Author: S.E Gould
Pages: 380
Summary:
Billings Ball is mangled and dies in a horrific car accident. Other than a handful of social media friends, nobody misses the fat, short and stupid young man. In truth, Billings is secretly saved by a neuroscientist/social media friend, who he thought died. His body is kept in cryostasis while his mind is connected to a virtual world, Billings joins his friend’s secret benevolent society called Perfect Imperfection. With assistance from accelerated learning and artificial intelligence technologies, Billings trains to become a virtual secret agent that helps humanity in the face of accelerating scientific, ecological and social evolution.
While analyzing cybercrime targets, Blackbeard, an elite black hat hacker, discovers a pattern behind a series of philanthropic acts. Employing several false identities and cutting edge tech, he uncovers Perfect Imperfection. Digging deeper, he learns that the secret society is well-funded, consists of supposedly dead people, and is using ultra-advanced technologies outside of government regulation. Blackbeard seizes the opportunity and blackmails Perfect Imperfection.
On his first mission, Billings stumbles upon Blackbeard’s security breach. He knows that losing their anonymity before they can demonstrate a track-record of benevolence will mean the end of Perfect Imperfection, and probably, his life. In a race against time, he must use his newly acquired sleuthing and hacking abilities, along with Perfect Imperfection’s drone and AI technologies to foil this threat to his new world.
Review:
The story appealed to me, as we have this grey and very forgettable main character. He was not book smart, not street-smart and he was not good-looking, he was just your completely average guy who would normally never be the main character of any story. Though he is given a second chance when an accident occurs, and he is given a second life inside an AI world. The author has built an amazing foundation for the main character and his supportive characters, they are well-thought-out characters with complex personalities. Blackbeard, The villain is a mastermind and therefore has the potential to be a huge threat to the AI world and the organization. Though he at times ends up being a bit too cliche for my taste. He tends to be a stereotypical villain and at times I could not take him seriously. I wish he had the same kind of impact as the main character and his supporting characters.
The story itself is very well planned, the author shows lots of knowledge about IT and technology. S.E Gould clearly has dedicated a lot of time to plan and build up the story. The author's efforts are being rewarded since the story does not lack in anything itself. Though, I must admit that the story's build-up reminds me a bit of the second book of The Hunger Games, where 80% of the story is mainly building up to the actual plot and then 10% is the main part that everyone has been anticipating and 10% is the ending. I wish more of the book was dedicated to the cyber fight between the main character and the villain. The fight had a lot of potentials which I feel wasn't being fully exploited. You have these masterminds fighting against each other, and our heroes are close to lose everything they used years to build, a world that is amazing and has saved so many people. Just a bit more focus on the fight and the potential threat would have been nice.
The author shows incredible depth while writing about IT, the characters, and the AI world. The world the author created was amazing and very well-made. I would definitely read it again if I was asked and I will read more from the author, I just hope that next time, the action will be the main focus and not the background.
Cheers,
Karen
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