose our individuality, would we care? It is a kind of immortality, but also a kind of death. I found this concept fascinating and am still thinking about it.

What makes a book good, is how it holds the listener’s (reader’s) attention during the story, but also how it affects us afterwards. I find myself thinking about the book now that I’ve finished it. I keep replaying scenes and ideas over in my head, “Oh yeah, that could happen,” or “Are we really heading toward that kind of world?” or “What would I do in that situation.”

Threshold of the Mind is full of ideas wrapped in an action plot. Of course, you can’t have a good book without good characters, and Magidson does a great job with this too. There are several memorable characters, but my favorite was Ezekiel. He is disgusting, evil, cruel and malicious, but somehow I wanted him to succeed. I don’t want to spoil anything, so skip here if you don’t want to read. There is a scene where he has a cable bouncing around from his prosthetic eye and he rips it out trying to be more attractive to a pretty girl he can't possible have. It’s gruesome and pathetic. You gotta love a sick character like that.

The story is read by Jeff Clarke who does a great job. I love his voice. He has a distinctly different voice for each character, that he does very well. He really gets into the story and gives it a creepy futuristic mood.

I can’t recommend this novel highly enough. I'm going to listen again, just to for the last scene, just great.

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