Ultra 85

by Logic

Featuring an exclusive conversation with Logic and Steve Blum

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Logic comes the highly anticipated second novel set in the far future as two friends uncover if the utopian planet Paradise lives up to its name.

In the year 2115, when the Earth is no longer inhabitable, the remainder of humanity lives in Babel, a giant space station. Two pilots, Quentin and Kai, must find the planet Paradise, where only the most promising citizens are allowed to live. On their journey, Quentin and Kai encounter Quentin’s estranged father, who left Babel for Paradise when Quentin was a child, and they discover just how different Paradise is from what they imagined—and how they must change it for the better.

The bestselling author of Supermarket and platinum-selling hip-hop artist, Logic, returns to fiction with this gripping and propulsive sci-fi novel.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Audiobook, Dystopia, Fantasy, Mystery, Space

Audible Audio

First published September 17, 2024

Reviews

[Jocelyn · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hard eyeroll. ****Plop***** - that’s the sound of this book hitting my “bound for donations” pile.
One of my favorite genres, the premise sounds great but I just couldn’t do it. It’s so bad. I tried three times!!!!
The dialog is so bad - the cringe level of these conversations just cannot be described- by me anyway. I just can’t take it!
The throwbacks to 80’s, 90’s, 00’s movies/books/lingo is so heavy it’s distracting.

Hard pass.

[Bert · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m entirely too damn gay to vibe with a novel this straight. The moment it started name-dropping The Godfather and Quentin Tarantino movies, I should’ve bowed out—just like I do in real life when those conversations come up. It’s a shame, though, because I absolutely loved Supermarket by the same author. I think the book is actually fine, I’m just not the target audience, straight boys that love straight boy movies set in space.

[Amanda NEVER MANDY · Rating 1 out of 5]

Two space peeps go on an epic accidental adventure.

There is not a single nice thing I can say about this one.

The characters were awful. Kai (the second to the main) was so freaking annoying. Like Jar Jar Binks level of annoying. His entire personality was built around 80s/90s pop culture movie bullshit. His dialogue was a regurgitation of it and no part of it was entertaining. Which brings me to the fact that the entire book was mostly dialogue. Bad dialogue. I would get lost in which jackass was saying what and would have to reread what irritated me on the first go, just to figure it out. AWFUL.

The story itself was lame. So much was left unexplained. Details were given to the extreme on things that did not matter, but the things that did, were rushed past. A world was introduced that I did not care about. What brought it to the point that the world had to exist, I did not care about. Characters were introduced that I did not care about. The past of those characters, I did not care about. The future of the characters, I did not care about. Get the point? AWFUL.

NO QUOTES:

Not a single one. That speaks volumes.

One star to a book that will be the biggest reading disappointment of the year, guaranteed.

[literaryelise · Rating 1 out of 5]

one more tarantino quote and i was going to throw my phone out the window

[Ric · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like Logic and both The Incredible True Story and Ultra 85, so this was a cool way to expand the story. And while I do think the lore was slightly inconsistent with some of the stuff in the former album, it was from 2015 so retconning a few things isn’t the worst. It was better written than Supermarket as well, just showing Bobby’s writing is for sure improving. This was a fun sci-fi story in general, but the background of the albums definitely made me appreciate it more.

[Adia Keene · Rating 1 out of 5]

Addendum — The actual rating would be ~1.5/5.0

What did I like about the book: the premise is sooooo good. So creative. This book could have been amazing...if someone else wrote it.

Things I didn't like about the book:
- Rampant typos and grammatical mistakes. Some of which were due to transliterated slang, but others were just careless.
- Plot holes. Characters consistently contradicted themselves.
- The pacing. The second half of the book was the plot. Exposition is necessary but the first half was ridiculously irrelevant to the ending.
- The info dumps, half of which included information that the narrator shouldn't have known. The main character will say something like "People on this planet always...". You've been on the planet for less than two hours??? What do you mean "always"?
- The way that I thought the narrator was (max) 25 from the way he talked and then I find out he's 52? And the sidekick who sounds like a teenager is in his 40's?
- The characterization of AI. "AI is evil...except the comic relief AI/wanna-be C3PO lolz." :/
- The constant movie quotes that were constantly explained. I get it, the AI was trained on movies. No, I don't need to be told the robot is quoting Pulp Fiction by Quentin Tarantino every five pages.

