Vicarious

By: Rhett C. Bruno

Narrated by: Wil Wheaton, Katherine McNamara

Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's summary

Award-winning performers Wil Wheaton (Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Big Bang Theory, and Ready Player One audiobook) and Katherine McNamara (Shadowhunters, The Stand, CW’s Arrow) bring this mind-bending, deeply imagined sci-fi tale to life.

The real world is only where you breathe....

In High Earth, digital entertainment is everything. Shows. Virtual worlds. Simulations - there’s something for everybody in a city where working for a living has been rendered obsolete by technological advancements. Even a short walk outside to visit with others is no longer necessary. Just load into the network and you can be with anyone, anywhere.

For Asher Reinhart, nothing compares to Ignis; a live reality show that pushes human beings to their very extremes. As a volunteer director, Asher closely monitors the lives of those living on an interstellar ark, believing they're the last of humanity.

But when it's determined that the life of the show’s brightest star, Mission, must be put in danger to boost declining ratings, Asher is forced to choose: the show he loves or the woman whose existence has been the focus of his attention since the day he was born.

From number-one Audible best-selling author and Nebula Award nominee Rhett C. Bruno comes a story about the power of human connection. The Truman Show meets Ready Player One in a novel perfect for fans of Hugh Howey, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Michael Crichton.

©2021 Rhett C. Bruno (P)2021 Podium Audio

Critic reviews

"This perceptive take on the reality-TV-in-the-future premise deserves boffo ratings" (Kirkus Reviews)

"A truly unique sci-fi experience...Mission's story is both heartbreaking and triumphant, and the growth Asher shows from start to finish blew me away." (Nicholas Sansbury Smith, NYT best-selling author of Hell Divers)

“Vicarious is 2001: A Space Odyssey meets The Truman Show. A riveting take on man’s inhumanity to man". (Scott Sigler, number one New York Times best-selling Author of Earthcore)

Got me right away

From chapter one Vicarious hooked me, it’s an engrossing and immersive story with superb narration, really love the way male and female characters are portrayed and I’m already itching for more

Slow start, but once it picks up it hooks you in

I almost gave up on this book, the first three chapters really didn't keep my attention. Luckily I was listening while I worked so I kept trudging through. Once the fourth chapter hit it took off and I couldn't focus after. Great story, amazing characters, amazing naration, worth the read

immersive and unexpected

in reading this book I was immediately enthralled with the storyline. The narrators are so starkly different from one another and their cadences in the way that they present their characters. it makes you wonder how they are involved with one another and what the ending will entail. I rode the waves expecting and hoping for the perfect Hollywood ending. and without ruining anything it was nothing that I expected but everything was exactly as it should have been. The world was a strange mixture of raw carnality and high-tech corruption. I've read many sci-fi books and this one was different than all the rest. it was a wonderful read as I was doing data entry and I would suggest it to anybody who enjoys beautiful storytelling.

Slightly predictable, but worth it!

As a big fan of Ready Player One & Two, I thought this was worth the listen. It was slightly predictable at times and has plenty of opportunities to unpack the characters further. Despite that, I enjoyed this one and would recommend to those readers/listeners who like the single volume novels. The summary of ‘Truman meets Ready Player One’ was spot on. You should listen!

Phenomenal

I mostly knew Rhett's scifi through Titanborn, but wow, what an adventure this is. Will and Kat's narration is a dream come true that really elevates the storytelling to another level. Highly recommended.

Kat did amazingly as a narrator!

I just finished the book. I really liked it, but the stand-out for me was Katherine McNamara. Get her to do more narration. She is great!

Best Scifi I've read in years

I loved the characters. They grew on me and I find myself wondering and caring about them.

Truman Show meets Ready Player one for sure

Solid enough story and world building. Wheaton is a very good narrator as always. Liked the first half better than the second. Great world, some memorable character (Mina) and great conflicts and twists. Last 1/3 of the book dumbed down and got a little action hero when it could have been much deeper and thought out. A blind man can’t just find his way around and run and jump like John Wick, especially a guy only blind short time. Just saying....

If you need a book, worth a credit but not the best or bad either.

Awesome World, not a great story

I was really excited for this one and was pretty intrigued at the start. But I reached a point when I realized I didn’t really care for the Mission character and therefore the rest of what happened didn’t matter. Which is such a bummer because this whole world is such a cool idea. I think Will is a great narrator and loved the sections he narrated but the female narrator drove me nuts. She has this husky whisper way of talking which became grating. I think is part of the reason I didn’t like Mission, I found her annoying.

Disturbingly Believable Dystopia

Vicarious presents an all too believable vision of a dystopian future where the privileged (admittedly the vast majority of humanity that remains rather than a rich minority) have all their needs provided for and have their emotional states kept at equilibrium by auto-administered pharmaceuticals while they consume endless VR content. Despite the existence of matter-converting technology, there are still those who have been removed from society and forced to live on the fringes, disconnected from the network and having to scrape by in the limited non-flooded area left on Earth outside of the High Earth enclave. For some reason, citizens are limited in how much media in total they are allowed to consume and going over without contributing media for others to consume is one of the few things that can result in removal from High Earth. More disturbing is the most popular reality show, which involves viewing people who truly believe themselves to be refugees from a destroyed Earth on a multi-generational ship living and dying in ignorance that they are forced to live a lie for the entertainment of others. The truly disturbing thing is that the citizens of High Earth place so little value on the lives of anyone outside their individual selves outside of how a person entertains them, and don't care that other people are in fact people and life to be valued. The vision of the future presented with humanity amusing itself to death and having no higher ambition than being amused plays as too real and believable given current cultural trends. The narrators do an excellent job on the respective perspectives that they present and add to the depth of the characters' emotions. Cannot recommend enough!

Disclaimer: I was given a review copy for free and have voluntarily left this review.