Chris

I've thoroughly enjoyed previous Scalzi books (dead-tree versions), and thought Wheaton's narration of Ready Player One was excellent, but the combination of the two doesn't work as well - both with this book and "Redshirts" so far.

Looking at printed paper, it's easy to tune out all the "Bob said" text, but not possible with audio. I love the quick, snappy dialog of the stories - it just doesn't translate as well to this format. Like most Audible subscribers, I've listened to hundreds of books, and can't recall being as distracted by this admittedly necessary aspect of audio books.

Still a better-than-average overall listen (as evidenced by its recent award, congrats!), but if you're undecided between hard copy/audio versions of this story, keep it in mind!

I don't mind a book that's going to be the first of two or many - quite the opposite, that means there's *more* coming! Problem is I've never encountered such an abrupt "ending". "Cliffhanger" is too generous a term.

On top of that it was soooo repetitive and overly long on minor details. I stuck it out just to get some resolution, or at least a reasonable stopping point. The long wait for part two will help remove any compulsion to find out how it ends.

On the plus side, excellent narration!

Would have been 4 stars for excellent narration of a pretty good story, but the CD instructions and repeated lines were distracting...this is the first time I have run into this on Audible.