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Review: Revenant Sun by Eric Danhoff

Updated: Oct 25, 2020




Synopsis:

Stanley Gabrels has been online for most of his life, living in a makeshift paradise hovering above those left behind for the sake of progress, shoulder to shoulder with thousands of others like him, working nonstop, guided in everyday life by the world's most advanced artificial intelligence.

As passionate as he is for the latest technology and augmentation, he also longs to escape from the constant barrage of information that is stripping away his humanity. When offered to crack a code that could make him a fortune, he becomes involved in a deadly game of cat and mouse that will forever change him and the world as he knows it.


Review of Revenant Sun (13/06/20)

Disclaimer: I was provided a copy of this audiobook free of charge in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.


As a teenager, I read Neuromancer by William Gibson and this (along with his other works) left me with a real appreciation for the Cyberpunk genre and even affected my social life when it led me to run the role playing game Cyberpunk 2020 for groups of friends.


The problem is, it is really hard to write good Cyberpunk as all too often I come into a story expecting great things and end up finding that the setting is used purely as an excuse to justify flying car chases, cyborg battles and oversized weapons but wholly lack a realistic world for them to exist.


I find that the genre has, ever since GIbson, lacked a world-builder like Tolkien is to Fantasy and Lovecraft to horror and so I admit that I fully expected the same here but thankfully, for once, I was mistaken.


This is not a book for action fans,let's get the out there straight away. Don't come into this expecting the aforementioned car chases, gunfights in Zero-G or Cyborgs punching holes through walls, this is more like a mix of Minority Report and Gibson's fantastic short story Johnny Mnemonic (with a bit of Winter Soldier thrown in for good measure).


The story is based in a world not unlike where our own is slowly heading. The inhabitants day-to-day lives are automated through Adam, an AI whom they communicate with via a wetware mental link like a more advanced Alexa or Siri.


In this world we find Stanley, a pretty normal man living a perfectly normal, safe life as a journalist but who starts to experience blackouts and waking to find himself in strange places and unusual, dangerous situations. Slowly, he begins to realise that there is someone else in his head and they are intend of wrestling control of his body from him.


What begins is a journey through the shining world of the future, weaving through a city all too familiar at times both in its reliance on technology but also in the conditions that the different parts of a society exist, all while seeking to understand what is happening to his slowly fracturing mind. With the aid of some unlikely allies, he comes to realise the truth behind both of the voices in his head and the larger implications it has for all of society.


I admit that initially I was a little worried by the slow start of the story and felt this might be one of those books that takes so long to get going that, by the time we get anywhere, the story has ended. Thankfully, before too long the mystery began to unfold and it had its hooks in me good and proper.


A dialogue heavy book with a wide-ranging plethora of characters, it's a testament to both the writing and the narration that I was able to follow the story so easily. Never once did I find myself unsure as to the route the story was taking or whom was involved and throughout all near-12 hours I was confident in my understanding of the characters and their choices.


While I think that this book isn't for everyone, as again I highlight the lack of any grand action sequences, for those who prefer a rich world and deep, engaging story I can't recommend this highly enough.



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