Review: William Gibson, eat your heart out!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 11 5, 2013
Like many, I discovered Sean Platt through his contributions to Yesterday's Gone, itself a enjoyable pulpy page-turner.  The Beam, however, is a much more serious book, but no less enjoyable for that.  Although many of the themes are much more adult than I was expecting (torture, sex, drugs) this is my favourite of Platt's stories so far, and all the more interesting by virtue of his having a different co-author to much of his other work.The world of the Beam is interesting in its own right, and has all the Gibson edgy cyberpunk style without the meandering plots that make Gibson a bit challenging at times - but it's so much more than that too: If you have any interest in Singularity, Uploading, AI, Philosophy and the like, as I do, then you'll certainly enjoy these books immensely.Without creating any spoilers, it's hard to do the story justice. But, the characters are all multi-dimensional and fully fleshed out, and the dialogue is gripping and, at just the right time to break the building tension, it's laugh-out-loud funny when that's needed too.  Thankfully, it doesn't end on a cliff-hanger (which can drive you a bit crazy when it might be another year to see the resolution), but there are many, many loose threads to pick up, and I can hardly wait for the next episode.Happily, Mesrs Platt & Truant have released 'Plugged' to fill the void until the next season comes along, and that is next on my reading pile.