Thanks Netgalley for the ARC. I thought this book's concept was extremely high-concept and hook-y. I liked the blending of Ready Player One and The Truman Show and the dystopian/utopian world. I do wish Mission's character had a bit more agency/depth and that Asher had more of a relationship with her in the beginning rather than just obsessing over watching her like everyone else. It's just not a great dynamic. I liked other elements of this book though.

this was a really enjoyable read, the characters were great and I enjoyed the plot that was going on in this book.

Asher Reinhart lives in “High Earth”, a high tech world where a personal assistant robot monitors your health via a wristband and your life is lived through virtual reality. Humans no longer have face-to face interactions, but meet in virtual cafés and binge on reality tv. Asher is a director for the most popular reality tv show in High Earth called Ignis: Live. Ignis: Live follows real people on an Interstellar Ark headed for Mars. While watching and directing the feeds for years, Asher falls in love with one of the main characters of Ignis: Live. When Asher breaks the rules, he sets off a series of consequences that lead him on a journey that will change the trajectory for the people of High Earth and those living on the Ark.

I loved the concept of ‘Vicarious’. The premise immediately hooked me. I also liked the characters of Asher and Mission. The dichotomy of their two lives was interesting to read. However, I thought it was quite tough to understand. I found that when the author was trying to describe the Ark (what it looked like and how it worked) the description was very confusing. When something doesn’t exist in real life, the author has to go above and beyond in detail and make sure the audience (who has no reference for the object) can picture what you writing in their mind. Another thing that left me wanting more was the ending. To me it fell flat. The entire book was Asher working to free Mission from the Ark and for him to end up in the Ark with no memory felt unsatisfying.

Just wasn't for me. I wish it was, but I couldn't get into it. I wish I could, but it just wasn't.... good?

Vicarious is the story of two Dystopias posing as Utopias.

Asher Reinhart is born at age 10, after spending the first ten years in a cryogenic chamber acquiring the learning that will help him through life. The setting is a haven called High Earth, the only habitable portion of land left on earth in the 23rd century after a flood destroyed the earth and a war, brought on by a techno-revolution, wiped out nearly all the humanity in the solar system.

In this new world, technology has made life so full of technological developments that one need never leave one’s smart dwelling. Not even for exercise, and certainly not to earn a living. It might seem like a dream-come-true for some, but within it, one gets an uneasy feeling as of a nightmare waiting to unfold.

In this world, digital entertainment, in terms of virtual reality, is everything. The most popular show is Ignis: Live, a reality show where human beings living on an interstellar ark are made to do extreme things, unaware that they are being filmed through tens of thousands of tiny advanced cameras hidden all over the ark.

When Asher is born, the first visuals he sees on the walls of his dwelling are those of Mission, a young girl, as old as him. Asher begins to watch Mission, to follow her life. He comes to know that Mission’s birth was as a result of what her Birthmother calls a “freak accident” while all the other births on Ignis are a result of the Birthmothers being assigned to give birth by the Collective.

The Collective is the force to fear. Falling in love and procreating are taboo, unless done with the permission of the Collective with the assigned person. Those caught breaking the rule are punished by being expelled into the void of space. Mission’s Birthmother hides her away under the floorboards because hers wasn’t an assigned birth.

Fifteen years later, 25-year-old Mission is chosen to be a BirthMother, and assigned to procreate with a member of the Collective, a man in his forties. For the 50th anniversary of the show, Craig Helix, the develop, decides to endanger Mission's life in order to boost show ratings. Asher, who is Chief Director of Content for the show, cannot get over his feelings for Mission, who is learning the perils of disobeying the Collective. Hé decides to influence the show. It is an action that has unimaginable consequences for both of them.



Slowly the structure and hierarchy of this new world becomes apparent to us. The people of Ignis think that the ark is on its way to a distant planet. Until they get there, resources must be optimised, and so the population must be kept in check. Only 10000 people to ensure that there is no strain on the resources.



I don’t usually read sci-fi, and this one took some getting used to.

