Ryan Winfield

Another book read as an audiobook during the great cross country criss crossing I'm currently undertaking (CT to MI to LA to CA). I only got through this one due to some rather large areas of no cell service in the upper peninsula that made it literally impossible to find a different book.

That bit out of the way, let's move on to the real issue with this story: rampant stupidity. Attributed intelligence is less than worthless when you fail to actually show it- it makes it much harder to excuse when the characters do stupid things... And this story is literally built upon stupid things.

The plot can be summarized thus: there was a war, and so a bunch of intelligent immortal scientists decide to save the world and prevent global warming by killing off humanity in the least efficient manner possible (drones), only to be stopped by the plucky teen who they've trained to be their successor. Along the way we're shown apparently functioning virtual reality being put to use in experiments actually less scientifically useful than the stated purpose they lie to the general populace about, several increasingly ridiculous manhood rites, and the complete failure of anyone involved to see the blindingly obvious.

It's not just that the characters weren't smart. It's that none of them acted in a manner consistent with a basic human level of sentience. A lot of the decisions made were so incoherently dumb I think a five year old could have spotted the problems.

So yeah. Aggressively cliche without any worthwhile underpinning. Even if "dystopia" seems to be genre enough to support sales in and of itself, writing about human characters requires a baseline level of competence for them to qualify as "human".… (mehr)

Young man excels in his studies in the underground colony. He is promoted to the management (the only one in memory). All other adults at age 50 look forward to being integrated into the virtual reality and giving up their human bodies. He escapes from a train wreck and finds himself alive in the outside world which he was taught was uninhabitable. He finds some native people living in groups and lives with them until they are almost all slaughtered by the Park Service. He then makes his way back to the control base where he meets the daughter of the creator of the colony and then the creator. They are destined (by the father) to become the last free humans in control of the colony and the Park Service.… (mehr)