A few downsides but all in all it was a good read

I loved Atopia and could not wait to get my hands onto this one! Matthew Mayer just has a way of bringing the reader into this fantastical world that he has imagined. But the scary thing? Not only can I imagine it for fiction, I can actually see this happening in our future!

I recommend reading the Atopia Chronicles before delving into this one. He brings back quite a few of the people that we met in Atopia and their background stories are important to what happens to the plot in this one.

In Atopia Chronicles the narration jumps from one character to another and you’re not sure where you’re standing with each character until close to the end of the stories. This one is much more stream lined and due to that I think it was a better read. Instead of being a little choppy it flowed quite well. This does start RIGHT where Atopia Chronicles left off too, leaving the questions that were left at the end to be answered! I love when an author does not skip portions. It has been a little while since I read the first but I was able to immediately fall into this story. There are just enough reminders to help that transition be very smooth.

The only thing I question is how the story progresses. Even without being as choppy as the first with narration at times I had to move backward to be able to figure out where I was. Or re-listen to a portion to ensure I got the entire story right. This also may have something to do with the fact that this is getting into some serious science fiction, which is definitely not my normal genre!

Over all I thought the narration by Nick Poedhl was done very well. The audio was very clean and easy to stay with, minus the few story portions where I got lost! I absolutely love when a narrator takes time to really tell the story. This includes adding pauses. I can get lost when the pauses are not done correctly but Nick Poedhl did a fantastic job reading this and the voices were pretty easy to tell apart.

In short: A few downsides but all in all it was a good read. I loved listening to this one even with the few times I had to look back.

Audiobook purchased for review by ABR.

Please find this complete review and many others at audiobookreviewer dot com

[If this review helped, please press YES. Thanks!]

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

6 people found this helpful

Well worth a listen, despite flaws

The second book in the Atopia series is all about Bob and his friends going on a quest to find Willy's body. Meanwhile, the entire world is close to destruction and only these guys can stop it.

This book has a lot of great action. The scale is truly global and it throws up surprises the whole way. It continues to explore all kinds of great ideas with virtual reality, neural networks, etc. Bob, Sid, and Vince go on a global journey not only to find Willy's body, but to learn the truth about Jimmy, Atopia, and the forces working to destroy everything. The ending was quite unexpected..the author really took a chance with it.

There were some things I didn't like. The book has an anti-religious tone, especially Christianity. Also, I felt that many things in the book were not adequately explained. Some things were even explained, with the reader being told later that the explanation was wrong, but yet no alternative was given. Many of the things in the book didn't make a lot of sense if you looked deeper, and the epilogue was extremely confusing.

Despite the issues with the book, I found it overall to be very entertaining and interesting, and well worth the read. I sincerely enjoyed it.

I listened to the audible version of the book, and I found it very well produced. The narrator does a wonderful job reading and also doing all of the various voices in the novel.

NOTE: I received this book in exchange for an honest review.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

Further down the rabbit hole

The first Atopia chronicles drew quite a bit of likeness to the Wool series by Hugh Howey, mostly due to its narrative structure and ebook distribution as a series of short stories following separate characters to be stitched together to form a larger novel. Beyond that, subject and writing style, the comparisons mostly draw to a close.

Dystopia Chronicles abandons the previous format for a full fledged novel, with much more fluid transitions between its characters and picks up immediately after the Atopia Chronicles, with Bob and the gang of Atopian castaways left to find Cid's missing body and hopefully stop a conflict between technocractic micro-nations.

The meandering story jumps from an exposition of "What if..." into a labyrinth of pseudo-religion, secret societies and so forth, some of which works and some of which doesn't. Despite the avalanche of ideas and sophisticated tech presented in the first book, it was easy in enough to comprehend. The second feels a little more dissonant, I found myself relistening to a few segments of the book (perhaps I needed a refresher). For example: early in the book Bob has an interaction in a small town that leads to a man brandishing a gun at him. I found myself bouncing back, thinking "How did we get here?". Sometimes a little more pretext or background was needed as Mather seems eager to "just get on with it" more often than not.

