Plot or Premise

A girl in the early 21st century fills in for her brother on a contract to play a virtual reality video game set in the future. Except it turns out that it isn’t a video game, she really is in the future interacting with the people who hired them.

What I Liked

There is a really good hook to the opening sessions, including a murder to potentially solve, connections to clandestine operations, etc. And some really rich “time travel” logistics of how the future connects to a version of their past reality that is not REALLY their past, but a divergent path of their old reality. I liked how it moved towards some broader socio-economic changes for a while, and then it started to seem almost unreal at the end (a little too much political change).

What I Didn’t Like

I watched Episode 1 of the TV series based on the book before I started reading it, and it’s what inspired me to read it, in fact. But I would have been beyond confused if I hadn’t seen the episode. As the “future employers” want to take their time explaining to the girl and her brother what exactly is going on, that they really are communicating across time, they also don’t explain it very quickly to the reader either. The technospeak was off the charts and even with the orientation from the TV episode, I felt like it was almost a third of the way into the book before I was “caught up” and understood most of what was going on. Some pieces were not explained very well, including the relationship between several shadow contractors in the future, or how some people from the future are actually originally alive in the hub’s present. However, what isn’t really clear is how some of the antagonists are involved to oppose them.

The Bottom Line

When the past is not your past but you want to ensure a good future anyway