What do you think?
Rate this book
Armchair Safari
A frantic chase through the farthest reaches of cyberspace . . .
Armchair Safari is more than a computer game to Oklahoman college student Megan Evans. It’s her livelihood. Her in-game exploits pay for her tuition, rent, and food. She usually plays solo, but when a group approaches her about a chance to find treasure beyond imagining, it’s an offer she can’t refuse.
Armchair Safari is Derek Callahan’s livelihood, too, but he’s not a gamer. A former Marine turned businessman, he’s starting a new job as Netertainment’s Chief Financial Officer and just needs to make the numbers work. But when millions of dollars mysteriously disappear from the company coffers, it's a race against time to solve a problem that puts the entire company at risk.
Little do Derek and Megan realize how their paths will cross in a battle between hackers, the FBI, and organized crime that is not confined to the virtual world and will leave very real casualties . . .
"An action-packed adventure with a full cast of characters." - San Francisco Book Review
Armchair Safari is more than a computer game to Oklahoman college student Megan Evans. It’s her livelihood. Her in-game exploits pay for her tuition, rent, and food. She usually plays solo, but when a group approaches her about a chance to find treasure beyond imagining, it’s an offer she can’t refuse.
Armchair Safari is Derek Callahan’s livelihood, too, but he’s not a gamer. A former Marine turned businessman, he’s starting a new job as Netertainment’s Chief Financial Officer and just needs to make the numbers work. But when millions of dollars mysteriously disappear from the company coffers, it's a race against time to solve a problem that puts the entire company at risk.
Little do Derek and Megan realize how their paths will cross in a battle between hackers, the FBI, and organized crime that is not confined to the virtual world and will leave very real casualties . . .
"An action-packed adventure with a full cast of characters." - San Francisco Book Review
445 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 5, 2013
31 people are currently reading
169 people want to read
About the author
Jonathan Paul Isaacs
13 books40 followersJonathan Isaacs always loved technology and graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in engineering. Then, after working in it for several years, he ran screaming from engineering.
Isaacs currently lives in Texas with his lovely wife, three children, three cats, two dogs, and no room left on the bed during thunderstorms.
Isaacs currently lives in Texas with his lovely wife, three children, three cats, two dogs, and no room left on the bed during thunderstorms.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
July 27, 2014
Incredible debut by an author that I hope continues to bring us more books like this! Every part of this story touches on things that are current in the crazy world we live in: online role playing games and start-ups looking to carve out a successful niche for themselves to name just two. Including spoilers would remove some of the crazy thrills and tension that this book provides so I want add more to that list.
I will admit that the book started a little slowly for me, but suddenly BAM, I was sucked into this story in a huge way. The characters and where and how they lived their lives seemed disjointed to me, but when they came together, they REALLY came together. If you're like me and feel it's slightly slow, hang in there and spend that time clearing your schedule and tightening your seatbelt because you will want to go along for the ride.
Characters are well rounded, we see their motivation and like them or not, understand why they are who they are. That is always a huge plus for me. The pace of the story is very quick and I found myself finishing this book at 4 a.m. because I just could not put it down. The only downside for me is that this author doesn't have more book available!
One comment based on reading a review about "R-rated language and sexual content": There is a fair bit of profanity, one character in particular loves profanity, but his swearing is much more on display in the beginning of the book and it does slow down further in. Other characters do swear, but if I were faced with some of the situations they were in, I'd swear too! As far as sexual content, I don't really think there is a lot of it, but if you don't care for that in books, it's easy enough to turn the page.
Mr. Isaacs please let us know that you're working on your next book!
I will admit that the book started a little slowly for me, but suddenly BAM, I was sucked into this story in a huge way. The characters and where and how they lived their lives seemed disjointed to me, but when they came together, they REALLY came together. If you're like me and feel it's slightly slow, hang in there and spend that time clearing your schedule and tightening your seatbelt because you will want to go along for the ride.
Characters are well rounded, we see their motivation and like them or not, understand why they are who they are. That is always a huge plus for me. The pace of the story is very quick and I found myself finishing this book at 4 a.m. because I just could not put it down. The only downside for me is that this author doesn't have more book available!
One comment based on reading a review about "R-rated language and sexual content": There is a fair bit of profanity, one character in particular loves profanity, but his swearing is much more on display in the beginning of the book and it does slow down further in. Other characters do swear, but if I were faced with some of the situations they were in, I'd swear too! As far as sexual content, I don't really think there is a lot of it, but if you don't care for that in books, it's easy enough to turn the page.
