Catherine

It passed the time - when I wasn't feeling confused about the sequence of events anyway.

that's it?

I liked her reading style. I'd listen to her read another one.

The story is not in chronological order. It is very jarring to try to mentally piece it together in the right order. I thought there were some fun and cute adventures in the story, but overall it wasn't as fun or funny as Mr. Gaiman claims. Maybe if you are more familiar with the author and/or her friends you'd relate to the book better.

Wow. What a story! A young country full of hope and scientific marvels. A young president full of life. A twisted mad man. Ingenious inventors and pompous doctors. Changing the world. ... My only caveat is some of the medical procedures described are rather graphic. If you are particularly sensitive to such things the story might lose some of its appeal. (The details were an important part of the story though.) I highly recommend this incredible story!

Fun. The story really seems to capture the modern techno-saavy hipster silicon valley start-up generation culture in an imaginative, entertaining, and delightful mystery-adventure.

The book has a lot of characters, but none of them seem to be more than 2-dimensional. There were some agregious and almost offensive stereotypes of some Earth cultures. The science was strange and didn't ever seem 'real'. The plot seemed to just ramble on without good pacing nor a satisfactory ending. Good Science Fiction can show you what is possible, or can use the technology to explore issues in our own society, or can develop characters in interesting ways. None of that happens here. The only really cool technology is all treated like magic, with no basis in reality.

I liked how he did the voice of the bad guy. It had to have hurt, but it sounded really cool and true to the story description.

The story was action scene after action scene with our hero barely getting out of each scrape, sometimes pretty miraculously, most of the time just way over the top. It was fun at first, but by the end of the book I just wanted it to be over. I was exhausted from the endless series of narrow escapes and tough guy attitude. In the second novel I was expecting a litte more character depth and development. Instead it seemed to be more of the same as the first novel with few new developments other than lots of action.

A sympathetic character.

Probably. He wasn't bad.

all of them.

This was a dark and depressing story that did not make me want to keep listening to the series. There were no characters to care about, and the plot wasn't very interesting.

This is similar to the books 'Zen Guitar' and 'Effortless Mastery', except it focuses on a bass player instead of a guitar player. Another differentiator is that this audio book is punctuated with great music. (Except for the musical subvocalizations when 'Music' is speaking, which are really distracting). The stories are fantastical on purpose - he is trying to illustrate and emphasize his points about music (and life). The strictly literal minded will probably not like this book. Ditto for people who think "notes" are the end-all and be-all of music. Ditto for the people who only like one style of music and hold all other forms of musical expression in disdain. I think this book should be nearly required listening for all musicians. I've listened to it 3 times now. It is great.