meets Black Mirror and Ready Player One in this unsettling, near-future science fiction standalone.
Something is rotten in the state of the NutriStart Skills Academy
With the discovery of a human skull on the playing fields, children displaying symptoms of an unfamiliar, grisly virus and a catastrophic malfunction in the site's security system, the NSA is about to experience a week that no amount of rebranding can conceal. As the school descends into chaos, teacher Tom Rosen goes looking for answers - but when the real, the unreal and the surreal are indistinguishable, the truth can be difficult to recognise.
One pupil, Gabriel Backer, may hold the key to saving the school from destroying itself and its students, except he has already been expelled. Not only that - he has disappeared down the rabbit-hole of "Alpha Omega" - the world's largest VR role-playing game, filled with violent delights and unbridled debauchery. But the game quickly sours. Gabriel will need to confront the real world he's been so desperate to escape if he ever wants to leave...
[STEPHANIE BACKER lives in a haunted house]***
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(@TitanBooks, 21 June 2020, 416 pages, ebook, #ARC from the publisher via # NetGalley and voluntarily reviewed)
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I'd never heard of the author before but the plot sounded very intriguing and Titan Books is among my favourite publishers so I was pretty confident I'd have a good time. The comparisons to Stranger Things, Black Mirror and Ready Player One were added bonuses. It also reminded me a lot of Awaken Online: Catharsis. I didn't want to stop reading one I'd started because I was enjoying myself so much. I'm a bit of an AI / VR phobe so a lot of what happens in the book unsettled and disturbed me because it felt so plausible which made it even more enjoyable to read. This is unsettling but fantastic, the kind of book to get sucked into and one I will think about for weeks. This is a terrific book.
