Vicarious - Rhett C. Bruno - Mel's Bookshelf

Vicarious – Rhett C. Bruno

The real world is only where you breathe…

In High Earth, entertainment is everything. Virtual Worlds. Games. Steaming shows. Simulations—there’s something for everybody. You don’t ever even have to leave your home.

For Asher Reinhart, nothing compares to Ignis: Live, a reality show that pushes human beings to their very extremes. As a volunteer director, he closely monitors the lives of those living on an Interstellar Ark, believing they’re the last of humanity.

Mission is the show’s brightest young star. Born in hiding, her intelligence and near-perfect genetics have allowed her to rise up the ranks faster than any before her. But now that it’s her turn to provide for the Ark, everything changes…

With Mission’s life placed in danger, Asher is forced to choose: between the show he loves, or the woman whose existence has been the focus of his attention since the day he was born.

The 100 meets The Truman Show in this science fiction story about the power of human connection, from USA Today Bestselling and Nebula Award-Nominated author Rhett C. Bruno. It’s perfect for fans of Hugh Howey, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Michael Crichton.

My Review of Vicarious

I am still on my reading ban, but still listening to audiobooks! So I can’t get through any of my physical or e-ARCs, but I was lucky enough to get Vicarious on audio on Netgalley and was excited to listen to it. It has Will Wheaton narrating with Katherine McNamara. The last thing I listened to that Will Wheaton narrated was the uber-popular Ready Player One. Although I enjoyed it, my reading tastes have evolved since then. I was interested to see what kind of stuff he has been narrating lately.

So in a nutshell and without spoiling the plot, it focuses on the characters Asher and Mission. Set in the distant future, Asher is the director of an extremely popular VR entertainment show called Ignis: Live. The show is a continuous stream of the lives of a colony on a space ship. Mission is one of the residents aboard, but she doesn’t realise her entire life is being played out for billions of people on earth to see in virutual reality. Mission doesn’t even realise there is an earth left!

I really enjoyed the two perspectives. The two totally different storylines and completely different PLOTS in this novel were really refreshing and engaging. I found it enthralling! The life of Asher on New Earth and his character development were exciting, and of course, the story of Mission aboard the Ignis was so completely different to Ashers, and even more compelling.

I don’t want to spoil anything by saying much more about the plot. But it has elements of The Truman Show and I couldn’t help but think of a short-lived tv show on Netflix I watched a few years ago called Ascension (actually really loved that show even though it had such a short run. It was really similar to the premise of this).

It delves into deeper themes especially class, equality and justice. As well as technology and addiction. It did remind me a bit of Ready Player One in that it had the emersion in technology. But it was very different – and in my opinion a lot more rich and enjoyable.

Overall, I really enjoyed the two narrators in the audio version. I can’t say anything negative about Will Wheatons performance, I found it extremely entertaining and he managed to create unique voices for each of his characters. MacNamara on the other hand – I found to be very monotone. Every character she narrated sounded the same and I enjoyed her parts a lot less. But then, after about halfway her narration improved quite a lot. However, she just didn’t have that knack for making her characters sound completely different. Maybe it is because I listen to a LOT of audiobooks and I am very fussy about narrators!

I also didn’t like the way the author used the word “whore”. He must have used that word 20 times in the book and it felt like he was just using it for the fun of it. I get that sometimes it was the right word. But when I swear like a trooper, and even I feel that the word was over-used. It was probably over-used.

I was also not too keen on the ending. HOWEVER, overall I really enjoyed it. I think that Vicarious is unique and I love the technology-rich setting in the world with all it’s morally grey people and circumstances. I think if you enjoy easy sci-fi with a good plot, you should enjoy this one!

(3.5 / 5)