You

By: Austin Grossman

Narrated by: Will Collyer

When Russell joins Black Arts games, brainchild of two visionary designers who were once his closest friends, he reunites with an eccentric crew of nerds hacking the frontiers of both technology and entertainment. In part, he's finally given up chasing the conventional path that has always seemed just out of reach. But mostly, he needs to know what happened to Simon, his strangest and most gifted friend, who died under mysterious circumstances soon after Black Arts' breakout hit.

As the company's revolutionary next-gen game is threatened by a software glitch, Russell finds himself in a race to save his job, Black Arts' legacy, and the people he has grown to care about. The deeper Russell digs, the more dangerous the glitch appears -- and soon, Russell comes to realize there's much more is at stake than just one software company's bottom line.

Critic reviews

Praise for SOON I WILL BE INVINCIBLE:

"Imaginative. Achingly real. An admirable addition to the genre. "—The New York Times Book Review

If you liked the nostalgia of Ready Player One...

You'll like this.

No, it's not the thriller RPO was, and we're not in virtual worlds (completely) but it's a quite enjoyable walk through memory lane of 80s and 90s computing and gaming culture.

Good story, good characters and well played.

Great for game fetishists

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Definitely listen to this book if you've ever wanted a story combined with fairly exhaustive narratives of actual game play and the mechanics of game design and videogame history.

Which character – as performed by Will Collyer – was your favorite?

Will Collyer does an excellent job with the voices of the characters and provides pitch-perfect delineation between voices. His portrayals of Matt and Lisa are entertaining.

Was You worth the listening time?

Grossman's a fine writer. YOU is worth the time, though if you're so inclined you can skim or double-time some of the longer sections describing particular games as they don't, for the most part, contribute materially to the overall story.

Any additional comments?

Grossman needed an editor who would have held him to cutting redundancies and forced him to extract the essential elements from the game play segments. Some of the earliest philosophical writing on the nature of videogames and the first generation to play them is absolutely stellar, envy-inducing prose. If you're looking for fiction combined with credible, authoritative perspectives on gaming and game design, you'll get it here.

OK if you are a gamer

The story is alright, but at times goes into excruciating detail on video game designs, and because the games cross several genres, it can become a little confusing.

The voice actor does a decent job, but needs to review how to pronounce certain 80s terms. For example, the Commodore PET computer was call a "Pet" computer, not a "P-E-T." I am a year older than the main character, and was part of the generation that first worked with the Pet computers in school

Overall, if you are looking for a listen to pass the time and are a gamer, then this would be a good title for you.

Faithful to its gaming roots, story is erratic.

YOU was a bitter-sweet experience for me. On one hand, it revisited a period of video gaming that was exciting to be a part of, and having been in the gaming industry at the time, it was certainly faithful to the game design process and mentality. The author clearly has a reverence for 90s gaming, and that was enjoyable to discover.

The characters and story, however, were completely forgettable to me. Even as a self-identifying geek gamer of the era, I never attached myself to anyone in the story, and found it very hard to care about them or what they were doing.

An attempt is made to bridge the real world and the game world by means of some clever computer code (and possible mental trauma) that never quite defines itself and ultimately goes nowhere. It's a safe book that explores some quaint what-if scenarios surrounding a game franchise's evolution, but as for thrills and suspense, I felt neither.

I loved Soon I Will Be Invincible by Grossman and would definitely read anything by him going forward despite my tepid experience with YOU.

Great book for those who appreciate video games

This is a great story for those who appreciate video games and whatever makes them up. Specifically, what it takes to make a virtual world.