Seems like Dinniman only has a handful of ideas for stories and they just get recycled and repackaged over and over. Evil AI, evil games run by evil people, metaphors for greed, racism etc. etc. it’s all…boringly familiar at this point. That being said, the story was ok i guess, caught myself zoning out for minutes at a time and then realizing it made little difference to the story because you know every single thing that’s going to happen chapters ahead. The voice acting is pretty good. The characters are extremely 2-dimensional and all just blend together which is horribly ironic considering the messaging this story attempts to deliver. The ending is by far the worst part. It was almost decent but then he kept typing and ruined it. Yet another author that wanted his story and to eat it too. You will know exactly what i mean when you get past the “big bad” showdown. I know calling writing lazy is a bit cliche at this point but that is precisely what this story is, lazy. Rehashed ideas, characters so stereotypical and soulless it is almost offensive. The entire thing screams, “I need a paycheck and that’s why i am writing this.”
It truly blows my mind how highly rated this is but then again authors like Shirtaloon make a killing on here and those stories are about as fast food as you get. What truly mystifies me is the apparent cognitive dissonance the author seems to have by writing the novel equivalent of corporate created crap to sell to a seemingly never ending supply of mindless media munching consumer zombies…
Spoiler warning: If you have a sensitive stomach, skip past the part where the band defiantly belts out Rage Against the Machines Guerilla Radio. I am still cleaning the vomit from the sides of my poor toilet.