The viewpoint shifts seamlessly from Asher’s first person past tense to Mission’s third person past tense account. The choice of perspective is appropriate, given that Asher is watching her, while she has no idea that she and her fellow residents are being watched.



There is a streak of rebellion in Mission, in complete contrast to Asher, who falls in line with the rules of his new world without questioning it. At least in the beginning.

Still I liked Asher as a character far more than Mission. I liked Mission only when she declaimed, Countless perfect-looking people wandering aimlessly around in a perfect city in a perfect world. I’d rather have been under the floor.

Both are very emotional, and complete misfits in the world they find themselves in.



A projected Utopia, Ignis is decidedly dystopian from the viewpoint of Mission, who lives it. High Earth is no different. On High Earth, residents are called to enjoy the fruits of technology and entertainment without questioning anything. Those that do are sent to the terrible outskirts.

I loved the author’s worldbuilding. As a world, the details are interesting and intriguing. The amount of detail that the author has put into conjuring up this world is astounding.

On High Earth, the invention of the molecular re-assembly has made war, struggle, the need for family, exploration, and so much more obsolete. Technology enables selective memories to be wiped out. Data is the currency. Family is an outdated concept. Residents spend their early formative years in a synth-womb from which they emerge at age 10 or later, with an artificial intelligence, VORA, for company.

On Ignis, food is slop made of blended bugs and flora. Birthmothers must mate with the partner selected for them.

There was just one error. In Chapter 20, Virgil suddenly turned into Virgo.

Beneath it all, there are lessons that we can learn. Vicarious is a morality tale that warns us about the perils of humans attempting to play God, about the over-reliance on technology and a call to simplicity, about the need to be ourselves in a world in which it is so easy to pretend to be something else and about the beauty of the earth and the significance of humanity amid the chaos. This was a worthwhile read in the pandemic.

I was intrigued by the premise here - combining the predatory nature of reality television with a dystopian reality. My feelings for the book on the whole are a bit mixed. At turns it was utterly charming; other times it was obvious and tiresome. Bruno explains just enough of the world's structure for us to accept most of the plot developments without going into excessive detail. Over-explaining can destroy a novel. So too, though, can indulging in too many side plots. And that's the failing here. There are too many complications, too many side obsessions. As the book wore on I became more interested in speculating on what drove odd character behavior than in where the plot was actually headed.

A mixed bag.

Asher Reinhart, a young man and one of the two main POVs, is born into a post-apocalyptic world where not much inhabitable space is left and people spend most of their time in VR and are obsessed with several entertainment programs. The most popular of those being "Ignis: Live", a reality tv show that is set on an asteroid turned spaceship that is orbiting Earth. While its inhabitants actually believe they have left the blue marble behind for good and are on their way to the Tau Ceti system for about half a century.

Asher is the chief director of the show and is obsessed with its star, a young woman called Mission who is the second main POV of this book. Mission is chosen to become a birthmother in a world that has placed strict limitations on reproduction, for obvious reasons, but is someone who herself was born illegally. Asher’s obsession with her starts to interfere with his job and threatens to reveal Ignis’ real purpose to its inhabitants.

I thought this premise was quite interesting and it, along with the mostly good world-building, carries the book for about half its length. Unfortunately, characterization is a clear weak point and there is just not enough plot to justify this being 400+ pages long.

The characters and the writing are the main reasons I can’t rate this higher. In the beginning I thought that Asher was just somewhat unlikeable, but problems are adding up in his arc. His and other characters’ motivations and actions are often either immature, not believable, only benefitting the plot’s progression instead of being in line with the actual character’s personality, or – especially in the last 25% of the book – are just plain stupid. Mission on the other hand is a rather bland character. She’s only special because the author is telling us that she is. I don’t see why Asher, and the whole world basically, would become obsessed with her.

The last quarter of the book almost brought my rating down even further, because of extensive eye-rolling. But I think there are enough parts here that warrant a two-star rating. It feels like a missed opportunity, though.

ARC provided by NetGalley.
I usually don't read sci-fi books but this one seemed very interesting.
Unfortunately, I wasn't 100% into the story and at the begging it was hard for me to focus and put the pieces of the story all together.
However, the plot and the concept is really good!
If you love sci-fi and distopia this one is definitely for you !!

Firstly, I want to say thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!

The Truman Show meets Ready Player One in this futuristic sci-fi novel. Asher Reinhart, chief director of cameras on the most favored show, Ignis: Live!, lives for and loves his job, but how far is he willing to go to save the show's main character and reality star, Mission-14103?

I never read the synopsis before starting a book, so this entire premise intrigued me from the beginning. It immediately reminded me of The Truman Show, which I've loved for a while.

I found plenty of points to put the book down, which wasn't inherently a bad thing. It made reading the next day easy. Shifting between Asher and Mission's POV was also very obvious and easy to follow, which I loved! Asher's character development and thought processes were amazing to follow and I enjoyed his story a lot.

The only reason this wasn't a five star read for me was because of the ending. I personally wasn't a fan of the way things happened, but it wasn't necessarily bad either! I would have preferred it to have happened a little cleaner, with more ends tied up, but it wasn't open ended.

I teared up in one spot, which usually signals to me a great read. I appreciated this book & the wonders it did for my reading slump, and I am eager to purchase it for my collection upon release day!

I received a free copy of this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Vicarious combines all the best aspects of a tech-dystopia and space opera into something new, fresh, and unique. I was captivated by Bruno's take on the evolution of society on both High Earth and Ignis and would highly recommend this book to anyone who loves sci-fi.

Asher wakes up in High Earth, an apparent utopia built on the remains of a derelict Earth. But as you read on, you notice cracks in the utopia - residents have wrist bands that deliver meds to flatten out anxiety or other extreme emotions, preventing authentic experiences. This is a world of VR and streaming shows. "I had very little concept of how it felt to lie still for five minutes, or even an hour, with no content to watch or VRs to engage in," Asher later says. Asher never leaves his apartment because VR gives him everything he needs in his apartment. With all needs provided for, data is the coin of the realm. There are no network gatekeepers but instead the show budgets come from data donations from fans.. This is a cool idea that reminds me of relegation and promotion between soccer leagues in Europe compared to the monopoly that major league baseball has in the US. In Europe, anyone can start a soccer team and it needs to play well to move up to better and better leagues while in the US there are a set number of teams.in one league.

The marketing blurb for this book references The Truman Show, a movie about a TV reality show where the star doesn't know they are in a reality show, but everyone around him does. The show Asher is obsessed with and works on, Ignis: Live, is about thousands of people who think they are on a colony ship but are really just orbiting the Earth. While The Truman Show messed with the mind of one person but never put him in physical jeopardy. Ignis: Live is a much more dystopian version that lets draconian punishments be meted out and creates situations that puts scores of people at risk to get ratings..

The book starts slowly in a disappointing way.. There is an overly long description of Asher waking up which seems repetitive without grabbing my interest. It reminds me of the "another author" test, which I won't think about in a well written and edited book, but this makes me wonder how much better this introduction would be if written by John Scalzi or William Gibson but also - would this idea be good enough to be written by one of those authors? Usually, if a book is engaging enough, you aren't thinking about how much better it would be written by someone else..

There is a lot of good stuff here, but the book is over 400 pages and should have been cut drastically. I usually plow through books quickly, but this book took me weeks to read. There were a few speed bumps that slowed my reading of this book, but finally at half way through it started getting interesting. At that point you realize the author isn't afraid of drastically mixing up where the characters are in an interesting way. I just wish we had gotten to that point quicker.

I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

In the future on what remains of Earth, now called High Earth, where data is currency and entertainment is everything, Asher is a content director of Ignis: Live. It is a reality show where people on an interstellar ark are supposed to be the last of humanity. Mission who was born there in secret has now turned of age to receive her Birthmother assignment, not knowing she is on a show.

