Silly - good fun

This was good silly fun. The satire is so strong it borders on ridiculous. Be aware the narration style is really dramatic; it took me a while to get used to.

Hard to know how to describe this book. Imagine Mad Max meets Family Guy, meets Rick and Morty, meets House of Cards(ish).

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

Fun Political Satire, but sometimes over the top

Democracy Jones is a fun political satire of current US political divide where blind adherence to political ideologies bred chaos. It would benefit if tone down a notch the satire. Performance is ok, with sound effects bringing the story to life - although it won’t be to everyone’s taste.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Awful

Absolutely awful. The recording is messy and too much is going on. The accents, again are awful, and at some points are negative racist stereotypes. The story isn't as smart as it thinks it is, "hey, both sides of the spectrum are bad" but fails in execution. It's like a South Park episode with the absence of the intelligence and wit to pull it off. Speaking of South Park, if you listen to this book on 2x speed as I did near the end (I just wanted it to FINISH), Abra sounds like 'Nathan' from the special Olympics episode. Absolutely horrendous and I regret listening to this, any book that claims it's a future cult classic in the making is a MASSIVE red flag. DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME WITH THIS RUBBISH. ALSO, this book will 100% be dangerous in the wrong hands of anyone who doesn't understand satire, and will instead be used a rallying cry.

Just to note, I too do not support either political parties, and am a huge fan of satire. And this is just absolutely dire.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Near-future political cyberpunk SF - nice!

This starts as you'd expect for a technothriller: dead person wakes up, they have a futuristic brain chip thing that gives them some special knowledge... and you might be expecting it's just a "bad guys chase the protagonist with laser guns" sort of thing - but this is much more than that.

This is near-future speculative fiction -- cyberpunk Margret Atwood or something. It addresses societal and political issues stemming from both new technology and an increasingly polarised world. Imagine what 2040 would look like if in 2023 generative AI took off and a billionaire was trialling computer brain implants, and then in 2024 half the world went to the polls to choose between progressive and populist options. Then remember that I didn't just make up the 2023/2024 part... This does mean that the book addresses some uncomfortable topics, and it doesn't shy away from using the sort of language that polarised groups will sling at each other.

Of course it wouldn't be any good if it's just technobabble and politics. Thankfully the story is set around a small group of believable characters, spanning both sides, with a cleverly written child character that nicely allows for some quick world-setting and exposition in a relatively short story. Are any of the characters likeable? Yeah - but which ones probably depend on which side you belong to...

The soundscape in the book is amazing. Abstract synthwave flows in the background as sound effects punctuate the narrative. It's effectively a radio play -- and this did throw me at first. For about 10 minutes I was concerned about the narration, unsure about the weird cadence and affectations at times. However once I realised it was a one-person radio play I re-listened and everything clicked into place, and it really works!

Full disclosure: I was given a free review copy of the book. I saw a post on Reddit offering Audible review copies, and as the book sounded like my sort of story, I applied and was lucky enough to get a review copy. (aka - I don't know the author :)

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful