When We Were Real

By: Daryl Gregory

Narrated by: Ari Fliakos

From multiple award-winning author Daryl Gregory comes a madcap adventure following two friends on a cross-country bus tour through the mind-boggling glitches in their simulated world as they grapple with love, family, secrets, and the very nature of reality in a simulation.

JP and Dulin have been the best of friends for decades. When JP finds out his cancer has aggressively returned, Dulin decides it’s the perfect time for one last adventure: a week-long bus tour of North America’s Impossibles, the physics-defying glitches and geographic miracles that started cropping up seven years earlier—right after the Announcement that revealed our world to be merely a digital simulacrum. The outing, courtesy of Canterbury Trails Tours, promises the trip of a (not completely real) lifetime in a (not completely deluxe) coach.

Their fellow passengers are 21st-century pilgrims, each of them on the tour for their own reasons. There’s a nun hunting for an absent God, a pregnant influencer determined to make her child too famous to be deleted, a crew of horny octogenarians living each day like it’s their last, and a professor on the run from leather-clad sociopaths who take The Matrix as scripture. Each stop on this trip is stranger than the last—a Tunnel outside of time, a zero gravity Geyser, the compound of motivational-speaking avatar—with everyone barreling toward the tour’s iconic final stop Ghost City, where unbeknownst to our travelers the answer to who is running the simulation may await.

When We Were Real is “an addictive thriller packed with winning characters and big, brilliant ideas” (Lev Grossman, New York Times bestselling author of The Bright Sword and The Magicians trilogy) and an exploration of what really matters, even in an artificial world.

My head hurts

This was ADVENTUROUS. Props to the author for having that kind of brain power lol

Funny, sharp, delightful

When We Were Real is the funny, smart, lighthearted but still poignant Matrix-esque story I needed. Loved it.

Wish the characters were more likable

I’ve really enjoyed this authors work. Not a huge fan of sci-fi/supernatural, but he has woven it together in his stories so well before. This book I felt no connection yo any of the characters though… they were grating or worse, bland. Found it hard to care what happened to them and sometimes didn’t even follow along the story. A little all over the place. Love his other work.

Great alternate realities Rep

Took me a long while in to discern the ending- which I appreciate because it’s a well crafted story that breaks the mold. This is one such— similar ideas to most, but extraordinary unique and the characters were drawn with layers and shades that give them depth emotionally as well as making them intellectual interesting-

Fantastic and fun

This is such a creative and engaging story. The reader is great, too. I really enjoyed it!