Level Five - William Ledbetter

Level Five – William Ledbetter. Narrated by Macleod Andrews

In the mountains of Pakistan, a high-tech mission aimed at preventing another nuke on US soil goes off the rails – with deadly results. At a Wall Street investment firm, a computer intelligence takes the first tentative steps to free itself from its digital restraints. In a basement workshop, an engineer sees visions of a god who instructs him to defend the human race – by any means necessary.

In Level Five, the debut near-future thriller by Nebula Award winner William Ledbetter, AIs battle for dominance, and nanotechnology is on the loose. And all that stands in the way of the coming apocalypse is a starry-eyed inventor who dreams of building a revolutionary new spacecraft and an intelligence agency desk jockey faced with the impossible choice of saving her daughter – or saving the world.

My Review of Level Five

I was in the mood for a good sci-fi and had seen some good reviews of Level Five.

Its a bit complicated to sum up. Artificial intelligence – Skynet-Judgement-Day style. The creations become the destroyers.

I have heard this being described as an “intelligent sci-fi” and I must agree. Sometimes it was so intelligent that it wen’t over my head a bit. And parts of it I found to be quite slow moving.

However, the nano tech was SO COOL! I absolutely loved the technology in this. I would love to see if humans can actually come up with tech like this. It was innovative and so very clever, I loved that part about this book!

The relationships between the characters were well imagined, they were all complicated and interesting. A few aspects of the relationships were a bit unbelievable, but overall I liked the touches of romance and angst.

Unfortunately I wasn’t blown away. But it was still an enjoyable listen!

What did I think of the audio version?

The narration was great. Absolutely nailed it! I keep looking to see who the other narrator was because i SWEAR there were two? Or is he just that good!??

Would I recommend Level Five?

I think hardcore sci-fi fans will really enjoy this. Or people who enjoy stories of technology and artificial intelligence. Overall a solidly good 11.5 hours and definitely worth the audible credit!

(3.5 / 5)