JR has built an amazing multverse. I know the normal term is “world building,” but that term presumes all books are directly interconnected. JR’s cross-story links aren’t as direct as Asimov’s Foundation and Robot series, Niven’s Known Space, or Orson Scott Card’s Enderverse in which all stories are directly interconnected and largely build on each other. That isn’t the case with JR’s books.
NPC is an intriguing addition to the Infinite multiverse model.
it starts with a man who seems like a delusional evil-genius psychotic murdering people because he believes them to be “NPC” (non player characters) in either a simulation or a game.
He is wholly convinced that people are split between “real people” who he imagines have real being outside the simulation, and “NPCs” who he imagines are not “real people” but only “filler” content as you would experience in an MMO game. The main character uses a quantum computer that is loosely described as the most powerful computer in the world to gather information and test his hypothesis regarding reality.
Throughout the book JR does an amazing job of dropping hints that make you flip back and forth between a) thinking the described reality – life is a simulation – is truly how things work, and b) believing that the main character is insane and driven to delusions by a quantum computer AI controlling what he sees and experiences in an augmented reality overlay he cannot distinguish from reality.
The ending is incredibly surprising, and parallels the model JR utilizes as his story-building basis in the Infinite books with its shocking ending. I’m not giving spoilers – you’ll understand when you reach the end of the book if you’ve read at least Infinite.
The story is built around the question of whether the Christian God is real or not. If you’re not religious, and specifically not Christian, the depth of Christian narrative of one of the main characters, around whom the ending centers, may annoy you. It was a wonderful way to deal with the question of reality as a simulation in a rather unique way. Try to bypass any aversion to religion or Christianity you may have, and absorb the story as a “what if” scenario.
My first JR read was Infinite. My second was Infinite 2. I bought and listened to Mind Bullet because I was intrigued by the various stories hinted at in Infinite 2. I was HOOKED. He has built an incredible multi-verse of narrative and loosely interconnected, yet all stand-alone books (besides Infinite/Infinite 2). The multiverse concept comes into focus in Infinite 2 and I won’t spoil that here. I’ve now listented to all books in the series from the first through Infinite 2. I can’t wait to read the remaining few books and branch out into JR’s other unrelated stories!