Otaku

By: Chris Kluwe

Narrated by: Shayna Small

Otaku is the debut novel from former NFL player and tech enthusiast Chris Kluwe, with a story reminiscent of Ready Player One and Ender's Game.

Ditchtown.

A city of skyscrapers, built atop the drowned bones of old Miami. A prison of steel, filled with unbelievers. A dumping ground for strays, runaways, and malcontents.

Within these towering monoliths, Ashley Akachi is a young woman trying her best to cope with a brother who's slipping away, a mother who's already gone, and angry young men who want her put in her place. Ditchtown, however, is not the only world Ash inhabits.

Within Infinite Game, a virtual world requiring physical perfection, Ash is Ashura the Terrible, leader of the Sunjewel Warriors, loved, feared, and watched by millions across the globe. Haptic chambers, known as hapspheres, translate their every move in the real to the digital - and the Sunjewel Warriors' feats are legendary.

However, Ash is about to stumble upon a deadly conspiracy that will set her worlds crashing together, and in the real, you only get to die once....

A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Books

©2020 Chris Kluwe (P)2020 Macmillan Audio

F***ing Phenomenal

An action-packed girl-power warning to society that reads as if Gamer and Ready Player One had a dystopian baby controlled by powerful sects with origins that can be traced to some of today's most polarized factions.

Shayna Small is enjoyable to listen to articulating this novels unique lexicon for so many diverse female characters and nails the male lines as well without sounding awkward.

A surprisingly relevant cyberpunk yarn

Who knew Mr. Kluwe had so many talents? This was better than expected. I hope he's got more stories in him.

Just Another Encounter

The nicest thing that I can say about this book, it that it's fine.

A lot of the interesting and original ideas the novel has are buried in tropes and the writing at times is insufferable. I'm unsure how many times you need to write the word "petulant" to get me to understand a character is a brat or how many times the phrase "just another encounter" needs to be repeated, but this was too many.

When it comes to Ash and her struggle being a talented female gamer, I get that girls are often abused and mistreated online. The way the points were made though were too blunt and they never sounded natural, like something a real person would say. I get there are some dudes that just go for the easy, racist and sexist edgy thing but they wouldn't say it every other word. And the plot point that girls can't block people just because it's illegal? That doesn't make any sense. If they're second class citizens, why is that the only thing they have to deal with? I feel like it shouldn't have been a plot point at all.

Otaku becomes generic fast and while I understand the points the author was trying to make, I don't think this was the correct way to make them.

When it comes to interesting sci-fi/cyberpunk, this really is just another encounter.

Nothing special.