Top critical review
1.0 out of 5 starsA mess, and self-plagerism to boot.
Reviewed in the United States on January 12, 2020
1. I spent the first half of the novel being bothered by the central “who is producing this amazing art” plot line, because of course he already did that...
2. I love fiction that has you trying to figure out what is going on. But only when the answers make sense! Things jell superficially at the (very distant) end of the story, but nobody’s motivations or actions feel real when you bite down on them. Let me ask one question: why did Cayce ask her intel friend for the *email* of the maker? Why not the name, or a dossier, etc.? I think it was at that point I just stopped caring, and started skimming a bit.
3. There were no characters I cared about, not even the main one. The only character that came across as real was the nerd in Tokyo.
In all, I can’t decide if Gibson was just phoning it in, or something more. The book is so nearly farce, I suspect it might actually be one, with us readers as the butt.
