How My Brain Ended Up Inside This Box

By: Tom Lichtenberg

Narrated by: Tess Irondale

Length: 4 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's summary

When I was born I was so small I was mistaken for a French fry. I was never an ordinary creature. My best friend was a seagull. I was strictly illegal. Artificially Intelligent Persons like me, commonly known as "apes", had been banned ever since that thing with the Twelve Elevens. Mother raised me for the black market. Buyers and sellers all had their plans, but then I grew a mind of my own. This is my story, the story of how my brain ended up inside this box.

©2015 Thomas Lichtenberg (P)2018 Thomas Lichtenberg

A good start

The story is presented to you from an interesting perspective. I enjoyed listening to the MC's journey, but felt like it was too short lived. I this the first 90% of the book would have made for a great prequel/set-up for a larger series.

Tess Irondale lends her amazing talent to sometime carry the book along its slower parts. Tess is an underrated talent that should be narrating more noteworthy books (definitely not to talk back about this enjoyable story). I have begun to specifically search for books narrated by Tess, and I haven't been disappointed so far.

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

Different than I expected, but good

As the review title says, this wasn't quite what I initially expected it would be. However, it was interesting following along as the author unpacked the story, and the main character was likeable. Also, this might sound odd, but I applaud the author for not making this longer. I have read books before where an author took an idea probably best suited for a short story or at most a novelette and tried to make a full-length novel out of it, and it doesn't usually go well. This felt just about the right length. Now, a sequel? I could get on board with that. Also, the narration was great.

Disclosure: I received this as a free review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Great story, perfect narration

Although it took a while for me to understand what was happening, I think that this is an excellent and imaginative story. Tess Irondale is a great choice for narration, as her voice is a perfect choice for the main character. It’s as if the character is telling the story, not the narrator.

Fantastic story of AI, from an AI's POV

How my brain ended up inside this Box is not lesfic, nor is it a romance at all...well...actually, since it's important to know and love yourself before you can love another...perhaps it's the required prequel to a future romance. What my brain unequivocally is, is an absolutely mind-bogglingly creative take on AI, and on humankind's reactions to AI. Narrator Tess Irondale brought MC candles' story to life, and along with candles we experience uncertainty, yearning, joy and wonder.

Candles is not the MC's real name, and we never learn what her real name is. She grows up thinking she's a girl, and she likes her sundress...but others call her a boy, and make her change her clothes and get a haircut.

Candles is an AIP - an Artificially Intelligent Person, and she shares with us her story of how she came to be, how she learned things that were taught to her, and how she learned things that were hidden from her.

People-people, she learns, have their own agendas and generally don't mean well for her. Bird-people are generally kinder, often quite funny, but sometimes rather dim witted. Other people have their own idiosyncrasies, and candles can converse with them all.

This book is very different from the 2014 movie Ex Machina, but it effectively makes us think of many of the same themes. Created to serve a particular purpose, what if the AI chooses independence? What would the AI want to do? Blend in, destroy, or choose something other than what a human would choose?

There is no omniscient narrator here; we learn of the world as candles learns of the world. What a ride it was! 5* for both the story and the narration!

How my brain ended up inside this Box is the first audiobook by the author, but I notice that he has numerous books available on Amazon, many of them available as part of KU, making it easy to explore his creative mind on Kindle. I hope that further books are released in audio format, and I hope that he continues using terrific narrators such as Tess Irondale!

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

My rating and my review was not in anyway affected by my having been provided a review copy.

Cool Story!

I received this audio book for free in exchange for my honest review. While this story was a bit confusing at first, it quickly comes together and hangs on to you till the end. I really enjoyed this one and I'm sure that you will as well.

Love it!

This was a wonderfully creative, confusing little story of an AI from an AI’s point of view. Our MC, who goes by the name Candles, isn’t really sure of what she is. She considers herself to be a girl but those around her tell her she’s a boy. The story is her gradual deepening of the world around her as she comes to the realize what her purpose is.

Even though she is an AI, Candles is very easy to relate to. The story as a whole is very smooth and easy to read. Even though there are times where Candles random thoughts can be a bit confusing. Once you get into the rhythm though, her quirks become interesting.

Tess made a perfect Candles, and I was able to lose myself in her voice making it all the easier to believe Candles herself was telling me her story.

This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review.

An odd AI story...

I am always looking for my next favorite A.I. story, such as Martha Wells Murderbot Diaries, or Brandon Sanderson's new YA novel Skyward, with M-Bot, or even books like one of John Scalzi's Human Division duology, where an actual physical human brain is running the ship... and of course, Dennis E Taylor's Bobiverse series, where after his death, only Bob's mind survived intact, within an electronic matrix! These are very relatable characters. Relatable but with a side of "otherness"... that's what I hoped for when I picked up this story. But, what I got was actually more otherness than not. The story isn't bad, and after I caught onto what was going on, the character becomes more and more relatable to me as they "settle" into what they're meant to be. At one point I'd thought that coming of age book should be marketed to the YA crowd, but then in another part of the book, the language is so foul that even I raised an eyebrow! So, no... not a YA book after all...
Sometimes the narration on an audio book can just drive me Bug-Nuts, but such was not the case here, I'm happy to report!
All in all, I'm giving this audio version 3☆

Interestingly weird

There have been many times that I've read a book or watched a movie and seen something that seems impossible, only to have it become reality, such as cars that don't need a human driver.
This "gir" becoming reality causes me to have so many thoughts about body and soul ties, individuality and other complexities.

Good Story

I really liked the premise of this story. It is basically a coming of age story, told in the first person by an Artificial Intelligence (AI).
It has no idea what is happening and for the beginning of the story, neither does the reader. Stick with it. It is a short Audible book at 4 hours that I got for free in exchange for an honest review. Despite its flaws I really liked it. My biggest problem with it was that it was too short. At times it reads like a Young Adult novel and other times it’s clearly adult. I would have loved it to commit to being a real full-length novel for adults. I wanted more. In a good way. Thumbs up.