Eszter

Slog to get through

Reviewed: 05-23-25

I've nearly finished this. I'm continuing cos of sunk cost fallacy but it's a struggle. The narrator does the best he can with the material so no complaints there....but the story. Ugh. Where do I start.

First of all....You get dumped into this zombie apocalypse 2 years after it happened. There is barely any mention of how and why it happened. The characters do not ruminate on this. You don't really know how they got there or believe that they would be able to survive TWO years with all this going on. We don't know much about what kind of guys Gus and Scott were before the world went to sh**. Therefore there is no real overarching *cause* to drive the story except oh I guess there is the serial killer and the cannibals (the latter of which you only meet in the 3rd book). It's all very shaky footing for a narrative. So it ends up being very loosely tied together boring action sequences.

The characters...boring, one dimensional and indistinguishable. Yay Gus is a drunk - from the amount he drinks you would think the liver disease would have got him first after 2 years. Scott is very bland...and he was a BAKER before the zompoc? How did he survive? How did he get to the point where Gus rescues him? There are not even any proper flashbacks to any of this.
The women??? For one, what women? There are 2 significant women in the story and they are both cardboard cutout love interests that leave a lot to be desired. The way the author writes about them is gross. Has he ever been in a real relationship in his whole life? I get that Amy is meant to be this tough chick but its just....idk...cringe the way they are written. The first woman is there for like 2 chapters and of course she is a "crazy woman" there to seduce the main character and betray him. Surprise surprise.

Also why tf did Gus burn everything to the ground? Its just so stupid. Why did people only figure out the "walk with the zombies" thing so late in the series/2 years after the zompoc? How can you be amongst all that gore and not get some of it in your eyes at some point? There is no clear explanation of how the virus is transmitted so it changes depending on what suits the story at the time. Oh and don't get me started on the rats. If there really were zombie rats in this world, then you can forget about writing a story in it at all because they would outnumber and devour everything. It just doesnt make sense.

For me, a good zompoc story is usually an allegory about society or a study on how a world could come to be that way and the way people behave after the fact. I guess this is meant to be the latter, but its so shallow.

If you want good zompoc: World War Z is a great study of the world breaking down. Sarah Lyons Fleming's three (!!) trilogies set in the same apocalypse are also excellent with real character development, believable survival and a much more meaty plot.

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Wasn't a fan

Reviewed: 10-18-23

Very low brow, not very clever "sci fi"

Protagonist was very stupid. The author treats the reader like an idiot and bludgeons you with not very subtle concepts. I don't like when I am three steps (or more!) ahead of the story as it becomes boring and predictable. I like when authors keep me guessing and trust me to figure it out myself. This did not happen with Dark Matter.

Characters were not very interesting with no personality. Protagonist was the standard "everyman". The middle of the book was completely pointless. If we are going to explore some worlds, explore them properly, not always be agonising about leaving or staying or being confused that they are very obviously not Jason's home world.

Aaaaand the entire premise of the whole book kinda doesn't actually make any sense. I am usually willing to suspend disbelief if the philosophical concepts are sound, or its a more intentionally abstract story...but this book is just action with a vaguely sci-fi theme. The action was not very satisfying so it all falls flat.

SPOILER AHEAD


The ending could have been better if the multiverse concept of identity had been turned on itself and maybe we'd found Jason was not the "original" Jason after all - I mean, he questions this, and comes to the conclusion there is no original, but nothing comes of it. All the Jason's he meets after going in the box do have as much of a valid claim to "his" Daniela as he does...something much more clever could have been done with this idea.

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It was ok

Reviewed: 03-31-23

For a story with such a high concept, it felt kind of shallow. Maybe because the protagonist despite her internal dialogue, didn't feel exceptional in any way. We are told she is special and different to the other mems but I see little evidence of that. If it is an allegory about race, then her being so different to her catatonic or broken peers does not paint the picture I think it is intended to paint.