When Mission is put in danger, Asher has to decide if he should help the girl he's been watching all his life or jeopardize the show that has been his life.

This is such a cool premise. The intrigue is naturally potent due to the Truman show aspect of Mission's reality and the mystery of who knows what. A melancholy of loneliness threads through the narrative and a strictness permeates the atmosphere of both worlds.

The worldbuilding is a feat in itself, with every little detail thought out and so creative, making it so believable. Also that the author has practically created 2 worlds, one of the futuristic High Earth and one of the Ignis. The contrast adds to the emotional depth. The anticipated clash between the 2 worlds and the hope of the protagonists actually meeting adds to the excitement.

It's ironic that the less advanced Ignis does not have the great divide between the haves and have nots the technological wonder of High Earth does. Makes us think of the direction in which humanity seems to be heading and what we should do about it.

Both protagonists have the feeling of not really belonging. Everyone needs human connection in whatever form, even an introvert like Asher. Everyone can and needs to love.

A little too slow at certain points in the first half of the book, in my opinion the superior second half was tighter. There was so much info to absorb that it did get overwhelming at parts, but it was always interesting.

The story presents moral ambiguities concerning the use of technology. It also poses the question of how far should entertainment be able to go to be successful. A testament to the power of love and human resilience. A query into what is real when it comes to life, when it comes to feelings.

Suspenseful and full of jaw-dropping surprises and revelations, you will never predict what happens at the author gifts us with an engrossing turn of events. Everything is turned on its head. leading to an unbelievable finale. Sequel anyone?

Although the blurb might have you thinking about reality TV and The Truman Show, early on this book put me in mind of one of the underrated classics of science-fiction: Non-Stop (published in the US as Starship) by Brian W. Aldiss. As Vicarious developed, however, it unfolded into a much more complex and dare I say more interesting story than the one Aldiss told 62 years ago. It also reminded me somewhat of Wool -- which is a doubly-appropriate comparison given the notability at the time of Hugh Howey self-publishing it (Vicarious is published by Aethon Books, of which Bruno is a co-owner) -- and although it's not as tightly written as the original "Wool" short story, Vicarious certainly does not suffer by the comparison. The last comparison I'll make is to Ready Player One, and here I'll say that where Ernest Cline went primarily for a retro kitsch appeal to Gen-Xers who look back fondly on the pop culture of the 1980s, Bruno has gone full steam ahead in envisioning a new world set hundreds of years in the future. Again in this comparison, Vicarious comes out on top.

I don't give 5-star reviews often or easily, but from beginning to end this book did not let up and it did not disappoint. I had in mind that I would say that Vicarious is Rhett Bruno writing at the top of his game, but he could have something better still in store for us next, so instead I'll close by saying this is a damn good work of science fiction that I would not hesitate to put up against any of the science fiction "grand masters".

I loved this! Such a clever story, full of feeling, awe, hatred, empathy, pain, you name it, and wonderfully painted descriptions.

THIS IS REALITY TV. Everything is so believable that it could happen right now... This is advertised as "The 100" meets "The Truman Show". I disliked "The 100" immensely, and it's not much like "Truman" either. This is far better than both of these.

The 10,000 people on the ship Ignis believe that they are the last of humanity and are travelling to a new, safer, home. Their rules are hard and fast, and death awaits those who choose to defy them. Life on board has been balanced to a number for generations. Ignis is an Ark going nowhere. "Ignis: Live" is one of the most popular reality shows, watched by everyone on High Earth (the only safe area, where life is perfect and easy, and our main character is a volunteer in his job) and The Outskirts (outwith High Earth, where the filthy poor and rule breakers live. The majority are virtual reality addicts and will sell their soul to get a fix).

I loved getting to know the characters, their personalities (or lack of), and the distinctly different locations. It's a powerful story on a parallel with the modern-day obsession of constant reality TV entertainment. I thoroughly enjoyed this work and will read more by Mr Bruno in the future. Just one thing more to say. I think this would make a fantastic series.

