Review: Riveting read!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 27, 2014
This is a somewhat scary vision of the future - of how a virtual world could become more of a reality to us than our actual lives.The first person narrative and engaging voice drew me in right away. Ramsey Isler gets to the point from the start, a big tick from me!  Told in retrospect so we know that our hero doesn’t come to a sticky end.The story revolves around of a new computer game, Arcadia, which hackers are tapping into to gain access to player’s lives and livelihoods. Enter the investigating journalist, Miguel Naciamento, to get the story and unearth corruption behind the makers of the game. But Miguel Naciamento has other motivations, he wants another Pulitzer, however, he gets more than he bargained for.“Nobody was revealing the story of how the world's most advanced video game system had been infiltrated, and how the lives of its users had been affected. Most of all, no one was reporting on a key component of this story — thousands of people were still playing in ARCADIA despite the risks. A vast underground network of gamers defied the warnings and kept playing. They were determined to experience all that ARCADIA had to offer; hackers be damned.”The story continues when he goes to get information from one of the creators of the game, Ivy Yeun.  “The Genius. She was the innovator behind most of the ARCADIA system.” Ivy is the character that I sympathized with the most. She invented the Frankenstein monster and has no control over the thing she created. And is now paying the price. Also, her introduction promises some kind of love interest.“Ivy gave me that skeptical glare of hers again. “So you're saying a bunch of CEOs got together and decided to hack my s***?”When Miguel is sent a headset anonymously, the virtual action really starts to kick in. He becomes hooked on playing the game and so did I. Thanks to the detailed descriptions. Miguel discovers things in this unreal environment from other players/hackers and meets a user in the real world, who vows to help Miguel and Ivy to get to the truth. Which, I found to be a rather good way of discovering the facts. When we learn that Miguel could be in mortal danger from playing the game the tension was heightened and the narrative pace took off.I thought this book was well written. There was good action and pace; after the initial backstory.  The author has created a very believable scenario with a hint of prophecy about it that I liked. It really could happen and not in the far too distant future. It seems that the author is suggesting that our addiction to such escapism can be a dangerous thing, not only for the individual, but society as a whole. Perhaps Ramsey Isler is warning us to relax our dependence on computer technology for work and play.But the story itself was a bit slow to get started. Ramsey deals with the main characters life history for too long in my opinion. Since it starts with a good plot that I was keen to follow, I was a bit miffed when the narrative concentrated on his past. I felt such background information could have been introduced more gradually as part of the ongoing storyline.The dialogue in general was okay. However, I thought that the conversations between Miguel and DR. Carter were there just to get in the technical stuff. The long sections of dialogue to explain all the technology behind the games, came across as rather too contrived and not all that that naturalistic. But, I didn’t mind it too much because it was necessary for non-tech computer fanatics like me to have this information in order to understand the storyline.“My guess is that the hackers could somehow be using the proxy system to pretend that they're actually the real players, and using that as a method to get access to sensitive accounts via impersonation.”“I see. So it's just a really complicated virtual reality identity theft.” “Something like that,” Dr. Carter said.”There are some great descriptions of the how the game works, with good sensory details that made the game come alive on the page. I was hooked by the premise of the book and liked the chatty style that made me warm to the Miguel character. Because Miguel doesn’t know how the game works, he like the reader, discovers intrigue and plots as the action happens, which made the narrative feel fresh and compelling.However, I thought that some of the characters were not very well thought out. Often characters seemed to be there as vehicles to get the story told, rather than being part of the action around which the story unfolds. Which meant that for me, there was a little too much exposition and not enough action to develop and move the narrative along.Having said that, I think this is a cracking story and although it did read a bit like a journalists research notes rather than a fleshed out narrative, it is a great and exciting read. It kept me hooked and I really wanted to know what happened next. The ending was  satisfying and intriguing. All in all a really good, intelligent read. With a plausible plotline.