PNW guy

Good material but dated

Revisado: 03-28-25

Good insights into what makes ideas sticks but some of the examples were pretty dated. Cringed at Lance Armstrong being good at sportsmanship and Jared from Subway being a role model- those examples did not age well. Overall the content was good though.

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Great setup, disappointing story

Revisado: 03-27-25

First Scott Brick is an excellent narrator. Though Frank Herbert fails to deliver a compelling story (again). The setup is amazing- futuristic setting of super-humans controlling the genetic make-up of the "regular folk." What will humanity do? But then the story just doesn't deliver. And in the final act you get a ridiculous 'deus ex machina' which doesn't make any sense, although tries to be some profound reflection on the human condition.

I've read/listened to other books by Herbert (outside of Dune series) and I'm always disappointed by the endings. I want him to be an Isaac Asimov or Robert A. Heinlein, offering some deeper insight into the world, but sadly he is not.

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Non linear storyline doesn’t work

Revisado: 02-05-25

It’s an amazing story what happened to the Martin Pistorius. But the book uses a non-narrative storyline which just doesn’t work for the content. (I’m guessing this was the idea of the 2nd writer Mary Davies who helped frame the narrative). It ends up being clunky and at times boring & repetitive.

Some examples:
1) Martin is able to speak and communicate almost immediately in the book, no longer the ghost boy, but this triumph wasn’t earned for the reader. We don’t experience his years of agony being trapped without the ability to communicate to finally be able to celebrate. It just starts with him getting that ability.

2) Martin mentions how sexually horny he is several times currently, which is then inter-spliced with a sexual assault he encountered. No introspection nor reflection. Just kind of weird.

3) So much of the book is about after he was able to communicate. However, I think most came to the book to learn about his life while he was conscience and trapped in a body he couldn’t use. Hence the title of the book “Ghost Boy.”

The narration was excellent though.

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Not too much content

Revisado: 12-30-24

Most of these letters are pretty short and superficial. Falls short of Tyson's other works. Its apparent that a lot of these people are looking for something more from Tyson. I guess he couldn't answer EVERY letter with great detail but it would have been better if he had done it for a few. At the end of the audiobook I felt pretty let down.

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Not his best work

Revisado: 12-30-24

I'm a big David Sedaris fan. However, this audiobook fell short of his other works. Santaland diaries was great, as were some of the real-life stories in the 2nd half, but his fiction stories were really bad. He was far too snarky and morbid. My wife and I were listening together and she had me turn it off. She's seen David Sedaris talk in person several times & a bigger fan of his work than me, but she hated this audiobook.

My thought was maybe he wrote these fiction stories earlier in his career before he really found his "voice." There were included as a fixup book but really should have never been included.

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Too snarky by the end

Revisado: 07-29-24

I heard Joel speaking about his book on a podcast and decided to give it a listen. Less than 6 hours, that's not too bad if its awful. However, I was pleasantly surprised how good is started. Joel's cleverness and wit worked perfectly to entertaining the typical "boring parts" of growing up which every memoirist must include. I actually enjoyed his pre-fame history the best!

The second half of the book was after he got famous and the book lost its footing. It was endless name dropping without much effort to be entertaining. And I know he was trying to be coy by making fun of that aspect of celebrity culture, but I feel like he fell into a trap of his own making. The fake self-help format really didn't work and detracted from the overall message. The celebrity intros to each chapter (which were always a chapter off on the audiobook) were also completely unnecessary.

By the end it was just too snarky. Which I know is Joel McHale style, but it was over the top. I wish he would have mixed more of the sentimental with the snark which would have been awesome.

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Have you heard about Nerdfitness.com?

Revisado: 05-07-24

I really like the idea of gamification of life, something I already do in practice. Was hoping to learn more in this book; however, what I got instead was sparse self-help tips sandwiched in between a giant infomercial for the author's website Nerdfitness.com. Its like on the office where Bob Vance always introduces himself as "Bob Vance, Vance refrigeration." It seems like every paragraph the author was pitching his site. There were some useful self-help tips stuck in but these are pretty common knowledge if you read other books in the genre. If anyone is interested in gamification of life, check out Habitica or other similar sites.

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Mostly good stories, some narrators are terrible

Revisado: 04-25-24

The female narrator was hard to listen to, sounded like a robot. "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" was my favorite and great narration.

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Author was going through some stuff

Revisado: 02-28-24

A disappointing ending to the series. Douglas Adams was definitely going through some stuff. He seemed pissed off the entire book. Stop at book 4. Martin Freedman narration is great, only reason I finished it.

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Not just best

Revisado: 10-21-23

Recently fell in love with Isaac Asimov’s writing through all his foundation series and other novels. I love how he blends science fiction with the hard sciences, philosophy, history, politics and other genres. His writing usually has multi layer depth in an entertaining story. Not this novel.

Very much a struggle to finish. Scott Brick’s always amazing narration made it possible to continue but wow, I didn’t care about any of the characters at all. Least of all the ‘genius girl’ who was so tedious and annoying. Stick to the foundation series, avoid this one…

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