Long time ago I was asked what do I think would happen if everything around us collapsed, would the humanity survive and would all the knowledge be lost? Having experience with the situations where life, and in general way of living and even thinking, gets changed substantially I can only say that people tend to transform from technologically savvy and scientifically to simple life and simpl(er) views of the world. Because when you are fighting for food with others do you truly need to know how computers work on electronic level or why does the airplane need wings? No these become interesting but unpractical things until time passes and somebody makes them practical again. Until then only practical things are those related to staying alive.

And, really, ask yourself do you know the answers to above questions without looking into books or Internet? Most likely you don't - you might have vague idea but not the details and especially not the mathematics explaining the underlying physics. But you know how to get to that information if need be - now imagine that knwoledge is taken from you for good. How can you even think about computers if they pass to the realm of legends and artifacts that work but no-one knows how to build in the first place.

That is what happened in Tarakan, mysterious nation/state that holds so much wondrous technology to be found by those willing and daring enough. After the cataclysmic event part of humanity de-evolved, part became religious zealots and rest.... well, The Event created mutation that resulted in the marked-ones. In this world everyone is fighting for the supremacy and life is extremely cheap. Tarakan is the only place left that can give edge to those wielding its technology to rule over other tribes of man.

Nobody knows how these things work, they just do and they can do wonders - be it for creation or devastation. Technology works, augments people and in mysterious ways locations where technology can be found replenish in time but no-one has the faintest idea how machines and tools work and how to fix them if they get damaged.

To uncover these artifacts from the long lost time it is required to enter the underground vaults (I just love the cross between Fallout, Dungeon and Dragons and cyberpunk here) and this can be done only by special breed of people - so called Puzzlers and this book is centered around one very special Puzzler, Rafik, kid from the village of religious zealots forced into the world by no guilt of his own, used and sold as merchandise from one power player to another. Kid doomed to be forever pawn for the mighty warlords.

I enjoy all of the post-apocalyptic/dystopian stories - from Warhammer, Hardwired, general cyberpunk to Sword of Shannara to name the few.

This book is a wonderful mix of cyberpunk (very reminiscent of Richard K Morgan's books) and techno-barbarian society (very similar to Warhammer's Age of Strife or Unification Wars period).

All the characters, from the shady mercenaries, weapon smugglers, mysterious Guild of Historians to people marked by mysterious tattoos (I like idea of people used as sort of a circuit boards) - they are just excellent. Some get all of our attention (like narrator, Rafik and Vincha) some are only briefly mentioned (and I suspect some will get back to the pages in this series) - but at no time was I bored. This is big book but action is relentless, we have story twists all the time and some serious story-building going on (I heard there is a sequel to this book, Puzzler's War and it is next on my list) that can be used to create truly excellent book series (imagine mix of Oblivion, Elysium, Altered Carbon and Mad Max :)). Although it is 500 pages it took me less than a day to go through it, once you start you will get hooked and won't stop till you turn the last page.

Excellent book, looking forward to reading next book in the series. ( )

This one was an odd mix. In a post apocalyptic world (pretty clearly ours) the action of the story is about getting a child with an uncommon talent to the site of the center of the fallen civilization. It was well written in terms of narrative and action but the story's unclear about why they had to do this and what happened to the earlier society and even who they were.

Several of the GR reviews call this a YA book, but it doesn't read like one to me. Though the central character is a young teen boy, he's pretty much a pawn being dragged around, terrified, by several powerful, greedy, and heavily armed factions.

I was reading an "uncorrected proof" that I got as a freebie with purchase of other books but clearly it was the finished version, so the final publication should be substantially the same. ( )

There is an interesting germ of an idea in here - a post-Catastrophe world trying with various degrees of success to discover and use ancient tech. Unfortunately it is so subsumed by World-of-Warcraft-style fights, overly-elaborated battle-tech, and RPG world-building that the story gets lost. ( )

The Lost Puzzler by Eyal Klessis a highly recommended YA post-dystopian yarn which excels in world building.

Over a century has passed since the Catastrophe that caused the fall of the Tarakan empire. Whatever caused the disaster was, it left humans almost extinct, and changed. Survivors have either returned to rural, agrarian, orthodox lifestyles or live in destroyed cities full of warring guilds, and mercenaries, City people live in slum-like environments while trying to adapt to using technology they don't understand while scavenging for more old tech. The Guild of Historians has sent a scribe out in search of the story of Rafik. Rafik is a boy who was born marked and is one of a rare kind- a puzzler. A puzzler is a person who is used as a key to open doors that can only be accessed by quickly solving a puzzle.

The Lost Puzzler will hold your attention and is descriptive and exciting without vividly describing the more gruesome aspects of the grim under-belly that would certainly be present in this society. Klessis provides plenty of details about the inner workings of the current society, including depictions of the remains of tech and weapons they use, but don't totally understand. This is a very different civilization and Klessis does an excellent job creating a picture of this world and how the current survivors are living in this world. The care taken with this world building will pay off in future stories. The characters are well-developed and fully fleshed out. They all have distinct personalities, including strengths and weaknesses.
The main problem with The Lost Puzzler is its protracted length. Several aspects of the search for Rafik and his backstory could have been edited down. The narrative does begin to drag in the middle. This is a debut novel and the length may be indicative of that, as I am guessing, Klessis wanted to get as many of the descriptions, twists, discoveries, fights, and people he could into this novel. In the end it is a captivating and entertaining novel, albeit a bit over-long.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of HarperCollins.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2019/01/the-lost-puzzler.html ( )