You

De: Austin Grossman

Narrado por: 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.

Reseñas de la Crítica

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.

YOU might want to try a different book

Sadly, You could have been so much better, but as it stands, I don't recommend it unless you are really interested in the history of personal gaming computers and games. I picked up the book because someone said it reminded him of Ready Player One which I loved even though I'm not a big gamer. Be warned, You has almost nothing in common with RPO except that video games factor in the story. The plot lines of the two books are not similar at all and YOU is strictly fiction not sci-fi/fantasy fiction.

The plot of You is one of its problems - Russell, the main character, is struggling to find himself and his place in the world. By going to work for a video game company started by his old friends he tries to reconnect to his past and work through his existential questions while exploring the games as part of his job. The title YOU comes from the large sections of the book that are conveyed in second person as Russell works through his questions and problems as an avatar in different games. Example: You are a 14 year old girl, you are on a space ship, you encounter a cave, etc. Its not that the plot is dull, it just sort of seems to wander around and I found the second person sections a little confusing and tiresome after a while. In addition to trying to resolve his own identity crisis, Russell attempts to delve into the mystery of the death of his genius friend, Simon. If Grossman had made the resolution of mystery a larger part of the plot, that might have helped create more tension in the narrative, but ultimately, the mystery takes a back seat and the book leaves many related questions open.

In addition, the characters, although interesting, are difficult to relate to. They don't seem to relate to each other well so maybe its not too surprising that I didn't invest in them much. And there is one character, Don, that I never understood quite where he came from - he seems to have history with the other characters but he isn't part of original friendship. In addition to the human characters, the four central video game avatars are really characters and they are no more relatable than the people. The humans and the avatars all seem a little spacy and not well defined.

Narrative is all first and second person so it isn't a great challenge to a narrator, but Will Collyer was fine.

Ultimately, the book just sort of ends without a clear or satisfying conclusion. The book's summary describes it as thrilling and hilarious and it is neither. I didn't hate it, I was entertained by much of it, but I don't recommend it.

A must-read for gamers.

What did you love best about You?

Austin really captures what it's like to be in your late-20s: reminiscing about being "young" while struggling with the idea of still being able to make a change in your life while other peers seem to have already achieved success.

Did the plot keep you on the edge of your seat? How?

Like Grossman's other book, "Soon I Will Be Invincible," the story jumps around in both time and setting a lot. This book basically presents itself as a series of short stories that intermingle with one another to progress the core narrative. Any time I heard a mention of the plot's core conceit, my ears perked up - I *knew* this part would be important. It was almost as though I wanted to take notes so that I'd be able to solve the puzzle before the main character. I really felt the tension to solve the mystery. It was like being right there with them, no matter what time or space they were in.

What does Will Collyer bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Will Collyer's were really on-the-nose. There were a lot of scenes where 4 or 5 characters would hold an extended conversation, and Collyer's impressions were so distinct that it really felt like 5 separate people were talking. The way he captured each person's level of aloofness was pretty impressive, too.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

Is life just a game?