Christos Tsirkas

Great insights, a bit of a stretch for a story

Revisado: 07-15-24

First of all, I went through the book at 1.5x speed and later at 2.0x speed and I'm not a native speaker. It's that slow a narration.
Second, the story. It's a stretch. Many things do not stick. I will not spoil the book for you but it's a scenario with a series of low probability events and clumsy reactions that leads to huge misunderstandings.
Third is the research of the matter and all the factoids which are superb.
All an all, it's a great journalistic work with an unrealistic premise and unfolding, narrated slowly and sometimes with bad flow (eg. bad pauses mid-sentence).

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You will reexamine what you think about climate

Revisado: 07-14-24

The book is a list of facts really, which are elaborated so that the layman can grasp the point and arguments behind them. Last chapter of the book is really what you need. You should go there and listen to all the facts listed and in case of doubt go and listen to the individual chapters.
I think it is important to hear the counter-argument for these facts. I have not done all the work yet but the few that I have tried to find refutations for proved to be correct. If all, or at least most of the facts turn out to be correct, then the whole public discourse regarding climate change needs to be reexamined.
You have the pdf version of the book available and it's important that you have it open in parallel. I did not notice that it was indeed available in audible and I had to go find it in the internet.

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No more, thanks

Revisado: 07-14-24

After reading 5 of Arvind Ethan David's short stories I've decided I'll never do the mistake again. I thought it was a coincidence but all of them, one by one, proved to have a concealed agenda which was not even that well concealed. In the end you realise that the main theme of the story is just a rouge to pound to the reader the "hidden message" more convincingly. It's the case with this book as well.
The real message is how white men oppress "people of colour" and women. The message is in your face, multiple times and quite annoyingly so because it does not end. You later realise that the reason of the specific "what if" scenario is to demonstrate without any doubt this exact agenda. You end up feeling cheated.
The story itself is based on a premise that has some potential, though it's left not well developed. The acting is average, but it does not hurt the story.

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A racist cliche through and through

Revisado: 07-07-24

It's not what you think. It's just a political document masquerading as sci-fi. It takes for granted positions of the woke left. No more, no less, it supports that changing the colour of the child at birth - and only that - will give it different probabilities of heart attack, police brutality, salary, etc. As if correlation is causation. As if when a policeman kills a black person, he does this because of his colour. As if your salary depends on race, not on merit. This view of the world is racist and rather revolting.
Anyhow, the short story has no worth on its own. It's not interesting. It's just a BLM manifesto in the context of a story. Quite disappointed because the idea has a lot more potential and it was dragged through the gutter beyond recognition.
The strongest point of the story are the voices... which sadly are about average. They are not that expressive, nor convincing and they sound like two white americans, not a posh British with royal ties and a black woman of African descent.
If you are a Premium Plus member you can give it a try as it's only about half an hour, otherwise don't spend your money here.

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Went political for no good reason

Revisado: 07-07-24

The story is the classic Faustian deal that has been written about so many times since. Props for the impeccable voice performance.
In the end bitterness surfaced for the imperialistic past of England, with a tinge of some sour antisemitism. It was so out of place and unnecessary for the plot of the story that I think the motive to write it was exactly to shake the finger to the face of the UK. As for the antisemitism, the release date might have something to do with it.
Another cringe moment is when he contrasts Hitler to Churchill and makes Hitler seem the more ethical one - compounded with overt accusations of England treating Indians as lesser people.
1/5 for the attempt to weaponize a fictional story.
2/5 for the worn out theme
5/5 for the atmosphere and voice acting.
All and all, if you are an Audible Premium Plus member, it's worth listening to. It's about half an hour in length, quite entertaining and most importantly it will cost you nothing. Certainly not worth one full credit!

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Mundane and no hidden truth

Revisado: 04-07-24

The book is hammering again and again how successful you will be if you follow the plan in order and so on, but while you go through it you realise it's exactly the stuff you are thinking already about drinking. Nothing revolutionary. It's like an average bloke sat you down and tried to talk you out of drinking with "logical arguments". I have the quotes because a couple of its arguments are factually wrong, but it's ok, you get what he is trying to tell you.
Anyway, it says it helps 90% of people so I guess it's a good experiment for someone. For me it did nothing. I'm not a heavy drinker but I tried to stop drinking for 3 months and I failed after 2 months so I thought I'd give this book a try.

Edit after 4 months:
While I still believe the book was not useful for me to quit drinking, I have to admit that I have quit drinking and quite successfully so. A couple of times that I thought to myself that it would be nice to have a drink right now, I completely dismissed the idea disgusted using some of the mottos of this book. So, to be fair I'm going to increase my rating. It may be useful afterall and I might not be in position to appreciate it.

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