Great Premise, terrible execution

What would have made The Punch Escrow better?

A less dumb/pompous protagonist. The protagonist is hard to like.

What was most disappointing about Tal M. Klein’s story?

Too many $5 adjectives. Klein over describes everything. Simple scenes drag on for minutes because Klien has to describe everything in excruciating, unnecessary detail.

What about Matthew Mercer’s performance did you like?

Great voicework. All the characters are distinctive. There were intermittent dead air spots that made me think my player had stopped.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

I really wanted to like it. Time Travel/ teleportation stories are my thing, but I just couldn't get past the presentation of this one.

Any additional comments?

I don't know if Audible sorts higher rated reviews to the top of the page but I probably wouldn't have bought this if I had read some of the 2 &3 star reviews lower down that pointed out all the things that annoyed me about this story.

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188 people found this helpful

Terrible execution of an interesting idea.

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

No. The dialogue is exhaustively repetitive. The narration is way too informal and simplistic. Obviously the point is that a normal guy gets caught up in a high tech sci fi storyline - but he is obviously an intelligent person so his stupidity and rumination on details that are really not important are boring. The characters are not well developed. The potential climaxes or thrills this book could have are bogged down by terrible dialogue and characters.

His wife's character should have been one of the most interesting - but the author fails to elaborate on her backstory as much as he should have (as her actions create the course of the entire book). The "bad guys" in the book are just simplistic tropes. In the middle of action scenes that could be exciting, the author goes on random tangents that are entirely unhelpful and distracting.

The premise of the book is so interesting, but the execution is just terrible.

If you liked Dark Matter or the Martian do not listen/read this book. It will severely disappoint.

What does Matthew Mercer bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

He gets the sarcasm the main character has, which is probably the only interesting part of the main character. So the book would have been even worse had that characteristic not been drawn out.

Was The Punch Escrow worth the listening time?

No. The characters were one dimensional. It was unpredictable but in an unintelligible way. The action scenes could have been so much better but were bogged down by unnecessary detail and possible the worst analogies/metaphors/similes I have ever listened to.

I cannot tell you how many times I rolled my eyes.

Any additional comments?

The only reason I listened to the whole book is to see if it would ever get better and it didn't. I am holding back rolling my eyes as I am writing this review. Literally I audibly sighed out of exasperation and rolled my eyes so much while listening to this I am sure other commuters were concerned for my well being.

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56 people found this helpful

Difficult To Suspend Disbelief

A nice story but so riddled with logical errors that it becomes difficult to suspend my disbelief.

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49 people found this helpful

Shallow treatment of teleportation

What would have made The Punch Escrow better?

A deeper discussion on the issues that result from teleportation as they describe it. Basically, the book is an action novel with teleportation as the background theme. The characters learn about "the secret behind teleportation", which should make them not teleport ever again... but they do! Also, characters kept discussing who is the original one, when none of them are! is it just that the character is supposed to be dumb?

Would you ever listen to anything by Tal M. Klein again?

Hard to say "never". But I'll think about it twice next time :)

Which scene was your favorite?

Coming out of the Punch Escrow for first time. The novel was getting super interesting at that point, and then it's all downhill from there

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

disappointment

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40 people found this helpful

Sci-fi that makes you think

It is the year 2147, and the safest way of transportation is teletransporting. There are some religious fanatics trying to boycott this since they believe teletransportation is killing people. Joel Byron works training AI's to make them more 'human'. His marriage is in danger, so Joel and his wife plan a trip to Costa Rica. During the teletransportation there is a terrorist attack and something fails when it is Joel's turn, resulting in him remaining in the the departing room... but there is also a copy of himself that appeared in Costa Rica. After the incident, the transport company is trying to kill Joel, but why? And is this related to his wife's job, since she is working for the transport company?

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! This is one of those sci-fi books that makes you think and will stay with you for a while after it is finished. What is it that makes us human? Is cloning or duplicating a way of creating human beings or just an aberration? These and other related questions popped in my head while listening to this book, after seeing the implications involved in the teletransporting proposed by Klein.

The book is written in first person, from the point of view of Joel, the one who stayed at NY, and the one who first realizes that he is being chased by the transport company. It is written as a memoir, in which he relates what happens to him and where he puzzles together the events affecting the other characters. Apart from Joel, the characters are not fully developed, but as he is talking to us, it is easy to connect to him and understand his actions and motivations. Due to his job, which I found amazing, he will try to trick some AI's in his way to try to save his wife and reach his doppelganger.

