I was putting this off for ages and ages. At times, this was easily a 5 star read. It has an interesting, cyberpunk setting and plot, taking place in a very topical location and immensely relevant subject matter tied to it. The technology itself was interesting, but ultimately where it falls down somewhat, for me.

The author is clearly knowledgeable and explained it well, but when it is used for plot device purposes, some of the novelty actually gets taken away as it devolves.

As plots go, it’s fairly typical and the pacing is hampered by techno jargon inserts, fairly common of the genre. It’s hard to balance a thriller like pace with the explanation of the divergences from what the readers know. Ultimately, it putters to the end, rather than fairly flying along, as it does in the start. 3.5 rounded up

I can see why this has been so divisive. For me, though, this was an unexpected, fun romp that managed to be more successful than most commercial dark academy efforts. The characters were relatable, the larger point made well, (soft) magic system intruding just enough to convey themes and character work, and the prose work out-of-the-way.

Too much more of this would have probably felt too-much. The plot didn’t feel overstuffed, the character work is where it shined - making whether the reader “likes” that element of the fiction pivotal. Personally, I liked how all the characters were flawed and why they were that way. I didn’t care that the magic wasn’t explained in detail, and kind of hate hard magic systems (ala Mistborn, etc.).

I’m a bit surprised there aren’t more dark academy, magic school efforts out there, but there seems to be some difficulty getting them out there, at least that I’ve seen. This and something like Magic For Liars, feel like the best stand alone efforts in the intersection, though.

Attempting to get to more of my cyberpunk library, I finally got this one. It’s a solid, feeling fairly commercial effort. Meaning it has the pacing and technophobia elements. The character work is fine, the plot quite fun, and the twist, while predictable, ultimately satisfying.

What drew me to it is the augmented reality aspects. I bet I’d have liked this even more years ago, since I’m very into AR, but more so mixed reality. AR feels, I don’t know, old tech, somehow, already. However, this was a solid effort. Though, I would like to see less technophobic efforts in modern cyberpunk works, it’s understandably hard to deliver, when the technology in the subgenre is generally repurposed to fight back against “the system”—making it hard to be more nuanced, and probably uncalled for in a commercial effort. I doubt an editor would care.

This reminded me of (pleasently), other kick-ass cyberpunk heroines (particularly Escapeology and Necrotech). It’s a mood I can comfortably sink into and very much enjoy. The character work is better than average, though with a trite start. But it develops rather nicely as she interacts with the world and other characters. The high tech aspect of the cyberpunk world wasn’t stand out, but the setting made it compelling, similarly as it developed.

It’s fun, highly readable, and a really quick read.

3.5 rounded up

This was a relatively fun romp with a bit of a strange plot. It does come together, and ends in a satisfying place, but it feels very overfull with scenes that establish the same thing over and over again. I don’t know if the book assumes the reader will have forgotten some details, but it ends up making every point it attempts multiple times.

That said, despite some annoyances, I did enjoy it, found it very readable, and thought it was pretty good for a sophomoric effort. I would wager the author develops into something better, as the issues weren’t character dependent or in the larger scope.

This is a good example of the literary scifi intersections that, unfortunately, epitomize the problem from the literary side: the scifi conceit is always purely used as a device and never as an examination or lens, which (somehow) is not the case in commercial genre fiction. So, we end up with people saturated in literary fiction excited about concepts that are far more explored and compelling in the genre they don’t read, and end up thinking it’s incredibly novel and compelling (cough Klara and the Sun),

It by no means this is a bad novel, per se, it’s just a large pet peeve of mine, having consumed a lot of literary and commercial fiction both. I didn’t feel like the novel had anything interesting to say around the conceit and the actual plot focusing on such wider issues it only managed to touch on it, while we got a solipsistic view of a progressing relationship from people situated in completely different cultures. The plot felt secondary and simplistic, and the ending all but a foregone conclusion based on the way the story was told from perspective it was in.

This ended up being fairly forgettable, though it had some interesting aspects. When it came time for the group to encounter a foreign biome, culture, and language, it really fell apart for me. The plot redeems it, so long as you can sidestep the problems, though.