Off the back of the finale of the first book (ie spoilery for people who haven’t read Daemon) the dark web has merged with “reality” with augmented reality tech, allowing the factions attempting to come up on top after, essentially, the new world order caused by the daemon program. And once again, there’s gestures at characters who are somewhat punk, in so far as using the dark net stuff as a way of co-opting individual power away from capitalists—but it’s all merged with this MMO system and gonzo, kill count, drones and guns and bombs and crap.

It comes down to a lot of lip service and world building that is actually quite interesting, and cutting edge, but are reduced to plot driven battle Royal of sorts. It’s fine, fun, commercial fiction, and is post the more interesting aspects of the story in book one. Less cringe worthy dialogue and one-liners, but then there’s also a lot of people running around saying they’re level 12 rogues and stuff. People in awe of online wizards with drones and military grade weaponry skirmishes that are then covered up by news propaganda. It all gets a little too unbelievable while trying to purport a kind of realism in other areas.

It’s a mash-up that feels juvenile, ultimately, even though there are kernels of cool ideas within this new kind of society leveraged with, basically cryptocurrency (dark web bucks, or whatever). As with the first, I’m not fully sold and don’t think it’s really cyberpunk and is actually a techno thriller with some (seemingly) well researched technological components grafted to bare bones characters and plot.