Deadlock

A Raven's Sphere Novel

By: Melissa Koberlein

Narrated by: Amy Deuchler

Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's summary

Leave your body at home.

If you loved Ready Player One, you won’t want to miss this sleek, new virtual adventure!

The year is 2341 and Earth is a distant memory. Thousands of people from all over the world, and some from other worlds, enter a vast virtual reality on planet Zeta. Commonly known as the ALT, visitors hope to find what they can’t in their physical world. Sport hacking, gambling, and pleasure houses are a few of the offerings of the ALT. But there are also dark dynamics lurking within the virtual city....

Seventeen-year-old Stass Tatum is a highly skilled human hacker from the futuristic city of Rourke. She is known on the grid as Deadlock for her dominant, lethal tactics in sport hacking. After meeting a popular elite player, she hatches a plan to jettison her rank into his.

But fate has other ideas.... A deadly virus wreaks havoc on her plans, and now she must face what death means outside the virtual world.

From the Raven's Sphere world by Melissa Koberlein comes this new virtual adventure that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

©2020 Melissa Koberlein (P)2020 Melissa Koberlein

An Okay Cyberpunk'ish Story

A typical YA drama set in a world reminiscent of ready player one/tron and a little matrix (since the virtual is supposed to follow the same rules as the real for some reason). You got the basic G rated good guy vs bad boy teen drama amidst an I was framed trope to give you a decent mystery to solve (somebody is killing people by using a virus to “unlink” them from their ALT avatars so they (or their mind) can’’t get back to their bodies … presumably leaving them to wander the virtual world as vulnerable echoes of who they used to be. Honestly … that was not explained very well so I might have that wrong. Add a Sword of Damocles trope over the heroine to jack a little tension to the plot conflict and things "suddenly get real.” Just go with it …

Outside of the drama, the techie facade is actually pretty shallow, frequently stretching “hacker” terms a tad too far, although you can still get the gist from the context … kinda of like many of the standard TV shows these days trying to be cool with their own white hat hacker that can literally compromise an air gapped system in the Cheyenne Mountain bunker. So to restate the obvious … Just go with it.

I was given this free advance review/listener copy (ARC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#Deadlock #FreeAudiobookCodes

Fun Digital Fantasy

A fun spin off story from a character in the Raven's Sphere universe.
Very engaging in an intense virtual world.


I received a free copy of this audiobook, in exchange for an unbiased review.

Never a dull moment in cyberpunk

This is my first experience to the virtual world in audiobook and it is fantastic So many new concepts to hear about. The authors and narrator and editors did a great job of bringing the world to my ears.

I was given this audiobook by the narrator for free and have voluntarily left this review.

Great stand alone

This is the second book I have read/listened to by this author and I would definitely listen to another. Previously, I reviewed book one. This is a separate stand alone story and is not directly connected to the first book with Raven. Like another reviewer, I am not a fan of the instant love scenario either, however I think it worked well with this book. Stass has a lot of experience as a hacker but very little socially, so when she finally meets the elite player she aspires to meet and be like, it’s not surprising she falls for him. ——-
This is the second book I have listened to by this narrator ( Amy Deuchler ) and I would gladly listen to another. She gives each character an individual voice and brings out their personality. I like her performance style. She does not simply read the story. It’s like listening to a movie. ———

There are no explicit sex scenes, or descriptive violence, there is some swearing. ———

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and voluntarily left this unbiased review.
Please feel free to comment on whether you found my review helpful.

Story 5/5
Narration 5/5

Fantastic World

The world the author created for this series is original & interesting. I really enjoyed the characters and the story. I am not a fan of insta love or "loving" someone the character barely knows so the romance portion was not to my liking but that played only a small part in the story. The narrator was great bringing the story & characters to life.

Not bad at all

First, let me reiterate that this was not a bad book at all. There were times that I was a little lost, but I chalk that up to not having listened to Raven's Sphere. Now for the critique. This book could have used a little more polish. There were places where the writing could have been a bit better or smother or less choppy. That's just my opinion though, and since I can't write a book myself, take it with a grain of salt. I hope this author has more to offer because there is a lot of potential in this series, As they say, practice makes you more proficient. There is no such thing as perfection.

I was given a free code for this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

Seems like a good story.

Story seemed like it would be nice but the narration is not the greatest. I can’t even finish the novel. I’ve listened to other future tech type novels and I enjoy the story of this like the others, just the narrator