The Genesis Code

Interesting Concepts, Good Story, Painfully Slow Narration

Review by: The Audiobook ReviewThe Genesis Code by Lisa von Biela is one of those books that gets let down a lot by the narrator choice. The narrator, Daniel Dorse, is no doubt good at what he does, but his pace was painfully slow and almost monotone throughout.

The story itself is solid. At first, I was reminded of one I'd read years ago by Max Barry called Company where the company was a shell designed to experiment on its employees for the purposes of writing business guides (if I recall correctly, it's been a while). So I grabbed as I enjoyed the concept of employees being treated as unwitting experiments.

Mark Weston, our protagonist, joins OneMarket - a global leader in finance markets known for expecting the metaphorical blood out of stone from its employees but rewarding those who can hack it.

At the same time, the CEO on OneMarket Simon Harris has just bought out a small tech startup with technology promising direct mind uploads to help employees. Imagine how much time they could save if they didn't have to spend time learning stuff. A quick implant later and all the knowledge they needed could be uploaded so they could hit the ground running.

Of course, that level of brain control is open for abuse... and experimental technology isn't without its side effects.

As things go wrong and Weston's world starts to crumble the stakes get ratcheted up a notch and this technothriller shines in it's dark, cynical way.

But! As I said right at the top, the narration of this was to slow for my liking. I had to jump to 1.5x speed otherwise I would have given up during the first chapter. A shame as I felt I was skipping through rather than getting to savour it.

I picked up on a few minor technical issues here and there too. A couple of repeats and the odd background noise in the recording pulled me out o the flow. Regular enough to comment on.

All up, decent story but could use a different narrator.

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I was given this audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review. I have not let this gift affect nor influence my opinions of this audiobook and have left an honest review.