The Crystal Sphere

Neuro Series, Book 1

By: Andrei Livadny

Narrated by: Graham Halstead

Alex is one of us. An office rat during daytime, he spends sleepless nights playing his favorite MMO game: a familiar, predictable world which is about to collapse. A new virtual universe arrives to replace it, aggressively devouring all others: the Crystal Sphere. Alex gets involved in testing new technologies which promise to revolutionize gaming. Fitted out with a neuroimplant which provides a 100 percent authentic experience, he has to survive in the Crystal Sphere against all odds. What is he turning into? Will he become yet another expendable test subject - or the first player to transcend reality?

©2017 Andrei Livadny; English translation copyright 2017 by Irene Woodhead and Neil P. Mayhew (P)2017 Tantor

Difficult to Follow

Young authors often feel that withholding exposition creates reader interest, but the opposite is true. From what I listened to, Crista is a selfish, dramatic, ungrateful monster who makes terrible decisions that impact others without consulting them or taking any responsibility for them. The protagonist doesn't despise her, so there must be information listeners aren't getting.

There's also an incredibly complicated stat and skill system that is basically giving the hero access to all skills and abilities should he view them and practice. That's great and definitely enough but he also apparently has poorly defined psychic powers. On top of this, something fishy is happening in the game world that the devs are not sharing. I just got bored because I don't know enough to understand the stakes or to enjoy the game system. Also, he has an extremely overpowered class if he takes the time to train, no deadlines, and he's averse to pain, but he's running off to fight things that are challenging instead of training and figuring out his Everything bagel class. Hard to like characters who don't make good choices.

It was really good.

I enjoyed the book. It was a lot fun. Good story. The only problem was that the narrator can’t say dungeon correctly.

I like it but

I genuinely do not understand the issue with Crista it’s never explain why she acts the way she does. Also halfway through he starts to say donjon instead of dungeon and it’s really annoying other than that it’s a pretty decent book

it passes the time

towards the back half of the book all the sudden seems like they start mispronouncing words also kept using mechanically for some reason kind of also felt like the game mechanics were not consistent.

Great Hook/Weak Ending

I enjoyed this first book, the hook was very well done imo. The ending with a stats recap instead of the quest resolution was a cheesy way to end. -story for that bad ending. Lemme guess, you open the next book with a player stats recap? Great hook ++ Narration was good +, MC is likable nice guy +