The conclusion is underwhelming and felt a bit like a cop-out. I'm sure it'll be divisive: some loving it and some hating it. Overall, I enjoyed the first book more but found myself becoming more distracted with The Dystopia Chronicles. It was enjoyable but lacked the deftness that I felt the first book had.

The ending seems pretty finite, so I'm expecting we won't see any more in the Atopia series. If for some reason Mathew picks it back up, I may skip.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

Amazing until the end, but still a 5 out of 5.

It was a good choice going with 1 narrator instead 6 the first book had. Let me say this, Nick has been the most consistent narrator I've heard. Yes even better than Luke Daniel's. Luke has greater vocal range, especially female voices, but he has a problem sucking air after every other sentence in some of his books. To hear someone sucking air after every sentence is flatout annoying.

Onto the story, it took me awhile to remember the characters from the first book. It was months between listening to books 1 and 2. On top of that I skipped the first two hours of book 1 due to poor narration. When I finally remembered all the characters the story made sense at about the 3 hour mark. I love the introduction of new characters, the military ape was a great edition. Sydney was the star of the story with Jimmy being the pseudo bad guy and Bob growing up while unknownly becoming the bad guy. I expected the final Jimmy battle to be a bit more epic but it wasn't. The ending has me confused, and the whole alternate universe went over my head.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Loved the intensity of the story

Was a great read thrilling and awe inspiring on many levels. This a True sci-fi contender that packs a punch

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 - 3.5 Stars

Sigh. The science fiction in this book is great, but seems to be brought down by it's story in the end. Just like the first book, it can be hard at times to follow who is talking to who and from what space. Also the book doesn't explain how much time has passed between events. One thing to keep in mind is people with pssi see their proxxis and the virtual world as if you they were looking through Microsoft's Hololens. I found this to be very interesting and the science behind it is great and is explained enough to understand how it works and the purpose it serves them in the future. The problem happens when religion is brought into the book. I hate when books do this. I find it to be lazy and just an easy way to add conflict or try to add an explanation for why everything has happened. It came out of nowhere also. The book started slow, gained momentum in the middle and the end was meh after learning about the religious history behind what was happening.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Too Muddled

I enjoyed Atopia #1. I remember it was hard to get into and then finished strong. This one was also hard to get into but it didn't finish quite as strong. It's also completely confusing. Each person has a proxxi. The writing just isn't clear enough to be able to consistently tell when people are in the real world, when they're in an augmented reality, when their proxxi is in a real world, or augmented world, or a virtual space. Who's where? Who's talking to whom and in what space? How many proxxies can a person have? How can proxxies in virtual spaces be manually manipulating reality? The "science" of the sci-fi is inconsistent. It's so muddled. And yet still, somehow, the story is pretty good. If Mather had focused more on the story and less on the skimming around realities, augmented realities, and virtual spaces it would have been a stronger book.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Mind Blown!

Absolutely amazing storyline performed brilliantly by the narrator. This is an entirely captivating exploration of the Universe, the Metaverse, Psi, and our part in it.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Incredible narration!

The story was pretty good a little harder to follow than Atopia. The near a tion however was incredible. The narrator is very talented and I will look for more books narrated by him just because of how much more life he gives the story. It's hard to believe That this book was narrated by one man, if you listen to it there's times you will swear it's got to be a different person doing this part or that part but it's really just him!

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Disappointing!

What disappointed you about The Dystopia Chronicles?

The storyline was weak and hard to track

Would you ever listen to anything by Matthew Mather again?

I think not

Any additional comments?

I enjoyed book one, Atopia, but this one left me aggravated through and I didn't finish it. The storyline seemed tedious and pointless. It was also unenjoyable and uninteresting. It left me wondering where all the character were that drew me in in book 1.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!