Silicon Galaxy

By: Eric R. Ball

Narrated by: Mike Lenz

A young venture capitalist wakes up from a car accident to discover he has run his Tesla into an alien ship. Like many aliens, they have advanced technology, and these visitors have decided they need a VC to get it to market. Do the aliens come in peace—and more importantly, will they create the next tech unicorn? Zach thinks so. But he’s clearly operating above his pay grade, and very few others appear willing to take the risk of trusting the visitors’ intentions.

An adventure that leads Zach on a wild ride to wealth, the White House, the stars, and back, Silicon Galaxy is an SF twist on “start-up fiction”, blending in lessons from management research and practical experience for entrepreneurs. The book also has elements of a love letter to 1980s pop culture and a travelogue to Silicon Valley. The author’s experiences are central to the writing of this story: Dr. Eric Ball is on his third career, having worked as a management academic, a senior executive in major tech corporations, and now as a venture capitalist and entrepreneur.

©2022 Eric R Ball (P)2022 Eric R Ball

Informative and Enjoyable

I think the best way to review Silicon Galaxy is as 2 entirely separate books:

1. Business Book
The first half of this novel focuses on real-world venture capital, entrepreneurship, business leadership, and management. As a tech entrepreneur myself, all of the principles expounded in this book ring true. While it won't provide a deep dive into any particular subject, it is a nice review and reinforcement of the simple truths of business and management that we too often overlook in our busy lives. I thoroughly enjoyed these discussions. It may have been nice to include some sections on how the visitors were failing in operating their businesses and what corrections could be made (i.e., providing examples to complement largely abstract ideas).

2. First-Contact Work of Fiction
While the "visitors" are introduced early, they mostly serve as a vehicle for teaching business concepts and providing interesting technologies to bring to market until the second half of the book. After this the reader is predominately treated to a work of fiction on how humanity (particularly leaders) would react to these new technologies and first-contact with an advanced alien civilization. I found this section enjoyable (if a little cliché), but I would've loved additional world-building that truly brought these visitors, their culture, and civilization to life. I also would've loved more discussion on how humanity in general reacted versus just leadership and media.

Overall, "Silicon Galaxy" largely achieves in blending two very different types of books into one. One grievance that I sustained throughout the entire novel was the lack of contractions in conversational dialog. This made many conversations sound robotic and artificial, and doesn't reflect how native English speakers actually speak. I'm sure this is exacerbated by the format of an audiobook.

The performance is high quality and easily understandable. I did at one point hear a phone go off in the background of the recording (I had to replay that section to make sure), but this isn't large enough of an issue to subtract a star.

Overall: 4/5
Performance: 5/5
Story: 3.5/5