With multiple story lines in far flung places from Chicago to a tiny island in French Polynesia, Playground is a story of the richness of the ocean, the power of games and play to help humans connect and the reality of AI’s ability to change the entire trajectory of human evolution on earth. Told from the point of view of game designers and artists, oceanographers and poets, Playground dares us to look closely at the things in this life that are worth saving.
Playground is my first book by Richard Powers, and so I did not have any expectations for what kind of experience this would be. The truth is that it completely blew me away. I loved the depth and richness of the storytelling, the ways that different threads were woven together, the way it made me almost close my eyes in wonder at the beauty of our planet and I especially loved the exploration of the wide expanse of human experience and invention. All of this is set up in stark contrast to a possible world in which artificial intelligence has become even more perfectly human than we are, with our faults and frailties.
This is not to say that it was an easy listen all the time, there are a lot of characters and a lot of things to keep straight, but I almost felt like he held my hand all along the way, and I never felt truly lost. Having many different narrators definitely helped and even though the ending required more than the usual amount of brain power, I still finished feeling satisfied and almost spent. This is the sort of book that you want to talk about with someone afterwards.
Playground is my first book by Richard Powers, and so I did not have any expectations for what kind of experience this would be. The truth is that it completely blew me away. I loved the depth and richness of the storytelling, the ways that different threads were woven together, the way it made me almost close my eyes in wonder at the beauty of our planet and I especially loved the exploration of the wide expanse of human experience and invention. All of this is set up in stark contrast to a possible world in which artificial intelligence has become even more perfectly human than we are, with our faults and frailties.
This is not to say that it was an easy listen all the time, there are a lot of characters and a lot of things to keep straight, but I almost felt like he held my hand all along the way, and I never felt truly lost. Having many different narrators definitely helped and even though the ending required more than the usual amount of brain power, I still finished feeling satisfied and almost spent. This is the sort of book that you want to talk about with someone afterwards.
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