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zare_i's review
4.0
Excellent book of revenge. When infiltration mission goes wrong way Michael Dunne finds himself abandoned by his agency and left high and dry. Finally after his marriage collapses and he ends up in the prison (all of it following his fiasco) Dunne decides to take revenge on the people who brought him down in a most savage way possible.
Author is a person that always does his research and it is very interesting to see spy use of high technology. Author's signature, ruthless intelligence agencies that play double, triple or quadruple deceptions and are always ready to sacrifice their most loyal agents to achieve the national goals, is present in this novel too.
Book centers on something that terrified me first time I saw it - deep-fake technology. Implications of very existence of this technology (that brought only admiration from everyone else I know) are unforeseeable and I highly doubt this type of technology can have any positive applications. For me this technology is very like giving a hand grenade to the toddler - highly, highly irresponsible.
Excellent book, highly recommended to all fans of spy thrillers.
Author is a person that always does his research and it is very interesting to see spy use of high technology. Author's signature, ruthless intelligence agencies that play double, triple or quadruple deceptions and are always ready to sacrifice their most loyal agents to achieve the national goals, is present in this novel too.
Book centers on something that terrified me first time I saw it - deep-fake technology. Implications of very existence of this technology (that brought only admiration from everyone else I know) are unforeseeable and I highly doubt this type of technology can have any positive applications. For me this technology is very like giving a hand grenade to the toddler - highly, highly irresponsible.
Excellent book, highly recommended to all fans of spy thrillers.
tonyzale's review
2.0
David Ignatius’ Paladin is a Trump-era techno-thriller starring ex-CIA operations officer Michael Dunne. We follow Dunne before and after a yearlong stint in prison for spying on Americans, despite assurances from his director that the mission was legitimate. His target was “Fallen Empire” a shadowy organization leveraging AI to produce high quality fake videos to manipulate public opinions and market forces. They are equal-opportunity manipulators, agitating both the right and left against one another. The agency disavows their complicity in his work, leaving him looking like a loose cannon.
Upon release from prison, Dunne is a driven, angry man: “It would be the beginning of his ‘R&R’, he had been telling himself for months; his revenge and redemption.“ The writing style is hard boiled and humorless, and the plot doesn’t shy away from excess: when his operation goes off the rails he loses not only his job and freedom, but also his wife and a family member. Elevating the characters a notch above cardboard is a secondary theme of American decay. A native Pittsburgher, Dunne returns to the city to rebuild his life after prison. He laments the closed steel mills, resents the area’s small, burgeoning tech industry, while simultaneously also hating local Trump supporters with racist, nativist views. He begrudgingly interacts with hedge fund managers he suspects are destroying the working class. Dunne seems to find no redeeming qualities in anyone or anything he interacts with.
As Dunne works to unwind the plot against him, we enjoy the tropes of luxury associated with the genre: superyachts docked on the Sardinian coast, cross-country journeys in Gulfstream jets, and wandering the streets of exotic locations like Urbino and Taiwan. It is entertaining but vacuous, pulling few surprises out of these environments. Similarly, the story’s tech underpinnings are minimal, at best. There’s not much exploration of the data and code behind the fake news AI. The climax nearly abandons this threat in favor of a more typical social engineering hack to manipulate financial data. Finally, Dunne’s emergence from prison is much too straightforward; he’s back on his feet within a month of leaving prison, landing 6 figure consulting gigs and readily getting old work buddies to share confidential info and access. I don’t know anything about how the FBI and CIA operate, but I can’t imagine life is this easy for discredited officers.
Paladin is a reasonable espionage time killer that does little to push the boundaries of the genre.
Upon release from prison, Dunne is a driven, angry man: “It would be the beginning of his ‘R&R’, he had been telling himself for months; his revenge and redemption.“ The writing style is hard boiled and humorless, and the plot doesn’t shy away from excess: when his operation goes off the rails he loses not only his job and freedom, but also his wife and a family member. Elevating the characters a notch above cardboard is a secondary theme of American decay. A native Pittsburgher, Dunne returns to the city to rebuild his life after prison. He laments the closed steel mills, resents the area’s small, burgeoning tech industry, while simultaneously also hating local Trump supporters with racist, nativist views. He begrudgingly interacts with hedge fund managers he suspects are destroying the working class. Dunne seems to find no redeeming qualities in anyone or anything he interacts with.
As Dunne works to unwind the plot against him, we enjoy the tropes of luxury associated with the genre: superyachts docked on the Sardinian coast, cross-country journeys in Gulfstream jets, and wandering the streets of exotic locations like Urbino and Taiwan. It is entertaining but vacuous, pulling few surprises out of these environments. Similarly, the story’s tech underpinnings are minimal, at best. There’s not much exploration of the data and code behind the fake news AI. The climax nearly abandons this threat in favor of a more typical social engineering hack to manipulate financial data. Finally, Dunne’s emergence from prison is much too straightforward; he’s back on his feet within a month of leaving prison, landing 6 figure consulting gigs and readily getting old work buddies to share confidential info and access. I don’t know anything about how the FBI and CIA operate, but I can’t imagine life is this easy for discredited officers.