Mr. Isaacs please let us know that you're working on your next book!
July 22, 2014
This novel is a sort of cross genre mash-up. The top level story is a techno thriller about bad guys using an online role playing game as a way to micro-steal a few pennies a month from tens of thousands of compromised credit cards. It doesn't take long before a mountain of illicit cash is hidden in the game. The game company's new CFO, a veteran scared physically and mentally by his military combat experience in Iraq, finds himself engaged in an entirely new kind of warfare.
Things go bad when a group of players discover the treasure and quest away to steal it, all part of the spirit of the game. Those sections of the novel read like fantasy.
Don't hate me, but as much as I love The Lord of The Rings films, I cannot gag down a single one of the books. Long sections of Armchair Safari are based in the fantasy realm of the role play game, a questy-destiny-magical world. Good characters and an imaginative story line with a twist here and there kept me engaged, provided I skipped hunks of that questy-destiny-magic stuff.
That leads me to my big problem with Armchair Safari. It's way too long. The Kindle description says 692 pages! Unfortunately, a lot of those pages are filled with redundant descriptions of setting. Long internal dialogues gummed up the story too. The author is obviously very intelligent and well informed but audiences attracted to a techno thriller would bring a lot of their own knowledge to the game. Geeked out explanations are tedious for everyone. Even though this novel's bloat-length hit square in my pet- peeve zone, maybe other readers can live with stuff that bugged me.
Last, amateur hour prose made those sections of bloat even more tedious and skip able. I propose all writers of action genres eliminate 'was' from their language. ANY verb is better than was!
But I want to finish this review on a positive note because this novel is head and shoulders above the typical e-pubed book. Well drawn characters, and a plot filled with imagination really work when the story is free to run.
Bottom line, if a competent editor trimmed away about forty percent of this novel, it's as good as any NY Times best seller.
Things go bad when a group of players discover the treasure and quest away to steal it, all part of the spirit of the game. Those sections of the novel read like fantasy.
Don't hate me, but as much as I love The Lord of The Rings films, I cannot gag down a single one of the books. Long sections of Armchair Safari are based in the fantasy realm of the role play game, a questy-destiny-magical world. Good characters and an imaginative story line with a twist here and there kept me engaged, provided I skipped hunks of that questy-destiny-magic stuff.
That leads me to my big problem with Armchair Safari. It's way too long. The Kindle description says 692 pages! Unfortunately, a lot of those pages are filled with redundant descriptions of setting. Long internal dialogues gummed up the story too. The author is obviously very intelligent and well informed but audiences attracted to a techno thriller would bring a lot of their own knowledge to the game. Geeked out explanations are tedious for everyone. Even though this novel's bloat-length hit square in my pet- peeve zone, maybe other readers can live with stuff that bugged me.
Last, amateur hour prose made those sections of bloat even more tedious and skip able. I propose all writers of action genres eliminate 'was' from their language. ANY verb is better than was!
But I want to finish this review on a positive note because this novel is head and shoulders above the typical e-pubed book. Well drawn characters, and a plot filled with imagination really work when the story is free to run.
Bottom line, if a competent editor trimmed away about forty percent of this novel, it's as good as any NY Times best seller.
December 20, 2014
This was a pleasant surprise. As a MMORPG addict, I didn't know how I'd like this addition to books based on online computer gaming. But the story lines, told in the real world and in the game world, were all varied, yet engaging and well written. I also enjoyed that the characters were never who they initially seem and we come to understand who they are better by the end of the book. Overall, this is a very good book, particularly if you're familiar with the online computer gaming scene and recommended. Which reminds me; whatever did I do with that EverQuest account info?
March 11, 2015
One heck of an adventure.
Once started I had trouble putting this book down. I'm not a gamer, I prefer to read, but this book sucked me right in to the game environment making it real, and very exciting. Top notch thriller. I look forward to reading more books by this author.
Once started I had trouble putting this book down. I'm not a gamer, I prefer to read, but this book sucked me right in to the game environment making it real, and very exciting. Top notch thriller. I look forward to reading more books by this author.
