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    A Better World
    A Better World
    A Better World
    Audiobook10 hours

    A Better World

    Written by Marcus Sakey

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    The brilliants changed everything. Since 1980, one percent of the world has been born with gifts we’d only dreamed of. The ability to sense a person’s most intimate secrets, or predict the stock market, or move virtually unseen. For thirty years the world has struggled with a growing divide between the exceptional…and the rest of us.

    Now a terrorist network led by brilliants has crippled three cities. Supermarket shelves stand empty. 911 calls go unanswered. Fanatics are burning people alive.

    Nick Cooper has always fought to make the world better for his children. As both a brilliant and an advisor to the president of the United States, he’s against everything the terrorists represent. But as America slides toward a devastating civil war, Cooper is forced to play a game he dares not lose—because his opponents have their own vision of a better world.

    And to reach it, they’re willing to burn this one down.

    From Marcus Sakey, “the master of the mindful page turner” (Gillian Flynn) and “one of our best storytellers” (Michael Connelly), Book Two of the Brilliance Saga is a relentless thrill ride that will change the way you look at your world—and the people around you.

    “The kind of story you’ve never read before.” —Lee Child, New York Times bestselling author of the Jack Reacher Series

    “Ridiculously good. I love this story so much.” —Gillian Flynn, New York Times bestselling author of Gone Girl

    “Simply put, Marcus Sakey's Brilliance saga is awesome.” —Kirkus

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateJun 17, 2014
    ISBN9781491525364
    A Better World
    Author

    Marcus Sakey

    Marcus Sakey’s books have sold more than a million copies and been translated into dozens of languages. He lives in Chicago with his wife and daughter. For more information, visit www.MarcusSakey.com.

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    Reviews for A Better World

    4/5

    183 ratings16 reviews

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    • 4/5
      To say I'm not normally a fan of series, I'm really getting into this one! Great read, very fast paced but also encourages a lot of 'what if' thinking.
    • 3/5
      "A Better World" picks up a few weeks after the end of "Brilliance". While this book would probably work as a standalone, it will make a lot more sense if you read "Brilliance" first. Important events in the first book are described in this book, but in a fragmented manner. While I enjoyed this book, I liked the first one more. It raised interesting issues that aren't really advanced in the second book.Nick Cooper, the brilliant who works for the government, is still trying to save the world, pretty much single-handedly except when his brilliant girlfriend Shannon miraculously appears to save the day. It's not a spoiler to say that Nick does not save the world in either of the first two books. That's a problem with trilogies. You know that nothing will be resolved until the third book. As the second book of a trilogy, this one is almost a placeholder. I am sorry that this is a trilogy because, while I want to know how it turns out, I am sort of dreading having to read the third book. I am sure that the various brilliant and normal factions will continue tricking and manipulating and killing each other. One new lesson to be learned from this book, however, is that we should be very careful who we elect as vice president. Make sure it's someone who has the guts to fire cabinet members. One of my personal issues with these books is that I loathe Shannon. I don't care whether her complaints are justified, I keep hoping a government agent puts a bullet in her smug head. I am tired of the Nick/Shannon/Natalie love triangle. It's not a huge part of the books, but it annoys me. Since I already have the third book, I will probably read it, but I'm hoping the next book restores my enthusiasm. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
    • 3/5
      A Better World, The Brilliance Trilogy, Book 2 by Marcus Sakey is a stand alone book. I read Brilliance & found it an exhilarating five star book. As entertaining as the first Book of The Brilliance was, I found Book 2 disappointing. I gave it three stars.There were a few twists that I found interesting, but overall, the characters were shallowly developed & the pace slow. I would like to thank the publisher, Thomas & Mercer & NetGalley for the complimentary kindle copy in exchange for a fair review. That did not influence my opinion for this review. I wish I could have given it a resounding recommendation but simply couldn’t.
    • 4/5
      It is a bit more action oriented than the first in the series. No mystery-detecting in this one. Just a straight forward go-get-em. It was good. I will read the next in the series, for sure.
    • 3/5
      Ok, but the first book in this trilogy tied together the stoty- line with the special talents/skills! The skills were relevant to thestory; that was lacking in this book in my view. The plot was abit jumbled; but i didfinish it!
    • 4/5
      Since 1980 one percent of the population has been born with special gifts. These abilities have created a divide among society with a faction of gifted who are terrorizing the nation. Nick Cooper, now advisor to the President, is one of the gifted but he has sought to fight for a world of unity.
    • 5/5
      Nick Cooper, former Department of Analysis and Response agent with the Equitable Response Unit, continues his “save the world” quest, hoping to stop the coming war between the brilliants and the normals. His efforts have unexpectedly landed him in the position of advisor to the president of the United States; unfortunately, the situation is rapidly deteriorating and chaos has become the order of the day. But suppose a way existed for the normal to become a brilliant? Could that gift change the world for the better?New characters seamlessly fold into the existing narrative as the frenzied pace of the story keeps the pages turning. The continuing conflict between the two groups, fueled by behind-the-scenes maneuvering for individual gain, ramps up the suspense and keeps the pages turning. Readers will find the complexities of the conflict make it difficult to set this book aside before the final reveal [and a cliffhanger to be resolved in the third book of the trilogy].Readers should note that “A Better World” is the second book in a trilogy; the first volume is “Brilliance” and the final volume is “Written in Fire.” Highly recommended.
    • 5/5
      A strong second part to this trilogy about the challenges that occur when 1% of the population is born with special gifts. As the tensions between Brilliants and Normals rise, Nick Cooper finds himself working for the President of the US to try to prevent war from breaking out. Another fact-paced story with lots of action.
    • 5/5
      A Better World by Marcus Sakey is the very highly recommended and highly anticipated second book in the planned trilogy of the Brilliance Saga series.