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Strong start, ultimately disappointing finish

Reviewed: 06-17-15

A good performance by the narrator and fairly well written - but the story fell flat in the end as a lot of the theory didn't stack up.
I dont know how to explain it without giving away the whole story - but the girl, who is the one with 'all the gifts' is a product of a particular event...and the whole crux of the story is completely undermined by the final scenes. So while you're meant to be shaken by the dramatic ending, to me it didn't add up at all. Meh.

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1 person found this helpful

One of the best Culture books

Reviewed: 01-23-15

Such a good story - the wit of the Minds is fantastic to listen to. Peter Kenny's narration is absolutely flawless.

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1 person found this helpful

Fun but shallow

Reviewed: 06-17-14

Would you try another book from Ernest Cline and/or Wil Wheaton?

Yeh I'd give them a shot but I wouldn't expect depth from Cline. Wheaton was a great narrator - he was perfect for the job.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

The VR world was cool and the idea of being able to explore so many worlds.
The least interesting parts where the info dumps. So many info dumps!

What about Wil Wheaton’s performance did you like?

He was really enthusiastic and got into the story a lot. Very good performance.

Do you think Ready Player One needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

It would be good if it examined itself a bit more so if that were to happen I'd give a sequel a shot.

Any additional comments?

Definitely not self aware enough. I find it hard to believe that a few decades on from now we'd be so utterly obsessed with the 80s that we'd build and ENTIRE UNIVERSE dedicated to it. I get it that this book was meant to be a fun romp back into the 80s but it neglected the future aspect of the story a lot. The implications of a society SO stuck in the past - what about the present? What about all those NEW games, books, movies, music vidoes and TV shows?
-- side note - the author likes LISTS a LOT - it got mega irritating him saying "games, books, movies, music vidoes and TV shows" about a hundred times as if he was trying to meet a word count. Give it a rest already!

*cough*
Anywho...it felt like...this book used all the high tech stuff as just an excuse to go back to the 80s and have a giant nerd-gasm about 8bit arcade games 'faded Space Invaders tees'. While it was a fun adventure with some pretty good characters, I felt it ultimately too shallow for my tastes.

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5 people found this helpful

Short but full of curiosities

Reviewed: 06-17-14

Would you consider the audio edition of Annihilation to be better than the print version?

I havent read the print version but I thought the Audio was good. The narrator has a bit of a weird style of over emphasising everything which was kind of annoying - but the story was good enough to get past that. She also narrated the Hunger Games trilogy which brought to mind a sort of association between the books, even though there is none.

Who was your favorite character and why?

The Biologist in that she's relatable in her curiousity and wonder at Area X, as well as her introversion. The Psychologist is an interesting character but we dont ever know enough about her.

Did the narration match the pace of the story?

Its a little over the top in the way the sentences are constructed but it isn't too bad.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Nothing is as it seems

Any additional comments?

I think this book could have been a LOT longer as it has you asking more questions than the answers it gives you. I really hope the sequels will flesh out the story more as currently its a place where weird things happen but we don't really get very much of an idea at all about whats going on. The first person telling also allows the author to hide a lot from us and there really isnt even any history into the region.
Well worth listening to as its short and if you like the weird and the wonderful, then you will like this.

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Eh - it was okay. John Lee saved it

Reviewed: 09-07-13

Is there anything you would change about this book?

The plot was pretty flat and ended kind of boring. Its a murder mystery set in an alternate world but I feel that alternate world wasn't enough to set this apart from any other bland mystery

Has The City & The City turned you off from other books in this genre?

This is cross genre so no.

Which character – as performed by John Lee – was your favorite?

I liked the main character as performed by Lee. I love John Lee's narrating.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

It might be better as a movie. And that's why its a pretty crappy book. Not enough substance.

Any additional comments?

A slightly better Mieville story but still not extraordinary or memorable. The reason for the duality of the cities was not very well explained - or I wasn't interested enough to remember it. And thus it can't have been that groundbreaking . The end was a let down.
Its another of those books where the protagonist goes here and does something and then they go there and do something and it never really adds anything to the plot or fleshes out the world any better.
It was a cool idea let down by a boring plot and poor execution. Even John Lee's fantastic narration couldn't save this one.

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