The narration was very well done, and I especially enjoyed Matthew Mercer's singingof Karma Chamaleon, so much that I found myself singing along at the top of my lungs. Mercer really became Joel Byron and delivered impressive character interpretations. He gave different voices, accents, and styles to all the characters in the book. I had a small issue though, with one of the characters and his wife Costa Rica, since both sounded quite similar to me (same accent and similar tone). Since the husband's voice was supposed to be electronic, a subtle sound effect would have helped here. For the rest it was a top notch narration, with a spotless audio production.

I genuinely loved this book, the ideas behind, and its execution. I think the innumerable hypothesis that sci-fi makes possible are a great way of exploring, experimenting, and make us think t of the box. Whenever a book makes me think twice I consider it a success.

I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Tal M. Klein. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.

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23 people found this helpful

Hard to Finish

I sped throgh the second half at 2x speed. The protagonists were shocked and horrified by supposed ethical dilemmas which shouldn’t have been shocking or horrifying to people in their day and age.

Good narration, but the story and characters were frustratingly dumb.

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17 people found this helpful

The future is fast.

Excellent book, and worth it even if you've already read/listened to Dark Matter, which covers very similar issues and themes. The main protagonist was compelling, as are some of the antagonists. Future technology is written about in a convincing, and relevant, non-intrusive way. Whereas Dark Matter was uniformly dark, however, this had its moments of levity, although they were still too few in number. Sylvia's character, however, was drawn too shallowly, and unnecessarily so. I look forward to this author's next book! (This is for the Audible version.)

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17 people found this helpful

Blown away by this book

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes. I like science fiction books that are grounded in semi-reality. This is one of those.. It's futuristic, but not so far fetched that it's not believable.

Did the plot keep you on the edge of your seat? How?

Characters are believable and likable, keeps your reading just to see what happens next.

Which character – as performed by Matthew Mercer – was your favorite?

Matthew's reading is awesome. I've listened to audio books that just don't fit the character, but his reading is spot-on

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes. I was planning on listening to an hour of it when I started reading it, but ended up listening to the first 16 chapters in one setting!

Any additional comments?

A refreshing book by a new author that I had never heard of before. Will definately be looking out for more books by Tal Klein.

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13 people found this helpful

Well this is Flawless

What made the experience of listening to The Punch Escrow the most enjoyable?

Matthew Mercer is a genius voice actor. He breathes life into every character with his voices. Him reading words strung together in beautiful sentences is an experience that is almost too good for this world.

Did the plot keep you on the edge of your seat? How?

Look. No one will watch movies with me anymore because I have the (admittedly terrible) habit of going "That one's gonna die. Those two are gonna get married. That shoe is going to be part of the MacGuyver solution executed by that character at the climax, thus saving the day."

I could not do that with this book. You meet Joel. Joel has a problem. Within a few minutes of (assuming) I knew the circumstances, I said "This, surely, is what will happen."

I can assure you: This did not happen. And This not happening happens so rarely that books where This doesn't happen become actual treasures in my life.

Have you listened to any of Matthew Mercer’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I've never experienced Mercer reading an audiobook, but I play too many games and watch too many cartoons, and I can assure you that this is Mercer at his best. My only regret is that there is no "high noon" joke anywhere. If you know Mercer from Critical Role, some of the voices may be vaguely familiar (my eyes kind of bugged when the not-vaguely-British version of Taryon's dad showed up).

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Guys, I'm like an hour and a half into this book and it's stupid good. I literally only got it because I wanted to see how Mercer does voices in audiobooks, I forgot I had it in my audible library, and then on my run this afternoon I decided to put it on when I finished the last book. IT'S JUST. SO. GOOD. This book pulls off an effortless worldbuilding, casually structuring the world with side-comments that give you just enough and never info-dump you. The main character and his wife, so far, have a wonderful amount of depth to them. The story-within-a-story structure of the narrative that exists right now is on point.

I'll tell you more when I'm further into it.

Any additional comments?

THERE ARE FOOTNOTES. So the effortless worldbuilding I mentioned above? IT GETS EXPANDED ON IN FOOTNOTES Y'ALL. What's genuinely amazing is that you don't need the footnotes. I'm not telling you this because I don't want you to get the audiobook (get the audiobook) -- this worldbuilding is so effortless that you don't need the footnotes. The footnotes offer the sort of infodumping narrative another author might have done but in a much more clever way.

Y'all. This book. It's really good and you should read it. Or listen to it. Or both. Both is good.

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12 people found this helpful

Finished it in one day

Picked it up for Matthew Mercer, Stayed for the amazing story and characters. Very much worth a listen, the story and plot are very compelling and Mercer's range is impeccable.

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12 people found this helpful