Sockpuppet by Matthew Blakstad
Apr. 11th, 2016 02:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
This page has been reviewed by
We declare it a lie and a fraud
Nothing is private
No one is safe
Maverick hacker Dani Farr created sic_girl to win a bet. She’s just a piece of code turned Internet celebrity.
Until overnight she becomes a political assassin.
Minister of Information Bethany Lehrer has been gambling with people’s information, and now sic_girl is going to make her pay. With the country on the verge of revolt and the government on its knees, it’s up to Dani to stop sic_girl … before it’s too late.
It’s the near future. Dani Farr is a coder for Parley, a social media site. She created a bot for the site called sic_girl, which aggregates and regurgitates information from other Parley users to form its own personality. But something has gone wrong. Somehow sic_girl has gained information about a hack on the government’s pilot Digital Citizen scheme that’s compromised the personal information of its participants. The revelations send Bethany Lehrer (the Information Minister) and her department in a spin (literally and metaphorically). They need to find out who is leaking the information to sic_girl but as the revelations keep coming and the media need to find scapegoats, no one is safe – least of all Bethany and Dani …
Matthew Blakstad’s debut technological thriller (the first in a series) is a jargon heavy affair with a convoluted plot filled with cross and double cross that relies on characters at times behaving in ways that defy logic or credibility. This is a shame because there are some great ideas in this novel – particularly the strong themes about privacy and the tension between it and government and corporate interests. However, the plot seems to rely on both Bethany and Dani being incredibly naïve about this issue, which at times really strained my ability to believe in either of them. In fact, I was disappointed that for the most part both women are essentially victims both of the press and of the hackers and it isn’t until the end that they start to think and act about what’s best for them. This isn’t to say that the male characters are treated any better – for the most part they’re little more than stock characters who barely rise above the issues that they’re there to discuss. I did enjoy the depiction of the corporate drivers at play in the tech industry and the reliance placed on old-fashioned PR to cultivate and propagate the image that they want the public to see. However, ultimately there is a lot of dense, jargon-filled dialogue in this novel, which I really didn’t connect with (although if you’re more tech savvy than me, you may well find it easier to follow). Ultimately, I don’t think there’s enough here for me to want to continue with the rest of the series, but I would probably check out Blakstad’s other work.
The Verdict:
Matthew Blakstad’s debut technological thriller (the first in a series) is a jargon heavy affair with a convoluted plot filled with cross and double cross that relies on characters at times behaving in ways that defy logic or credibility. This is a shame because there are some great ideas in this novel – particularly the strong themes about privacy and the tension between it and government and corporate interests. However, the plot seems to rely on both Bethany and Dani being incredibly naïve about this issue, which at times really strained my ability to believe in either of them. In fact, I was disappointed that for the most part both women are essentially victims both of the press and of the hackers and it isn’t until the end that they start to think and act about what’s best for them. This isn’t to say that the male characters are treated any better – for the most part they’re little more than stock characters who barely rise above the issues that they’re there to discuss. I did enjoy the depiction of the corporate drivers at play in the tech industry and the reliance placed on old-fashioned PR to cultivate and propagate the image that they want the public to see. However, ultimately there is a lot of dense, jargon-filled dialogue in this novel, which I really didn’t connect with (although if you’re more tech savvy than me, you may well find it easier to follow). Ultimately, I don’t think there’s enough here for me to want to continue with the rest of the series, but I would probably check out Blakstad’s other work.
SOCKPUPPET will be released in the United Kingdom on 19th May 2016. Thanks to Amazon Vine for the ARC of this book.
We declare it a lie and a fraud
Nothing is private
No one is safe
Maverick hacker Dani Farr created sic_girl to win a bet. She’s just a piece of code turned Internet celebrity.
Until overnight she becomes a political assassin.
Minister of Information Bethany Lehrer has been gambling with people’s information, and now sic_girl is going to make her pay. With the country on the verge of revolt and the government on its knees, it’s up to Dani to stop sic_girl … before it’s too late.
It’s the near future. Dani Farr is a coder for Parley, a social media site. She created a bot for the site called sic_girl, which aggregates and regurgitates information from other Parley users to form its own personality. But something has gone wrong. Somehow sic_girl has gained information about a hack on the government’s pilot Digital Citizen scheme that’s compromised the personal information of its participants. The revelations send Bethany Lehrer (the Information Minister) and her department in a spin (literally and metaphorically). They need to find out who is leaking the information to sic_girl but as the revelations keep coming and the media need to find scapegoats, no one is safe – least of all Bethany and Dani …
Matthew Blakstad’s debut technological thriller (the first in a series) is a jargon heavy affair with a convoluted plot filled with cross and double cross that relies on characters at times behaving in ways that defy logic or credibility. This is a shame because there are some great ideas in this novel – particularly the strong themes about privacy and the tension between it and government and corporate interests. However, the plot seems to rely on both Bethany and Dani being incredibly naïve about this issue, which at times really strained my ability to believe in either of them. In fact, I was disappointed that for the most part both women are essentially victims both of the press and of the hackers and it isn’t until the end that they start to think and act about what’s best for them. This isn’t to say that the male characters are treated any better – for the most part they’re little more than stock characters who barely rise above the issues that they’re there to discuss. I did enjoy the depiction of the corporate drivers at play in the tech industry and the reliance placed on old-fashioned PR to cultivate and propagate the image that they want the public to see. However, ultimately there is a lot of dense, jargon-filled dialogue in this novel, which I really didn’t connect with (although if you’re more tech savvy than me, you may well find it easier to follow). Ultimately, I don’t think there’s enough here for me to want to continue with the rest of the series, but I would probably check out Blakstad’s other work.
The Verdict:
Matthew Blakstad’s debut technological thriller (the first in a series) is a jargon heavy affair with a convoluted plot filled with cross and double cross that relies on characters at times behaving in ways that defy logic or credibility. This is a shame because there are some great ideas in this novel – particularly the strong themes about privacy and the tension between it and government and corporate interests. However, the plot seems to rely on both Bethany and Dani being incredibly naïve about this issue, which at times really strained my ability to believe in either of them. In fact, I was disappointed that for the most part both women are essentially victims both of the press and of the hackers and it isn’t until the end that they start to think and act about what’s best for them. This isn’t to say that the male characters are treated any better – for the most part they’re little more than stock characters who barely rise above the issues that they’re there to discuss. I did enjoy the depiction of the corporate drivers at play in the tech industry and the reliance placed on old-fashioned PR to cultivate and propagate the image that they want the public to see. However, ultimately there is a lot of dense, jargon-filled dialogue in this novel, which I really didn’t connect with (although if you’re more tech savvy than me, you may well find it easier to follow). Ultimately, I don’t think there’s enough here for me to want to continue with the rest of the series, but I would probably check out Blakstad’s other work.
SOCKPUPPET will be released in the United Kingdom on 19th May 2016. Thanks to Amazon Vine for the ARC of this book.
