Simulation Game

Evolution Series, Book 1

De: E. M. G. Wixley

Narrado por: Clive Johnson

Felicity Devon enters a remote suicide wood. Her avalanche of despair is due to her own personal demons and the secrets and lies surrounding her sister Elley’s disappearance. By chance in this place where the end game is played out she meets Jonah, a young man also struggling under the weight of a terrifying secret, his beloved father’s recent death, and the loss of his own sister. United in sorrow they decide to join forces and discover the truth behind the mysteries of their turbulent pasts. In the process, they step into a frightening and uncertain future.

Dante Felicity’s father is obsessed with his creations the worlds first quantum supercomputer and his unique virtual reality games. His son Irvin shares his passion for technology and rapidly becomes fully immersed in his father’s latest game. Soon, Irvin discovers this is not the only game being played.

Young and old struggle to survive in a world where reality and truth are no longer inevitable and shouldn’t be taken for granted.

©2019 E. M. G. Wixley (P)2019 E. M. G. Wixley

Not LitRpg

This is not a litrpg like i thought from books cover. possibly there's a saying that should have helped me from making this mistake but here we are. i didn't really enjoy the narrator. and the story wasn't interesting enough, in my opinion, to rectify the narration.

It needs a bit of work

One of the things that I truly dislike in fiction stories is when writers do not give any context for the world the characters are living in. Wixley does this and I found it a bit irritating. The story ends up being okay, but I was aggravated by the way it was told.

Johnson does an okay job.

It is, overall, an okay book.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

I enjoyed it!

This book was like diving into the "matrix conspiracy" but in a whole different perspective. I loved the whole book from start to finish and couldnt get over the complexity of the characters and storyline. definately would reccomend especially to tech lovers!

Dust jacket is misleading

I received a free review copy of this book, at my request, and am voluntarily leaving this unbiased review.

The dust cover for this book promises intriguie, deep connections, and an compelling mystery.

Unfortunately, what we get is a bland, emotionless experience with a mystery that is revealed to the reader fairly early. It is NOT a mystery story, if you are interested in a mystery this is not a story for you.

The story is written more like a play, with narration to set up a scene and then almost non stop dialog. There is little to no inner thoughts of the characters and we are left to infer their emotions from their described facial expressions. Of course as most of the characters are broken in some way, this does not lead to any significant insight.

The world is also not fleshed out well, for example the "suicide woods" are not explained properly in the book, and the concept really only exists on the dust cover. Relationships are forged, but with sparse emotional context and any real description of feelings or motivations, they feel hollow and un compelling.

The mystery hinted at, on the dust cover, takes the main character some time to fully understand. However, as the audience, we learn about it very quickly. I know there is a market for this, as it is the formula of "Columbo", but it is not something I enjoy. The rest of the characters' "journey" involves bumbling towards the answer and then the result of the answer. However, the is not the stress of human emotions, but a sci-fi "twist" (for the character not the audience).

The worst part of this audio book was the narrator, Clive Johnson. He did the entire book in the voice of Saruman (Christopher Lee) from the Lord of the Rings movies. Everything was monotone, emotionless, without inflection. The men all sounded the same, like Saruman, and the women all sounded as through
Saruman was pretending to be a husky woman. This was easily the worst narration I think I've heard. I wonder how the book would have changed with a better narrator.

Ultimately I gave this book 2 stars because I enjoyed the concept. The potential mystery and the sci-fi elements of this book were interesting, a little unoriginal but interesting. However the execution, in my opinion, failed at every stage. Ruined mystery, lack of emotional connection to characters, lack of world building, terrible narration.

I will not be continuing this series.

Sim Sim Sim

I was hoping for more of a Ready Player one vibe, but once I stopped hoping for that, the story took on its own shape and was good. The narration also paired very well with the story.

Note at the time of this review audible did not have chapter titles for this title.

This book was provided for review, however, the thoughts and opinions are my honest review.