Anonymous

Zany, almost insane, but unnecessarily political

Reviewed: 09-13-19

This is a completely over the top satire. It's unpredictable and full of cameos and pop culture references as it makes fun of everything, but ESPECIALLY insurance. There's even a self insertion by the author that works surprisingly well. At times it was very funny, and at times it fell flat, and sometimes it was just mean spirited and felt awkward because of it.

Near the end, the book veered into completely unnecessary political commentary. It made fun of the ACA and had both Joe Biden and Barack Obama come in as characters to portray themselves as everything the right hates about them. It really left a bad taste in my mouth - what was it doing in an otherwise apolitical book? I'm not sure I'll be picking up another book by the author again.

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Surprisingly deep sci-fi

Reviewed: 09-10-19

This is a short novella that could have been a full novel. The premise is that a security unit - partly human, partly robot - broke free of its controlling software and... Didn't kill everyone in a murderous rampage. Instead, it spends its time half-assing its job and watching soap operas. And while doing its job, gets involved in a crisis, makes friends, and is faced with an identity crisis.

Good stuff - well narrated, fast paced and worth reading. But it's a little too fast paced - the book is over before you know it! And it's also extremely short for a credit. I picked it up on a $5 sale and feel like I got my money's worth, but I probably would have felt frustrated if I'd spent a full credit on it.

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1 person found this helpful

Good answers to a lot of everyday questions

Reviewed: 08-23-19

I studied psychology in university many years ago, so I was interested to learn what has changed in the last couple decades. I decided to try this lecture series. It's engaging and well done, but not totally what I expected. I was looking more for an overall course in psychology, but this series is all about everyday life - questions like 'why do we fall in love?' or 'why do we blush?' take up whole lectures, for example. You won't hear much said about the history of psychology, mental illness, sensation and perception, or many other topics that you'd get in a Psych 101 class. But you WILL get answers to a lot of questions about your own behaviour and those you see around you, like why people lose their tempers, plus the answers to a few common questions, like whether subliminal messages really work (spoiler: not in any significant way). If that sounds good to you, great! The lecturer is very personable and easy to follow. He has a good speaking voice and has lots of anecdotes to bring up. He sometimes brings up specific case studies and experiments, but spends far more time talking about the theories and helping to make them understandable, often by putting them into the context of our daily lives.

All in all, it wasn't what I expected, but I'm glad I got the book.

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The writing keeps getting better

Reviewed: 05-13-19

Book one of this series was a little underwhelming, but showed promise. Book two showed that promise.

The writing was snappier; there was less esoteric finance and more action. It helped that the main characters were already established, so the book could get straight into new story arcs. There was still satire everywhere; in this book, it addressed marketing and corporate culture, stock market crashes, and more, but it didn't seem as forced as in the first book. Again, the comparison to Terry Pratchett (RIP) is strong here - fantasy that could work on its own, mixed with satire and oddball characters that... worked this time. But the one thing that really stood out to me was the transitions. Really? Really. Each chapter was divided into multiple short scenes, and nearly every time a scene changed, the last line of the scene fit almost perfectly with the first line of the next, even though they involved different characters in different places. It often put a smile on my face. The many shorter scenes showcased a large number of characters, but unlike the first book it felt like they all served a purpose and had an interesting story arc. And as before, there were a couple of interesting fantasy concepts that were worth exploring and seemed original, like how Omnimancy works, the way that our personalities in life determine the types of undead we become in death, and the nature of Benny Hookhands.

The narrator was excellent as usual, capable of making every character in the book easily distinguishable; I'd listen to other books told by him.

The book ended with MOST plot threads taken care of, but not all. There's still at least two villains on the loose, and both of the romantic relationships we see are in tatters by the end of it. The book advertises a third to come - I'm interested.

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1 person found this helpful

Worth getting through the first half

Reviewed: 05-02-19

I wasn't impressed for the first half of the book. The plot and characters were decent but not particularly gripping, and the humour and satire, which was everywhere, seemed to fall flat most of the time. That changed by the end of the book. I genuinely cared about the characters and the plot had the 'just one more page' quality that I love - and it made me want to keep reading after it ended. It's not the greatest book, but it shows promise - so much so, that I bought the second book in the series and found that it is better than the first.

There's a lot of satire in the book - specifically, the opiate crisis and the sub-prime mortgage crisis. There's a lot of winks and nods to the reader (such as everyone investing in the Dragon of Windspar's horde... the DOW... get it?) but a lot of it depends on you being interested in finance, so a lot of the humour fell flat for me. Behind the scenes, what began as silliness turned into genuine original worldbuilding with a lot of interesting ideas, some quite original. The monster races are 'shadow' versions of the 'light' races, for example, or the idea that elves live such long lives that they simply can't remember everything, so some of them turn to reenacting the same life events over and over again to stay sane, or how healing salves feel so good that adventurers become addicted to the rush, or any number of other ideas that would make for an evocative fantasy world. Many of the characters are silly in some way, shape or form - but as we read more about them, most of the characters become more rounded and realistic. In both respects (the satire and the worldbuilding) it began to remind me of a beginning Terry Pratchett, who can be hit or miss with me as well.

