MAJOR SPOILERS
After 9 hours of struggling toward their goal and dodging the big bad trying to kill them, the main character suddenly sides with the bad guy- Betraying his partner and hiding the truth from humanity. Because it’s the Christian thing to do or something? Idk, it really comes out of nowhere. I told a Christian friend about it and they said it sounds worse than one of those Christian B movies.
Beyond that, you spend 4 hours waiting for the main characters to meet, then 5 hours wondering why the all powerful creator trying to kill them is so hilariously bad at his job. There’s no mystery in what they’re going to find, “… that reality is simulated, and that ‘God’ is a coder with a grudge.” The book cover tells you. It’s just a long, long wait.
One star off the narration too because when the “bad guy narrator” is speaking, you can’t tell the two guys apart.
Also all the NPC stuff is pointless. I get that the programmer had a breakdown from running over a kid, but his “5 levels of NPC” obsession is never explained. In the end it turns out there are no NPCs, so… Thanks for hours of smug rants about it I guess?
In context, the whole story’s kind of moot anyway. Not just because the priest undid everything, either. Soon the brain implant tech will be widespread, recording millions of people’s last moments and letting them all hack the matrix, once more becoming gods. If “the alpha and omega” couldn’t stop a fat nerd with a shotgun, he can’t stop millions of scientists determined to make the world a better place.
Thank God that traitorous priest didn’t actually set us back much.