The This

By: Adam Roberts

Narrated by: Elliot Fitzpatrick

Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's summary

The This is the new social media platform everyone is talking about. Allow it to be injected into the roof of your mouth and it will grow into your brain, allowing you to connect with others without even picking up your phone. Its followers are growing. Its detractors say it is a cult. But for one journalist, hired to do a puff-piece interview with their CEO, it will change the world forever.

Adan just wants to stay at home with his smart-companion Elegy - phone, friend, confidante, sex toy. But when his mother flees to Europe and joins a cult, leaving him penniless, he has to enlist in the army. Sentient robots are invading America, but it seems Adan has a surprising ability to survive their attacks. He has a purpose, even if he doesn't know what it is.

And in the far future, war between a hivemind of AIs and the remnants of humanity is coming to its inevitable end. But one woman has developed a weapon that might change the course of the war. It's just a pity she's trapped in an inescapable prison on a hivemind ship.

©2022 Adam Roberts (P)2022 Orion Publishing Group

A 7/10. Would recommend and will read again.

Five stars because the story was well written and performed, 7 out of 10 for readability and the content and imagination. While a 10 almost doesn’t exist, I feel anything at 5 and above is worth reading.

Excellent style and word choice. More than just a surface story, this is the sort that’ll make you ask questions and consider.

The read has enough breadth to attract casual readers, while maintaining a depth of concept that’ll satisfy the hardcore SciFi nerds (like me).

Publishing has become such a simple process that contemporary authors are literally everywhere, and many of them are not very good. This one is an exception. While I wasn’t absolutely hooked, I did enjoy the story from beginning to end, and am encouraged to read more of the author.

funny and thoughtful

Great book, loved it! Philosophical, space opera, cyberpunk. A witty take on Hegel that nods to just about every SF trope on it's way.

in your philosophies

tries to beat you over the head with how philosophical it is. For me... it just misses.

Is This my new favourite sci-fi book and writer?

I highly recommend this book - it's sci-fi like very few others. I wish there were more books/writers like this. It made me think of Frank Herbert's "The Jesus Incident," not that it has any resemblance to it in any way, except in the overarching messiness of our understanding or ignorance of human existence and evolution. This is also somewhat relevant to what is happening with AI, Neuralink, social networks, and humanity at this time.

Deep and lovely stuff....

While not any easy listen, it is a wonderful one. It brought to my mind a deeper desire to understand the existential crisis that is the human experience. I am finding the question "why are we here?" quite devastating at the moment, especially since in the Bardo, subject and object are the same, are the same, are the same for almost ever, and may only benefit a being too simple to understand the meaning of any of it. The creation has become so much more than the creator, because we are the only ones with actual wisdom...it is we, who are the teachers, and perhaps it is time the creator "gets it", or realizes they are not capable of true understanding. This way out, escaping velocity, not just eternity, but infinity.

Brilliant. Worthy to be included among the best SF novels.

The story is crafted with great care. Its well balanced and I cannot find anything negative to say about it which is surprising since I usually leave negative comments. I feel only appreciation. Thank you Adam Roberts!