I can’t stress how much I loved this book. In many ways, it serves as a companion to Ready Player One. It follows Zoe Ashe from a life of poverty in a suburban trailer park through a terrifying hunt to an inheritance she didn’t know awaited her. It has the same basic plot as the aforementioned book (which I reviewed earlier in the year), but diverges in a number of distinct ways. For starters, the protagonist here is a woman. I don’t think that’s a […]
This book is the oil; I’m the water. No mixy good together.
Straight up, I did not like this book. It’s not quite worthy of the one star treatment, though, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, because the actual construction of his sentences, the literal writing, is not bad. Second, because the underlying story remains one I think interesting to explore in book form. And third, because I truly believe that one star ratings should be reserved for books that really go beyond the pale in their awfulness, not just slapping that on there because I didn’t happen […]
A scary, political, techno-thrilling ride of a book.
I think I might be too stupid to write this review. Long story short: This book was a hell of a ride. It was slightly problematic as a novel, but damn if it wasn’t powerful anyway. It should probably be required reading. Long story long? Weeeeeellll. That’s when my brain starts to make whirring and booping noises and then I want to put my laptop away and go to sleep. Or eat a milkshake. Either one of those things, really. Marcus Yallow is a seventeen […]
Mindbending
So I finally read Alif the Unseen. Wow — what a genre-bender. So many questions about belief, ideology, loyalty, technology, humanity, and identity are explored across multiple metaphysical planes and in achingly familiar real-world contexts. To back up to a plot summary, which I’ll ape from Goodreads: “In an unnamed Middle Eastern security state, a young Arab-Indian hacker shields his clients—dissidents, outlaws, Islamists, and other watched groups—from surveillance and tries to stay out of trouble. He goes by Alif—the first letter of the Arabic alphabet, and […]