This book is marketed as a cross between Minority Report and Blade Runner and it certainly lives up to the promise. It’s incredible how the world built in the novel is so well rounded and fully thought out. The future is shown to be a technologically driven place and it’s a little bleak how technology became an addiction for society. With the advent of neural cyberware, aerocars, and net glasses, we’re dropped into a world so highly dependent on technology that it’s almost sickening. The thought of society as a whole worshiping technology almost makes me cry because I know it’s going to happen and yet I wish it wouldn’t. I’m sure people smarter than I will be able to see the political commentary, and even I could recognize that there is an undercurrent of fascism in this book, but I chose not to focus on that part.

I chose to focus on how thoroughly impressed I was with Swavely’s creativity and ingenuity in designing the new technologically-centric world. Every detail was so meticulously researched, and perhaps the physics of the designs are off, but I was spellbound anyway. Thankfully, the reader is not assaulted with all this detail and information right from the start, but gradually enveloped in this new world. It will excite some people about what the future could be, or it’ll make you weep for our generation and the path we’re on.

Either way, I find myself in awe of this novel. It reads almost like a movie, the world-building is fantastic, the characters are dynamic, and the plot moves at a great pace. This book must be read as soon as you can get your hands on it. ( )