The I.P.O.

De: Dan Koontz

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

A tragic accident. An opportunistic CEO. A shocking announcement at the opening of a bizarre new stock market. Seven year-old Ryan Tyler, Jr. has just been adopted. By a corporation. Ticker symbol RTJ is the initial public offering on James Prescott’s Avillage Exchange, a market that trades in the financial futures of exceptionally gifted orphans. Before the brilliant first-grader has even had a chance to catch his breath, he is whisked off to live with seemingly perfect new parents he’s not sure he can trust. And he’s got a sinking feeling that the only ally he has from his previous life is somehow conspiring with the corporation. With Prescott and a board of directors pulling strings behind the scenes, Ryan’s only chance at freeing himself from his shareholders may be to team up with his fellow Avillage orphans: an embittered computer-programming savant, a once-in-a-generation NBA prospect, and a show-stopping Latin American model. Koontz’s fast-paced yet introspective writing style is sure to keep your mind whirring and the pages turning, right to the explosive final page.

Great story Terrible reader

Great story but oh so poorly read! Virtual voice is monotone with no nuance , feeling or zing to the story. Very distracting and makes the story confusing. Get a human reader please!

Decent book

While I enjoyed the story, the narration was quite disappointing. It was bad enough to be distracting from time to time.

voice too mechanical.

I liked the story was good but the voice was too distracting. I’m not a fan of AI readings.

This is a story with a new twist! Our greatest advancements can indeed lead to our greatest evils.

Congratulations Dan Koontz. What a great first book! I am looking forward to your future novels. The virtual voice presentation is acceptable and the quality of this technology will surely flourish.

What a story!!

This was such a well written with great characters, interesting story! Could not turn off!!

I thought it was Dean

I was pleasantly surprised! I like it a lot. When I ordered this audio I thought it was Dean Knootz (I bet he gets that a lot) so it was good that I did like it. I however didn’t care for the unemotional reading from the IP.

AI voice is not ready

Story starts slow for a Koontz novel. The generated audio was not great. Poor inflections. No changes in speech for various characters. Not one of Koontz’ best. Likely will not pick up another generated reader.

Interesting premise

The story line had an interesting premise but the narration was LAME, flat, emotionless and it ruined the story!

Good story, horrible narration

While I think it is a good book (story), the one terrible detraction is its performance. I suffered through it to be able to leave the review. In my opinion, it is abominable to use AI to read books. It drones away, mispronouncing words and making wrong emphasis. In addition, it takes away somebody’s chance to make a difference in perception of the material - an actor who would do a 100 times better job than this soulless empty ‘reading.’ Is THIS what Audible plans on doing in the future, chasing a bigger buck???

the concept

I fully enjoyed the story. the narration left just a little to be desired as some words do not "translate" to ai.