      In A Better World the tension between Norms and Brilliants has escalated to a breaking point. The government is planning to implant a tracking device in every "abnorm"or Brilliant in America. "They talked about the tagging that was slated to begin next summer, the government’s plan to implant a tracking device against the carotid artery of every abnorm in America. Starting with tier ones like Shannon. Like himself. Near as anyone could figure, the abnorm phenomenon started in early 1980, though it wasn’t detected until 1986, when scientific study revealed that for unknown reasons, one percent of all children were born 'brilliant,' possessed of savant abilities. These gifts manifested in different ways; most were impressive but unthreatening, like the ability to multiply large numbers or perfectly play a song heard only once. Others were world-shifting." Location 138

      The reaction to the prejudice breaking out in the political realm is reflected clearly in a subversive group who calls themselves The Children of Darwin. The Children of Darwin are coming close to declaring an all-out civil war and they are making their point by burning truckers alive in an effort to stop all supplies from entering three cities. They are essentially cutting the cities off and starving the citizens.

      Nick Cooper is a Brilliant who is an adviser working for President Lionel Clay. Nick is trying to fight the subversive group from within the government. He just wants to secure a better, safer world for his family, but as in any effort of this magnitude political intrigue and subterfuge abound. Clearly the efforts of several of the characters place a target on them. Promises to protect brilliants have resulted in enslavement and gross abuse.

      Sakey also introduces several other characters in this complicated in-depth plot. This truly is an action-packed plot that also contains several twists and turns. The timely, poignant focus on the pitting of groups against each other seems appropriate in today's political climate. The characters are all wonderfully developed and complex. The writing is superb.

      For those who haven't read Brilliant, you probably will want to before reading this second book in the planned triliogy, but, truth be told, you don't need to read Brilliant in order to enjoy A Better World. I have Brilliant and hadn't read it yet (shhhhh...). I was planning to wait and read all three installments of the story after the third book was out. Once I received an advance reader's copy of A Better World, time constraints had me forging ahead and reading it before the first book. I enjoyed it immensely. Sakey provided the entire back story I needed to quickly get up to speed. Do yourself a favor, though, and get both books right away.

      Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Thomas & Mercer via Netgalley for review purposes.
    • 5/5
      I would like to thank Thomas Mercer & NetGalley for an e-book of this story to review. Though I received this e-book for free, that has no impact upon the honesty of my review. Goodreads Teaser: The brilliants changed everything.Since 1980, 1% of the world has been born with gifts we’d only dreamed of. The ability to sense a person’s most intimate secrets, or predict the stock market, or move virtually unseen. For thirty years the world has struggled with a growing divide between the exceptional...and the rest of us.Now a terrorist network led by brilliants has crippled three cities. Supermarket shelves stand empty. 911 calls go unanswered. Fanatics are burning people alive.Nick Cooper has always fought to make the world better for his children. As both a brilliant and an advisor to the president of the United States, he’s against everything the terrorists represent. But as America slides toward a devastating civil war, Cooper is forced to play a game he dares not lose—because his opponents have their own vision of a better world.And to reach it, they’re willing to burn this one down. This stunning sequel manages to raise the already exceptionally high bar set by the first book in the series. We continue to follow Nick Cooper through this engaging story, learning the outcome of his choice to release the damning video that forever changed his point of view about his career, boss, and ultimately his own government. As Nick struggles to come to terms with the direction his world has taken, he is also trying to balance his family life and his growing feelings for The Girl Who Walks Through Walls. Bouncing between Cooper's saga and that of Ethan Park, it seems a sure bet that their two worlds will collide at some point. Ethan is a scientist, a geek who's been working on a project so hush-hush he can't even tell his own wife what he's doing. But when a homegrown terrorist group brings three major cities to their knees in a matter of hours Ethan's world radically changes. Suddenly his non-disclosure agreement doesn't seem so important. Maybe because he and his wife, together with their three month old daughter are running for their lives. The power plays and drama contained in this story are breathtaking. Formerly inscrutable players become clear as glass, while others remain murky at best. And of course at the heart of it all is John Smith. Just who is he? The activist wrongly accused of a crime he didn't commit? A criminal mastermind planning to revolutionize the world? A psychopath marching to his own beat? Or all of the above? It's up to Nick Cooper to figure him out, and Heaven help him if he gets it wrong. Very little of what takes place in this story is calm or mundane. Instead almost everything is supercharged with enough emotional intensity to level several football fields full of people. The ups and downs are part of what make this book so compelling, but again the characters are so well crafted that they are the real powerhouses of the book. Combine the two and you've a recipe for a smash hit!
    • 4/5
      Thought this one was better than the first one even. That's the first time in a long time that I've thought that about a planned trilogy especially one that's got futuristic/sci-fi/thriller elements.

      Character development was good, as was the story arc. This one should please those who've read the first book (Brilliance), but I imagine is equally solid as a standalone.
    • 4/5
      Thought this one was better than the first one even. That's the first time in a long time that I've thought that about a planned trilogy especially one that's got futuristic/sci-fi/thriller elements.