October 26, 2025
The not-great game name shows a startup multiple user dungeon game, in which players can design their own strongholds, compete against other players to rob their loot, and cash out of the game. But when they lose money in game, they lose power. A few players get our attention, especially a female student and thief. However, she is the only woman we meet in the game. Most of the NPCs are male. I would have liked the author to introduce a female healer (even in a village) and explain that many women prefer this role as other players try to keep them alive, and it's not a highly aggressive role. I also notice that nobody brought potions on the long quest; they may have got lost with gear - but someone should have said so, or tried to mix a potion of the plants available. There are no fantastic beasties, apart from those used as war dogs. That's disappointing and players would complain.
Outside the game, we meet a new chief financial officer who has to get everything explained to him - the 'As you know, Captain' part - including what phishing mails are. Which he must have known. A female IT officer is telling him. Obviously, this is a story about thieving, which goes on outside the game - credit cards - brought into the game - cashing in on fake players set up with said cards. All going fine until someone intends to cash out bigtime. The criminals are Bulgarian thugs and we see a little of life in the crime-ridden, failing country. Neither men nor women come out well. Also outside the game, the reality of life suddenly comes home to someone, making us think.
I didn't read the sections in italics, as italics are very hard on the eyes, and it was not in current time. These came across as padding, but they explain the background of the new CFO and his PTSD. The classic move of having a game battle occur around a ruined castle is cleverly echoed by the war story of the CFO and by his chasing a mobster around a tourist trail castle.
I understand this is an independently published book, so I tend to give those an easier ride for typos. There are a few. These can be corrected and the book re-loaded by the author. I enjoyed the read and felt immersed while reading over a few days. There is always something to be learned from such reads, like online safety measures.
I read an e-copy from Amazon. This is an unbiased review.
Outside the game, we meet a new chief financial officer who has to get everything explained to him - the 'As you know, Captain' part - including what phishing mails are. Which he must have known. A female IT officer is telling him. Obviously, this is a story about thieving, which goes on outside the game - credit cards - brought into the game - cashing in on fake players set up with said cards. All going fine until someone intends to cash out bigtime. The criminals are Bulgarian thugs and we see a little of life in the crime-ridden, failing country. Neither men nor women come out well. Also outside the game, the reality of life suddenly comes home to someone, making us think.
I didn't read the sections in italics, as italics are very hard on the eyes, and it was not in current time. These came across as padding, but they explain the background of the new CFO and his PTSD. The classic move of having a game battle occur around a ruined castle is cleverly echoed by the war story of the CFO and by his chasing a mobster around a tourist trail castle.
I understand this is an independently published book, so I tend to give those an easier ride for typos. There are a few. These can be corrected and the book re-loaded by the author. I enjoyed the read and felt immersed while reading over a few days. There is always something to be learned from such reads, like online safety measures.
I read an e-copy from Amazon. This is an unbiased review.
June 12, 2017
I really wanted to like this book, but I'm afraid that for some reason it just didn't engage me, in part this might be because I have never played computer games, but I think that it is also because the book was too long and contained too many spelling and grammatical errors. Another annoyance was the tendency to describe the actions in the game as though it was happening in real life, for example the author describes one character having difficulty passing his sword from his damaged arm to his good one, and also the game characters feeling pain, they are avatars, not real people! it just didn't work for me. Finally on the negative side, I found quite a lot of the dialogue to be very 'clunky' and unbelievable.
So although there is some good in the book, the basic premise is original (to me anyway) the characters are well-rounded and believable and develop through the book, and the descriptions of the Marines fighting was really evocative, the negatives outweigh them.
This book failed one of my litmus tests for enjoyment, in that I actually broke off several times to read 5 other books whilst I was reading this one, it just didn't keep my attention, and it was only my persistence that made me come back to it again and finish it.
I received a complimentary copy of the book and I have voluntarily written this review. I apologise to the author if this was not the feedback he was expecting, but I have to be honest.
So although there is some good in the book, the basic premise is original (to me anyway) the characters are well-rounded and believable and develop through the book, and the descriptions of the Marines fighting was really evocative, the negatives outweigh them.
This book failed one of my litmus tests for enjoyment, in that I actually broke off several times to read 5 other books whilst I was reading this one, it just didn't keep my attention, and it was only my persistence that made me come back to it again and finish it.
I received a complimentary copy of the book and I have voluntarily written this review. I apologise to the author if this was not the feedback he was expecting, but I have to be honest.