I chose to voluntarily read a complimentary copy of this work via NetGalley, which I then honestly reviewed. All opinions are my own.

This novel is set in a dystopian future where the polar icecaps have melted with only a small inhabitable landmass. On this land is a city called High Earth. Asher Reinhart lives in a perfect, safe city where he works on a TV show called Ignis: Live which follows a real 10 000 person crew that believes they are traveling to a new star to continue humanity. Asher eventually realizes his life isn’t as perfect as he initially thought as tries to change it.

My favorite part of the novel was the settings. There are three primary locations that are varied, unique and I could easily get lost in them. Ignis (the ship) was harsh with strict rules that could often lead to death, however there was genuine hope there too. High Earth was cold, sterile yet safe. The Outskirts (inhabitations outside the High Earth) were dirty, poor and addicted to finding ways to experience VR at any cost (commentary on our media addicted lifestyles today?). They all hit me in different ways as Ignis was dangerous but people actually had hope in the future. The Outskirts reminded me of people who are glued to social media or TV shows. And High Earth residents weren’t really living and instead were just functioning as they didn’t have anything to achieve or fight for (no goals).

The characters were good but this wasn’t the strongest element in the novel. Asher was well written but I found his motivation a little underwhelming. Mission was the stronger character as she was better written with more complex personality.

The conclusion was great, especially when Craig Helix l realizes what is happening and how that will affect him. I loved seeing his empire fall.

Overall a great dystopian novel by one of my favorite authors. A must read for fans.

Thank you to NetGalley and Aethon Books for the ARC

Thank you to Netgalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book had such a promising plot, but unfortunately the storytelling fell flat for me. The characters were uninspiring and the writing unimpressive.

Unfortunately, this book was not for me, but I'm sure many would enjoy it.

Big Brother and Ready Player One blend into one.

I really like the world-building in this book. The author explains it in a very detailed way. It really helps to understand the whole set but it somehow makes me bored because of all of the info-dumping in the 1/3 of the book. I don't know maybe I don't read many sci-fi books. But it definitely gets better when the conflict is finally there.

I have so much trouble with the idea of Ignis:Live, a reality show that kept people under a ship (or in this case asteroid) without them knowing that they're being watched and there are cameras in every single place, recording in every single angle, even the most private places, and their intimate moments. But that's the whole point of this book. The male main character, Asher finally realized that there is something wrong with the whole situation. Human beings "treated" like animals in a zoo.

It still bugged me though with the way Asher fall in love with Mission, one of the inhabitants of Ignis. For me, it's more like an obsession rather than love. Even though he did a heroic thing for her in the end.

The whole premise is so good, and I could picture it as a tv series.

❗Thank you to the publisher for giving me the ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review❗

I rally enjoyed the author’s Titan series, but this is the second book in a row that I found disappointing (the other is The Roach). It could be that the subject matter and the way it is presented is meant for a younger generation. I found the concept of the book interesting, but the writing style did not resonate with me. Other reviewers have presented a mixed bag on this book. I an still deciding if I will attempt to ready anymore by this author.

I received a free Kindle copy of this book courtesy of Net Galley and the publisher with the understanding that I would post a review on Net Galley, Goodreads, Amazon and my nonfiction book review blog. I also posted it to my Facebook page.

This is a good book. I really enjoyed it and how it moved along at a great pace. The characters are well developed and the story is packed with action and adventure. The authors do a great job delivering a story with a solid plot and interesting subplots. Will look forward to the next book in the series to continue to follow the characters. Left the reader with somewhat of a cliffhanger, so hope it won't be too long for the next one!!

Thank you netgalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
I love futuristic, post apocalyptic novels so I was especially intrigued by the summary of this novel. Unfortunately, it did not meet my expectations. We are thrown into a new age world with virtual computerized companions, confused and unreliable characters and a story that is so ingrossed in its world building that it neglects character building. I could not connect with the plot or characters. A disappointment.