      Character development was good, as was the story arc. This one should please those who've read the first book (Brilliance), but I imagine is equally solid as a standalone.
    • 5/5
      This second book is as good as the first, and that's no minor praise. Sakey is a brilliant writer who creates characters that resonate, that seem very real. So is the world he has created. I am massively frustrated that the next book isn't out yet.
    • 4/5
      This is one of those that really lies on the border of 3½ and 4 stars for me. Like the its predecessor, Brilliance, it's a good blend of thriller and science fiction, with the emphasis on the former. I enjoyed this one even more than the first book, especially in that the characters' motivations made a bit more sense. I"m looking forward to #3.
    • 4/5
      I’ve actually not read the first book of the Brilliance Saga, but was reassured when told I could read A Better World without having to tackle Brilliance first. And that was absolutely correct. Not once did I feel lost or confused, thanks to a detailed recap of prior events in introduction chapters. As a new reader, that’s always appreciated (and I’m sure those familiar with the series might also find the reminders helpful, if it’s been a while since you read book one).Taking place in the not-too-far future, this series is based on the premise that 1% of the population are born as “Brilliants”, individuals who possess special abilities allowing them to do some pretty amazing things. After 30 years, this has created a growing social chasm between these exceptional people and the vast majority who are “norms”. As with the case of most societies where such a divide occurs, you have dissension and a clashing of ideologies. And then you get the violence.Fear has led the government to clamp down on brilliants, leading some of the extremist groups to fight back. A terrorist organization of brilliants called the Children of Darwin have shut down Cleveland, Tulsa, and Fresno, cutting off power and supplies to these cities. Nick Cooper, former anti-terrorism agent and a brilliant himself, has been called in by the president to help stop those responsible and to prevent a civil war. Those who have read Brilliance would already be familiar with Cooper, though I was only meeting him for the first time. As a character, he makes a fascinating study. He’s a brilliant, but also a dedicated to hunting down abnorms involved in terrorist activity. The crimes perpetrated by the Children of Darwin go against everything he stands for, but the methods used by the government for controlling brilliants have also proven questionable, like taking Tier 1 children from their parents and placing them in “academies” which are nothing more than maximum security prison camps and brainwashing facilities. Cooper has realized that the situation isn’t black and white, and has already shifted alliances once. The questions and the indeterminate grey areas continue, and because things are never as they seem, you never know what’s going to happen next. Cooper, who has always believed in doing the right thing, is placed in one moral dilemma after another when he realizes he could be harming more people than he saves.Even good intentions can lead to disastrous consequences, and I think it’s this theme which makes Cooper’s personality easier to take, separating him from the multitudes of do-gooder protagonists from a lot of other books. He first came across as a rather self-righteous and naïve character, but by the end I could hardly fault him, as he goes through a rather rough time learning these difficult lessons. There were several tremendous game-changing developments I hardly saw coming, which just thickens the plot. As tensions between norms and abnorms continue to escalate, and the population in the besieged cities grow ever more desperate, I started to wonder if war really was inevitable. The ending will probably shock you as it did me.There were only a couple issues that took away some of the impact, which I think bears mentioning. In the book, the government was able to mobilize 75,000 troops in a matter of hours to the rural plains of Wyoming, but struggles to find enough manpower to shift and transport food to three mid-sized cities full of starving people even after a week? I don’t know if I buy that. Debating plausibility in a science fiction novel is probably a moot point, but the story still takes a hit in my eyes mainly because the plight of Cleveland plays such a huge role. I also love the idea of brilliants, and the explanations for individual powers are pretty unique, in many basing them on the principles of science and physiology. A woman can become “invisible”, for example, moving unseen simply by being able to predict exactly when and where no one will be looking. A man seemingly moves at super human speeds, but only because he perceives time differently than everyone else, experiencing each one second as slightly more than eleven. In contrast, I wasn’t really clear on what the nature of Cooper’s own gift of “reading intent” was; perhaps it was better explained in the first book, but rather than a brilliant, he really just came across as a regular guy who was extraordinarily bright and perceptive.Otherwise, I thought this was very enjoyable. While jumping on board mid-series might work with this book, it may not be possible for the next. A Better World does end on a pretty serious cliffhanger, and author Marcus Sakey sets us up for big things in book three. I can’t wait to see how things will resolve after that climactic ending.
    • 4/5
      [Cross-posted to Knite Writes]I want to read the next book now…But, no, really, this was definitely an exciting installment of the series. I remember when I got to the end of the first book and found out it was a series, I was furious because I wanted to know the ending right then. This is the sort of story that hits the ground running and never stops. You’ve got assassins and armies and war on the horizon. You’ve got the desperate protagonist running every which way to keep the peace. You’ve got multiple antagonists on opposing sides.This is getting to be a pretty complicated story, and I like it.However, I do have a few criticisms of this installment. First off, a bit too heavy on the multiple POV usage. I really liked the focus on Nick in the first book, and this one veered off in a bunch of different directions, as if Nick’s perspective alone was no longer adequate. I’m not a huge fan of that. If you have a lot of POVs to start out with, okay, but I feel it’s a cheap move to make me feel like the story revolves solely around Nick in one book and then all of sudden it revolves around, like, six people in the next book. I also felt like a lot of the POVs were unnecessary for various reasons — there were scenes that I didn’t belong; they didn’t tell me anything that couldn’t have been written from Nick’s perspective. Somewhat irritating.Also, I felt the beginning of the story was a bit to “recap”-like. I’m not a fan of the straight-up recap. I hate wasting time going over what happened in the previous book. If I want to know what happened in the previous book, I’ll reread the previous book. I don’t need several pages of “a few months ago, blah blah blah happened…” It seems more like the author explaining stuff as opposed to actually telling the story. Again, like the extra POVs, it doesn’t add anything.Issues notwithstanding, the plot of this series is awesome. The stakes were high in book one. Now they’re astronomical, and things are moving quickly toward disaster. So I can’t wait for book three because I want to know how they’re going to get themselves out of this. I have the funniest feeling bad things are going to happen before we reach the resolution._____// DisclosureI received a free ebook copy of this title from Thomas & Mercer via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.