Astrid Hawk
Read for First Reads April 2026. 4* for enjoyment; 3* for story construction. I'd liken this to Blake Crouch without the infuriating main characters - it takes our real American society and technology, and extrapolates it a bit unrealistically in a sort of thriller tale. I haven't really enjoyed Crouch's writing because his main characters (and plots) are driven by bad decisions born of hubris. In this book, the main characters were far less annoying.
Tardiff imagines a near-future society where everything is managed by an algorithm... or in this case many algorithms from interconnecting networks. He explores how this impacts real people's lives, and how easy it is for the creators to lose control of their creations, and how difficult it is to actually secure these systems. There is a lot of social engineering/hacking, starting with a basic phishing exercise and ramping up from there - most of it is conveniently smooth and movie-ish (despite the main character constantly scoffing at false hackers who think hacking is like the movies), but it was still fun to read. There is a little bit of basic tech-splaining in the book - I'm in tech, and it didn't really bother me. It was simplified, but not outright wrong (at least, not in the context of fiction). I don't know if it would bother others not in tech, or if it would just be annoying. Other reviewers seemed to find it insulting, but I don't think it was intended that way... I read it as a way to ground the future tech in today's practices, which made it feel more realistic... you could see a possible path from where we are to the imagined world of the book.
It's a fast-moving romp that does get a little out of control by the end, and it loses touch a bit with what's feasible - but I still enjoyed this read a lot.
Read for First Reads April 2026. 4* for enjoyment; 3* for story construction. I'd liken this to Blake Crouch without the infuriating main characters - it takes our real American society and technology, and extrapolates it a bit unrealistically in a sort of thriller tale. I haven't really enjoyed Crouch's writing because his main characters (and plots) are driven by bad decisions born of hubris. In this book, the main characters were far less annoying.
Tardiff imagines a near-future society where everything is managed by an algorithm... or in this case many algorithms from interconnecting networks. He explores how this impacts real people's lives, and how easy it is for the creators to lose control of their creations, and how difficult it is to actually secure these systems. There is a lot of social engineering/hacking, starting with a basic phishing exercise and ramping up from there - most of it is conveniently smooth and movie-ish (despite the main character constantly scoffing at false hackers who think hacking is like the movies), but it was still fun to read. There is a little bit of basic tech-splaining in the book - I'm in tech, and it didn't really bother me. It was simplified, but not outright wrong (at least, not in the context of fiction). I don't know if it would bother others not in tech, or if it would just be annoying. Other reviewers seemed to find it insulting, but I don't think it was intended that way... I read it as a way to ground the future tech in today's practices, which made it feel more realistic... you could see a possible path from where we are to the imagined world of the book.
It's a fast-moving romp that does get a little out of control by the end, and it loses touch a bit with what's feasible - but I still enjoyed this read a lot.