All in all, it's not going to be in my favourite books, but it showed great promise - if you can get past the first half.

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Worth getting through the first half

Reviewed: 05-02-19

I wasn't impressed for the first half of the book. The plot and characters were decent but not particularly gripping, and the humour and satire, which was everywhere, seemed to fall flat most of the time. That changed by the end of the book. I genuinely cared about the characters and the plot had the 'just one more page' quality that I love - and it made me want to keep reading after it ended. It's not the greatest book, but it shows promise - so much so, that I bought the second book in the series and found that it is better than the first.

There's a lot of satire in the book - specifically, the opiate crisis and the sub-prime mortgage crisis. There's a lot of winks and nods to the reader (such as everyone investing in the Dragon of Windspar's horde... the DOW... get it?) but a lot of it depends on you being interested in finance, so a lot of the humour fell flat for me. Behind the scenes, what began as silliness turned into genuine original worldbuilding with a lot of interesting ideas, some quite original. The monster races are 'shadow' versions of the 'light' races, for example, or the idea that elves live such long lives that they simply can't remember everything, so some of them turn to reenacting the same life events over and over again to stay sane, or how healing salves feel so good that adventurers become addicted to the rush, or any number of other ideas that would make for an evocative fantasy world. Many of the characters are silly in some way, shape or form - but as we read more about them, most of the characters become more rounded and realistic. In both respects (the satire and the worldbuilding) it began to remind me of a beginning Terry Pratchett, who can be hit or miss with me as well.

All in all, it's not going to be in my favourite books, but it showed great promise - if you can get past the first half.

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Great world-building

Reviewed: 03-20-19

I loved the characters and the world and the words. The Elvish words seem to run through my head even when I've stopped listening.

But the fantasy elements are awfully under-used. With one exception, magic is nearly non-existant and I see very little point in calling them elves or goblins at all when they seem to be little more than oddly-colored and pointy-eared humans.

The narrator did an outstanding job portraying tone, character and accents for each speaker. I will have to look for more if his work.

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A dungeon crawl and not much else

Reviewed: 01-30-19

I'm a big LitRPG fan, so I'm always looking for a unique take on the genre. Advent has one: the real world becomes an RPG, as the apocalypse happens, electronics stop working, magic comes into existence, and monsters decimate the human population in days. When Advent happens, the main character is alone in the basement of a government building that has become a monster-filled dungeon, and has to fight his way out.

The first third of the book is one giant dungeon crawl. There are monsters and spells, and more monsters and spells, and occasionally other people. We do meet other survivors - this is a dark book, where a lot of good people die, and where nearly all children are lost in the first days. But although the number of characters grows over the book to include hundreds by the end, it's clear that the main character is in the spotlight. We spend nearly all of our time with him alone - him and his spells, anyway. There's not a lot of relationship building, and nearly all the plot centers around Drew himself. He's made to be Special, something shocking to an aeons-old, quadrillions-of-people civilization with its dozens of god-like rulers. I found it more than a little off-putting how everything was lining up to make Drew seem unique and important. Don't get me wrong - I like the idea that the hero is special! But it seemed heavy handed.

The other thing that bugged me was the 'update' messages from the mysterious System. At times, the narrator spends several minutes listing off each and every spell that has been upgraded, attuned or levelled up, and it's easy to zone out of the book when that happens. It's not the narrator's fault; he does a good job of reading the book, but that kind of thing works better in a written format. The Narrator is pretty good and did accents fairly well; his female voices were a little rough, though. Otherwise no complaints about the speaker.

The book isn't my favourite - I wavered back and forth whether to stop reading, but eventually decided to just finish it - but it grows on you. The plot IS original - maybe too much so. The idea of magic-using spaceship-flying human gods using Earth as a way to grow magic across different dimensions seems pretty outlandish, especially when you add in the level systems they introduce to everybody when they split the dimensions. But as the book goes on, the main character begins to question the nature of the system and what it means, and the reader gets a glimpse at how the book could become something much better in the future. Right now, though, it's a slog of violence and level ups that takes me out of the book - the opposite of what I'm looking for.

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64 people found this helpful

Meh. (Includes spoilers.)

Reviewed: 01-25-19

Wil Wheaton is beginning to develop different narrative voices, though there is still a lot he can improve.

The story is underwhelming. There is a strange dearth of female characters. We don't even hear any actual women speaking until at least five chapters in. Even today there are women in the departments of state and defence. It was utterly bizarre that the government of future Earth was so completely lacking in women.

And then the single significant female character is also the MacGuffin that the main character must locate and protect? I expected better.

Also, when a "religious organization" - knowingly and deliberately founded on falsehood - manipulates a "prophecy" into coming true, it means exactly zilch to the theological world, Mr. Scalzi. Claiming otherwise indicates a serious gap in your understanding.

I've liked his other books. I don't know why this one reads like it was written by a student athiest in 1967.

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Need more now!

Reviewed: 01-10-19

Really excellent writing. Needs to expand female repertoire beyond "does the hero find her attractive?" but is not egregious about it.

So many questions are still waiting to be answered, though. if you like your series to be self-contained books that link together, this is not the series for you. I loved the book but it's not really finished. Arrgh!

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