Blegh. Do not read.

[Tiya Morks · Rating 1 out of 5]

My favourite part of this book was finishing it.

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

respectfully, Logic should stick to music

[Olivia Orshoski · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 - This was my first futuristic/sci-fi book and it was a fun read! I was a little disappointed in the ending, I wanted a little bit more, but overall a fun and different read. The entire time I read I envisioned it as a movie that I would definitely watch. Think of Interstellar mixed with 1984 and Hunger Games.

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is what happens when every man with a pulp fiction obsession thinks he has something important to say.

[Eala McNamee · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is a joke. The dialogue was bad, I never thought I would ever see the slang “fam” used in an actual book. The setting and storyline was interesting but need to be fleshed out more in order to make this a good story. I was able to skip half the book because it was just straight movie quotes. How did this man not get copyright infringement!? Logic should just stick to music.

This book was meant for 13 year old boys.

[Sierra · Rating 1 out of 5]

If I could give this book zero stars, I would—and even that feels too generous. I only finished it because of book club; otherwise, it would’ve been abandoned after chapter one. The pop culture references were nonsensical and forced. It read like a man convinced he had something profound to say, but didn’t. The only satisfying part was closing the book and knowing I’d never have to open it again.

[Noy · Rating 1 out of 5]

horrible.

[Owen Weitzel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book more than I did. I have been a fan of Logic’s music for a while and was so excited to see he was writing books. I haven’t read Supermarket yet, so this is my first taste of his writing.

The good:
There is an interesting world here. While not the spiritual successor to 1984 that it feels like the book is trying to be, there is that good good dystopian setting that acts as the glue holding everything together.

This book has a lot of really interesting philosophical questions. It examines slavery, AI, global warming, class politics and so much more. Philosophy and Dystopias go hand in hand so I loved this.

Not my thing:
The character voices. So I really wanted to vibe with the characters. I am really interested in how the modern voice can be integrated into literature. Logic attempts to do that. The problem is that most of the characters don’t have a voice that is solely them. The Protag and Kai both switch between street speak, uptight military and complex vocabulary/high education speak. While these are all aspects of their lives (except maybe the highly educated bit for Kai) they aren’t blended in a way that feels natural. It doesn’t feel like they have one voice and can then turn on the others depending on their situations. Instead it feels like they are still struggling to figure out how to speak like themselves.

The references:
I get what Logic was trying to do here. He wanted to write a love letter towards some of his favorite movies. But I couldn’t help but be turned off by the sheer amount of movie quotes and references. It just felt a little overdone.

The nose:
The philosophy and themes were maybe a little but too on the nose for me. Would have liked it if the themes weren’t so shoved in my face.

Overall:
This is a fun book. I enjoyed reading it. It is a great second book from an emerging author (though he is already famous for writing rhymes). So if you want a sci-fi dystopia book that has a fun easy to follow plot give it a read.

Side note: I have seen that the Audiobook is apparently a different (better) experience. I read it in paperback so I can’t speak to this. But if you want to give the book a try maybe go that route?

[Josanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

so many good references!! i don’t usually like scifi, but the storytelling in this was so entertaining. i love atilla, but can we just talk about the name ‘bonita’?

[Erik Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can understand why some people will have a hard time with this book but I honestly loved it. It was full of pop culture references and wit. Wasn’t Supermarket, but I will always enjoy a good sci-fi thriller

[Jeremy Wood]

DNF'd at 47%. I just could not do it anymore. Maybe there's something I'm missing that will be explained in the album but this book was just a mess. The ultra 85 is 85 families who inhabit paradise? The same Paradise that Thomas and Kai go looking for in The Incredible True Story? Oh and the ship they encounter on that album. It's actually his dad's ship who is still alive...? Also the people on Babel are just slaves for the ultra 85 families. This was just a confusing mess filled to the brim with pop culture references that meant nothing

[Sara Koochagian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Totally digged this book!! I love the two albums that this book is inspired by, starting when the first one came out in 2015. I think it was so thought out and the plot wasn’t lost. The characters were authentic to the story the album told, and even had some call backs to the music. Great book and will read again!!