Paladin is a reasonable espionage time killer that does little to push the boundaries of the genre.
leviathan23's review
1.0
I just couldn't finish this. Its such a jack off for boring conservative white men. I'm none of that except white so I just can't with it. Dnf 60%. I gave it a go.
Here's a quote that did make me laugh out loud tho, "dune watched a figure identical to Obama, speaking in the unmistakable high, thin, precise voice of the president..." IMAGINE BEING SO DUMB YOU DESCRIBE OBAMAS VOICE AS HIGH AND THIN
Here's a quote that did make me laugh out loud tho, "dune watched a figure identical to Obama, speaking in the unmistakable high, thin, precise voice of the president..." IMAGINE BEING SO DUMB YOU DESCRIBE OBAMAS VOICE AS HIGH AND THIN
kimzeyk's review against another edition
1.0
Terrible, mansplainy writing with rogue commas. Couldn’t even get through the sample.
leonardoz's review
5.0
This was a very good techno-thriller. Kept me engaged and wanting to keep on reading. Not big on the back and forth timelines normally but this was pretty easy to follow. The plot concept is timely in the sense of self correcting AI, but not too wild and outlandish. Easy read. Recommend the book. I received this as an ARC from Netgalley.
watermetaphor's review
2.0
im pretty sure this book doesn't pass the bechdel test just sayin... i liked the plot but i recommend more women and more gays and less manpain :')
shmadsie's review
1.0
full disclosure: i received an arc from a goodreads giveaway.
wow. woooooow. the white male author just jumped out.
from our main guy's wife being a sexy virgin who only had two modes: active seduction or hysterical shrew (that's how all women do, right? and the fact that he kept mentioning she was a virgin before he met her made me want to punch this guy hard enough to give him a concussion), to thinking a conspiracy designed to implicate him would simply fall apart with an 'i didn't do it, no i don't have any proof, but i do have a penis and... i'm white *waggles eyebrows*', to the fact that he cheated on his wife of his own volition and then goes around blaming every other person in the vicinity for it because, of course, he can't be responsible! he's a well-off white man! his daughter was a complete non-entity to him, proven over and over again by her serving as an extension only of his hot brazilian virgin bride.
i hate this man. HATE. and the whole book i'm supposed to be rooting for him to get revenge? why? he sucks, he sucks so much, so much i wanted him to just fall into a woodchipper, book over, the end, sorry you had to read about him as long as you did, kiddo. he also mostly engineered his own fate by being a dick, and then a white-man-confident dumbass. this family that's so important to him... that he voted for trump and somehow thinks he has the luxury of 'not caring about politics'? his kid isn't white, his wife isn't white - in fact, she's likely very dark-skinned (half-mozambican and half-brazilian) who makes her living speaking portuguese. so he's actively made his family's lives more unsafe, then cheated on his wife on top of that with a blonde-haired white woman and i'm supposed to want.... what, here? for him to.... get back together with her? THAT'S how the book ends? and i'm supposed to ENJOY that? HOW. WHAT. WTF.
how 'bout instead: FALL INTO A WOODCHIPPER, YOU PIECE OF SHIT. there's your rewrite; you're welcome.
wow. woooooow. the white male author just jumped out.
from our main guy's wife being a sexy virgin who only had two modes: active seduction or hysterical shrew (that's how all women do, right? and the fact that he kept mentioning she was a virgin before he met her made me want to punch this guy hard enough to give him a concussion), to thinking a conspiracy designed to implicate him would simply fall apart with an 'i didn't do it, no i don't have any proof, but i do have a penis and... i'm white *waggles eyebrows*', to the fact that he cheated on his wife of his own volition and then goes around blaming every other person in the vicinity for it because, of course, he can't be responsible! he's a well-off white man! his daughter was a complete non-entity to him, proven over and over again by her serving as an extension only of his hot brazilian virgin bride.
i hate this man. HATE. and the whole book i'm supposed to be rooting for him to get revenge? why? he sucks, he sucks so much, so much i wanted him to just fall into a woodchipper, book over, the end, sorry you had to read about him as long as you did, kiddo. he also mostly engineered his own fate by being a dick, and then a white-man-confident dumbass. this family that's so important to him... that he voted for trump and somehow thinks he has the luxury of 'not caring about politics'? his kid isn't white, his wife isn't white - in fact, she's likely very dark-skinned (half-mozambican and half-brazilian) who makes her living speaking portuguese. so he's actively made his family's lives more unsafe, then cheated on his wife on top of that with a blonde-haired white woman and i'm supposed to want.... what, here? for him to.... get back together with her? THAT'S how the book ends? and i'm supposed to ENJOY that? HOW. WHAT. WTF.
how 'bout instead: FALL INTO A WOODCHIPPER, YOU PIECE OF SHIT. there's your rewrite; you're welcome.
lhbrandes's review
adventurous
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0