July 6, 2017
Armchair Safari was an interesting looking LitRPG novel, but it did not stand up to the test of a good reading. Unfortunately the author split the story too many ways and did not focus more on a single main character (split between player, hacker, Romanian crime boss, and the CFO of the game developer was just too much). Splitting a story that many times, unless you are Tom Clancy or George R. R. Martin willing to put out a 700 page book, you may want to avoid that much complexity. Armchair Safari by Jonathan Paul Isaacs just never pulled you into any of the characters enough to get into the book. Which was sad, because the author's effort to show the terrible effects of PTSD in Marines who fought in Iraq was worthwhile.
February 2, 2017
Just ok.
I believe the author has talent and is a good author. That said, this book didn't keep me engaged and excited to read it. I considered stopping at several points but I did see it through to the end. Good character development. Good dialogue. But just missing something. I didn't really like any of the characters in real life nor in the game.
I believe the author has talent and is a good author. That said, this book didn't keep me engaged and excited to read it. I considered stopping at several points but I did see it through to the end. Good character development. Good dialogue. But just missing something. I didn't really like any of the characters in real life nor in the game.
February 3, 2017
Good quality reading
This story is just very well put together. It wasn't hard to put aside the real world and slide into the story. I think you might enjoy this and recommend you give it a try.
This story is just very well put together. It wasn't hard to put aside the real world and slide into the story. I think you might enjoy this and recommend you give it a try.
March 19, 2018
I marked "read" only because Goodreads would not stop sending "currently reading" to Facebook. I'm not currently reading, I couldn't finish it. That should tell you something since I usually will plow through to the bitter end.
January 10, 2019
Starts out great, becomes underwhelming
The beginning is pretty good. About halfway through, it turns into a disjointed mess of tropes and archetypes with random and pointless plotlines. It could stand some ruthless editing for content. But I finished it so 3 stars.
The beginning is pretty good. About halfway through, it turns into a disjointed mess of tropes and archetypes with random and pointless plotlines. It could stand some ruthless editing for content. But I finished it so 3 stars.
July 18, 2020
It wasn't terrible but I found it a little disjointed and I think the absence of a connection between the in game protagonist and the company folks made it a weaker book.
March 5, 2016
An excellent artificial reality thriller mixed up with a real life thriller. I was fully engaged in Megan's virtual world, Derek's PTSD world, and the mixed-bag mob world. Both of those last two were really creepy and made my skin crawl... because they were "really" happening, and not virtual. :-)
The mechanics that drove the plot development were fully consistent and fleshed out throughout the story, so by the end of a sequence of events you could look back and see a logical progression.
This is the end of my perfect review. If you want two tiny little spoiler tidbits, read on:
The mechanics that drove the plot development were fully consistent and fleshed out throughout the story, so by the end of a sequence of events you could look back and see a logical progression.
This is the end of my perfect review. If you want two tiny little spoiler tidbits, read on:
August 15, 2016
Pretty decent story about Romanian money-laundering and Austin start-ups. Unfortunately the VR angle seemed very much a post hoc tag-on, but the rest of the novel (i.e. everything after the first five pages) was a well-paced tech thriller with convincing insights on Iraq War veterans.
September 29, 2016
Cyber Crime
This is about a high tech company under siege by cyber criminals. The company is involved with virtual reality so you get a second storyline about those who use the VR gear.
This is about a high tech company under siege by cyber criminals. The company is involved with virtual reality so you get a second storyline about those who use the VR gear.
September 25, 2016
Mmorpg fun
I'm always wary of books that rely on mmorpgs,but this one pulls it off. There is plenty of real life discussion and action to help push the story along. Its a techie thriller without losing its goal - entertainment.
Go read it, its worth the time.
I'm always wary of books that rely on mmorpgs,but this one pulls it off. There is plenty of real life discussion and action to help push the story along. Its a techie thriller without losing its goal - entertainment.
Go read it, its worth the time.
December 30, 2016
I struggled to get through the first half of this one, but the second half started to put it altogether and I was able to get into it more, so it ended up being a rewarding read.
Here is my review:
http://jugglingdragonworm.blogspot.co...
Here is my review:
http://jugglingdragonworm.blogspot.co...
May 8, 2015
Great story but rough language
A great read that kept you wanting to see what would happen next, but there is a lot of language that really didn't add anything to the story.
A great read that kept you wanting to see what would happen next, but there is a lot of language that really didn't add anything to the story.
July 19, 2016
Page turner if not deep
VR spills over into just plain R. Good for fans of Ready Player One. Too many typos for comfortable reading.
VR spills over into just plain R. Good for fans of Ready Player One. Too many typos for comfortable reading.
August 30, 2016
Mediocre, badly written version of Reamde.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews