The Last Firewall

By: William Hertling

Narrated by: Jennifer O'Donnell

Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's summary

In the year 2035, robots, artificial intelligences, and neural implants have become commonplace. The Institute for Ethics keeps the peace, using social reputation to ensure that robots and humans don't harm society or each other. But a powerful AI named Adam has found a way around the restrictions.

Catherine Matthews, nineteen years old, has a unique gift: The ability to manipulate the net with her neural implant. Yanked out of her perfectly ordinary life, Catherine becomes the last firewall standing between Adam and his quest for world domination.

©2013 William Hertling (P)2014 William Hertling

Critic reviews

“Awesome near-term science fiction.” (Brad Feld, Foundry Group managing director)

“An insightful and adrenaline-inducing tale of what humanity could become and the machines we could spawn.” (Ben Huh, CEO of Cheezburger)

“A fun read and tantalizing study of the future of technology: both inviting and alarming.” (Harper Reed, former CTO of Obama for America, Threadless)

“A fascinating and prescient take on what the world will look like once computers become smarter than people. Highly recommended.” (Mat Ellis, Founder & CEO Cloudability)

“A phenomenal ride through a post-scarcity world where humans are caught between rogue AIs. If you like having your mind blown, read this book! (Gene Kim, author of The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win)

Last Firewall

The book had a great plot and enjoyed listening to it. also very well written

If you like the first one — this is a must…

Improved production. Better, if not exactly right, Japanese. Clearly the author is a Japanophile.
Its been years since I read the books…
As it happens many of the settings are familiar on a personal level.
Holding forth from a more philosophical frame of reference, this volume might be more approachable than the first volume.
I would tell you to buy the third volume but I feel the need to review it again. Yes, I own the four volumes — but it has been a while…

Not as good

You had to be a hard sci-fi fan to enjoy the first two books in the series. I am and I did.

I was disappointed in this one. It brought in adult content which surprised me considering the previous two books. It also brought in mystical fantasy.

It failed to bring in the profound philosophical and psychological questions about meeting your maker etc.

Should have known better

A female impersonating a male's voice ends up sounding like a dorky teenager. That is the impression I got from several of the male characters. I tried to hang on for a couple of chapters (not letting it bother me too much). The story line seemed very soft and lacked any surprising revelations that keep you interested. After a while I wasn't sure if it was the bad narration or just a bad story. When I looked closely at the author I realized the problem. I had the same lackluster feeling with another book by the same author entitled "Avogadro's Corp". If I had not read other tech thriller authors (like Suarez and Daniel Wilson) I would have given up on the genre all together thinking the topic of IT to dry for fiction. It was so bad that I couldn't get halfway through it - just wish I could get the credit back.

Painful

What was most disappointing about William Hertling’s story?

Being in the industry I found the misuse of proper computer terms grating. Now I know how doctors feel when they watch House.

Would you be willing to try another one of Jennifer O'Donnell’s performances?

I found the voice acting of the male characters irritating, especially the imitation the stereotypical gangster.

Poorly written

I listened to the end three times to find out what happened to the antagonist. Still don't really know. That sums up much of the rest of the book too. Plenty of budget stereotypes, huge leaps of logic, and weird inconsistencies. I don't recommend...a pity as the earlier books in the series pretty good.

Fun but story could have been developed more.

Too similar to Ramez Naam and Daniel Suarez's work. I liked the homage to them in the building names, but I was hoping for some novel tech concepts and stronger plot and character development. I appreciated the choice for a heroine, especially within such a male dominated genre.

No plot, no character development

And a stupid underdeveloped romance. A bunch of chasing and karate (yes, really!). Worst of all, NO ELOPE.

Nothing like first 2 books

If you're planning to continue with the series after you listen to first two titles in this series (and found them to be excellent), do yourself a favor and don't.

DISCOVERED SOMETHING INTERESTING ABOUT REVIEWS!!!

I started reading this book in large part because the series is highly rated. After listening to the third book, I had to stop. The narrator is unbelievably distracting. I will get back to that.

My biggest concern was when I studied the reviews. If you were to examine only the written reviews, the rating goes down up to a full star for both performance and overall story compared to the grossly collected reviews (both written reviews and reviews that aren't written, just stars assigned). TLF has less than 100 reviews. It would be very easy, and worthwhile to stack some of these reviews with biased opinions and even go as far as to create fake email accounts to boost the review score. I guess my point is, if a book has only a smattering of reviews, look at the written reviews for the most accurate evaluation of a book. It's too easy to finesse the results. From a data analysis standpoint, the written reviews shouldn't be around 20% lower when compared to the overall reviews. That's too big of a deviation (now you know why I like techno thrillers).

That being said, I cannot believe the narration of this book. I don't blame O'Donnell as much as I blame Brick Shop Audio. I'm sure O'Donnell has talent but her talent didn't match up with the tone of this book. O'Donnell has a voice that would be more suited to melodrama and possibly something like a self help book. Her voice is a bit hoarse and choppy and her delivery is a bit whiny. It isn't best used in a techno thriller. Additionally, some of the selections she used for voices were downright comical. The two "gangsters" were given voices that you would hear in a Bugs Bunny Cartoon. I eventually gave up because I was unable to focus on the story. It was during a part with the two gangsters, ("Yeah see, we got a book here see and we're going to read it see").

The story isn't bad and has promise but if I have to stop listening to a book, the overall rating has to be the lowest possible score. Too bad, I was looking forward to completing the trilogy. Maybe I will actually read the book.