[Ryan Harris · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm starting this review on a good note: respect to Logic for branching out into different media. Logic is one of the few artists that incorporates strong storytelling elements in his music, so seeing him authoring books in addition to writing music really highlights his passion for storytelling. Now, for the review:

This book is an ABSOLUTELY safe skip. Sorry bud.

Seeing this in the library, I immediately knew it had two things going for it:
1. the cover looked pretty sweet, and
2. the book was written by Logic, a familiar and surprising name to see in a library - one of my favorite hip hop artists!

Logic's album The Incredible True Story is one of my favorite albums and after reading the synopsis and finding out this book was in the same universe... I was intrigued! More content to dig into... surely this would be a good read!

Nah. It's really just... not. The first three quarters of this book are HARD snooze material. It's a whole lot of setup for a giant nothing burger ending. The last quarter has some decent action and some story reveals, but really just falls flat for me. The story and writing style are clearly amateur. Not that I was expecting some legendary Tolkien-grade tale out of this, but it just reads amateur. This isn't a knock on the rating - knowing the author, this was sort of to be expected.

If you have no idea who Logic is, this is easily a 1 star. I bumped this to 2 stars only because I have already experienced some of this through The Incredible True Story/Ultra 85 albums (which are good, you should listen!) and like the universe.

[Jay Eaton · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a blast this book is. I have always enjoyed the skits from the albums over the years and to see it all come together in this book was nostalgic. Can't wait to see what's next in the pipeline for Bobby Hall

[Carleen Harring · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book the concept was something that i am interested in for sci fi but the plot just really lost me by the end. I wasn’t a big fan of how the dialogue was written either. The concept had potential but it just wasn’t executed in the way I would’ve liked.

[Bree Hatfield · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF at page 70. This book kept me engaged for the first 50 pages or so, but after that the bland dialogue and over-the-top plot became inane. I didn’t hate it, but I just don’t think it’s worth my time. Maybe I’ll come back to it, but I doubt it. The cover is really cool, though!

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best Logic book so far. I love how personal his books are and how connected all his stories are. Seeing the growth of his storytelling across albums and books is so much fun. Love revisiting these characters that still permeate my life in ways unique to this story because they’re a part of the songs I listen to. This is the first book I’ve read based on an album? Especially listening to the audiobook, Steve Blum is the goat and has been but really gives a career performance here. The story is fun and space travel is always great. But the book is unabashedly a love letter to movies and pop culture. The references are fun but also shows the importance of art in our lives and what it means to people and the staying power of a story. Logic has been one of my favorite musical artists and now maybe one of my favorite writers. Hopefully he continues to do both and I will continue to consume.

[Brendan · Rating 5 out of 5]

3.37 overall is a wild number for this book. It should be way higher. I definitely recommend listening to the audiobook, it is another whole experience entirely. 5 stars all day long, the audiobook has a great "interview the author" chapter at the end that is an amazing wrap-up and just a little peek inside the creative space. Also, listening to the Ultra 85 album before getting into this audiobook builds a nice starting backstory that got me excited to keep the story going and get into the book. I can't wait for future projects I'm in for anything and everything. Supermarket was a great world building novel, and now this is right there with it. This man is amazing at creating an image in your mind, and Ultra 85 was no different.

[Adreana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Omg i am soooo glad i picked up this book. This book had me on the edge of my seat with every page and had me laughing at some parts. The plot was incredible. The mission was incredible. I’m so sad that this is over. Thank you for writing this

[John Mo · Rating 3 out of 5]

as good of a story you’ll get out of a rapper

[Deanna Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good little sci-fi read. Somewhat predictable but entertaining, reminded me of ready player one with focus on old movie references throughout the book

[Zita · Rating 3 out of 5]

Starts off a little slow but picks up by the second third. Exciting read (sometimes cringe? maybe?). Anyway, overall enjoyable.

[Chelsea · Rating 5 out of 5]

The audio book was fun and kept me entertained. I especially loved the conversation included at the end of the reading with Logic and the narrator.

[yashu]

dnfing at 10%

i feel sorry for putting myself through that