Adventure and action thriller. Full of people I want to know about. As someone who doesn't MMO, but is player adjacent, it made sense for me and had enough of the right kind of detail to be loveable. Much story. Such Wow. I was very happy with the ending.

There are a few novels that are so good it is hard to say enough positive things about; this is one such novel.
Listen or read this, I doubt you will be disappointed.

Starts brilliantly with the focus on internet/gaming intrigue but fades around a third of the way into sub-par cookie-cutter spy yarn. It never recovers. Very disappointing listen.

it just fails and falls flat. it goes nowhere and says nothing. it describes and didn't explore. anathem takes you there, cryptonomicon makes you understand... this just bores you.

I must listen to 5 or 6 books per month and give 4 and 5 stars to the vast majority. This week I have struggled with 2 x 1 stars - this being the first. The reviews all seemed to point to something I'd really enjoy but I could not get involved with this at all and finally gave up after about an hour's listening. Perhaps it was rather too American for my taste, I really am not sure - other than I wasn't pulled into the narrative in any way whatsoever. I hate to give a thumbs down to writers and readers alike but I just can't see what the other reviewers are raving about.

Great book if you want to settle back and be carried away by the story. if you over think it there are some implausible coincidence but it's a work of fiction not real life so get over it and enjoy the adventure

Totally loved this book from start to end, although the end was pretty simple to predict from about two thirds, it was a pleasure listening to it unfold, tying up the loose ends.

That truly awful Scottish accent though... sorry Mr Narrator, but back to voice school for some top up lessons please. I can't comment negatively on the Russians and Canadians, Americans or Chinese, they were all great, but I happen to be Scottish and it made me cringe big time, nearly spoiled my enjoyment, I was downright delighted that particular character wasn't in the book all the way through.

I felt that some sub plots were over developed and didn't really add to overall narrative other than by weight
very well read apart from a couple of dodgy accents - the Scottish one was particularly irritating but thankfully not a major character
I would go for another book with same author and narrator though but probably I'll wait for a suitably long business trip

This is a great story on the whole, surprisingly exciting and fun for a story with so much infodumping, has a great array of characters from different backgrounds. Mostly good narration apart from terrible, bordering on offensive (I'm thinking of the Irish accent here) accents.

I managed to stick this out for 12 of the 30+ hours required before I finally decided to stop subjecting myself to a nonsensical plot and needlessly descriptive prose. About an hour in the story starts to hang together on a series of irrational actions which I had hoped would later be explained as part of some elaborate scheme however this was not to be the case. Characters act in ridiculous manners with the flimsiest of plot devices used to push the activity from one scene to the next all the while taking hundreds of words to describe what should have been conveyed in a couple of sentences. The author appears to have a loyal following with some other works attaining praise but this is a clear miss for me.