My Favorite Books

The Walking Drum
Ender's Game
Dune
Jhereg
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Curse of Chalion
The Name of the Wind
Chronicles of the Black Company
The Faded Sun Trilogy
The Tar-Aiym Krang

Thursday, January 19, 2023

Review: Deadlock

Deadlock Deadlock by Melissa Koberlein
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

An Okay Cyberpunk'ish Story 
Story: **
Performance: ***

A typical YA drama set in a world reminiscent of ready player one/tron and a little matrix (since the virtual is supposed to follow the same rules as the real for some reason).  You got the basic G rated good guy vs bad boy teen drama amidst an I was framed trope to give you a decent mystery to solve (somebody is killing people by using a virus to “unlink” them from their ALT avatars so they (or their mind) can’’t get back to their bodies … presumably leaving them to wander the virtual world as vulnerable echoes of who they used to be.  Honestly … that was not explained very well so I might have that wrong.  Add a Sword of Damocles trope over the heroine to jack a little tension to the plot conflict and things "suddenly get real.” Just go with it …

Outside of the drama, the techie facade is actually pretty shallow, frequently stretching “hacker” terms a tad too far, although you can still get the gist from the context … kinda of like many of the standard TV shows these days trying to be cool with their own white hat hacker that can literally compromise an air gapped system in the Cheyenne Mountain bunker.  So to restate the obvious … Just go with it.

I was given this free advance review/listener copy (ARC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#Deadlock #FreeAudiobookCodes


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My Ratings Explained ...

  • [ ***** ] Amazing Read - Perfect story, exciting, engrossing, well developed complex characters, solid plot with few to no holes, descriptive environments and place settings, great mystery elements, realistic dialogue, believable reactions and behaviors; a favorite that I can re-read many times.
  • [ **** ] Great Read - Highly entertaining and enjoyable, exciting storyline, well developed characters and settings, a few discrepancies but nothing that can’t be overlooked. Some aspect of the story was new/refreshing to me and/or intriguing. Recommended for everyone.
  • [ *** ] Good Read - Solid story with a 'good' ending, or has some other redeeming feature. Limited character development and/or over reliance on tropes. Noticeable discrepancies in world building and/or dialog/behavior that were distracting. I connected enough with the characters/world to read the entire series. Most of the books I read for fun are here. Recommended for fans of the genre.
  • [ ** ] Okay Read - Suitable for a brief, afternoon escape … flat or shallow characters with little to no development. Over the top character dialog and/or behavior. Poor world building with significant issues and/or mistakes indicating poor research. Excessive use of trivial detail, info dumps and/or pontification. Any issues with the story/characters are offset by some other aspect that I enjoyed. Not very memorable. May only appeal to a niche group of readers. Recommended for some (YMMV).
  • [ * ] Bad Read - Awkward and/or confusing writing style. Poor world building and/or unbelievable (or unlikeable) characters. Victimization, gaslighting, blatant abuse, unnecessary violence, child endangerment, or any other highly objectionable behaviors by Main characters. I didn't connect with the story at all; significant aspects of this story irritated me enough that I struggled to finished it. Series was abandoned. Not recommended.