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3.39 AVERAGE
3.39 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Stalking, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, Classism
I am a huge Cyberpunk fan. I absolutely love the game and would consider it my favorite. I adore the anime and would easily put it on my top 10, and though I have yet to get to playing the original TTRPG created by Mike Pondsmith, I would consider the world of Night City birthed from Cyberpunk 2013 to be one of if not my favorite worlds in fiction. Going into this book, I knew that I would like it, as Rafał Kosik is said on the book to have been a screenwriter in Cyberpunk Edgerunners, the anime. Though I went into this book with many biases (as is impossible for none to go into anything without), I still can wholeheartedly say that this is an amazing book, though still with its issues.
The book follows Zor, Ron, Aya, Milena, Albert, and Borg, and is set after a successful heist. To be more specific, the first chapter documents the events of the heist, and every chapter afterwards is what occurs from it. Now one big issue arises immediately, and it is what stops this book from being something which I would consider almost perfect, and that is the fact that there are so many characters. Not only do we get to see the main characters which I had just listed, but there are also far more which we need to keep track of. Since this is a book which constantly switches perspectives, each break we can see in sections, save for maybe like 5 which I was able to count, has us switching to a whole new scenario, character, inner-thoughts, and sometimes even writing style. At first this can be annoying, mainly due to the fact that the person who the perspective switches to isn't told to you until you are around a paragraph or two into the section. Though as you go along, and even as early as chapter 2 if you are perceptive enough, there is enough given in those paragraphs for you to be able to pick up who the perspective switched to. Though I personally didn't have issues following along with it, I can see how this can be a detriment to many, as it can turn this book into a confusing mess. Going along with the idea of having so many characters, it leads to a whole lot of them not getting entirely fleshed out. I found that because there were so many perspectives to go through, and with what the overarching narrative was trying to achieve, the book seemed to favor 2 or 3 characters and left the rest just kind of... there. Though all the characters do have backstories and, in my opinion, very well executed send offs, there seemed to be 4, which I won't name for the sake of spoilers, who got the majority of the character building and themes, and unsurprisingly, my favorite character ended up being one of those 4.
Now onto Night City, which to me was really well handled in this book, but once again comes with an issue. The book just starts you off with no introduction to the world, acting as if you already know what this world is. Since I do already know what this world is and am very well acquainted with the lore surrounding it, this wasn't an issue for me, as I knew basically everything they were talking about and was able to following along with it really well. However, this becomes an issue to those who are completely unfamiliar with this world, as you are left with a bunch of references, information, and in-universe slang which really just seem like a whole lot of gibberish. Though you don't necessarily need to have knowledge on the Cyberpunk 2077 universe, it will help immensely when trying to read this book.
As an overall out of 10 rating, as that is what I prefer to use, I would give this book a 9/10. I found that it stays true to the world of Night City, is entertaining all the way through with its breakneck pace, and is a must read for those who are already fans of this world, and maybe even those who are wanting to get into it. I found that, though it has its issues, it is not enough for me to dock it anymore points than I already have.
The book follows Zor, Ron, Aya, Milena, Albert, and Borg, and is set after a successful heist. To be more specific, the first chapter documents the events of the heist, and every chapter afterwards is what occurs from it. Now one big issue arises immediately, and it is what stops this book from being something which I would consider almost perfect, and that is the fact that there are so many characters. Not only do we get to see the main characters which I had just listed, but there are also far more which we need to keep track of. Since this is a book which constantly switches perspectives, each break we can see in sections, save for maybe like 5 which I was able to count, has us switching to a whole new scenario, character, inner-thoughts, and sometimes even writing style. At first this can be annoying, mainly due to the fact that the person who the perspective switches to isn't told to you until you are around a paragraph or two into the section. Though as you go along, and even as early as chapter 2 if you are perceptive enough, there is enough given in those paragraphs for you to be able to pick up who the perspective switched to. Though I personally didn't have issues following along with it, I can see how this can be a detriment to many, as it can turn this book into a confusing mess. Going along with the idea of having so many characters, it leads to a whole lot of them not getting entirely fleshed out. I found that because there were so many perspectives to go through, and with what the overarching narrative was trying to achieve, the book seemed to favor 2 or 3 characters and left the rest just kind of... there. Though all the characters do have backstories and, in my opinion, very well executed send offs, there seemed to be 4, which I won't name for the sake of spoilers, who got the majority of the character building and themes, and unsurprisingly, my favorite character ended up being one of those 4.
Now onto Night City, which to me was really well handled in this book, but once again comes with an issue. The book just starts you off with no introduction to the world, acting as if you already know what this world is. Since I do already know what this world is and am very well acquainted with the lore surrounding it, this wasn't an issue for me, as I knew basically everything they were talking about and was able to following along with it really well. However, this becomes an issue to those who are completely unfamiliar with this world, as you are left with a bunch of references, information, and in-universe slang which really just seem like a whole lot of gibberish. Though you don't necessarily need to have knowledge on the Cyberpunk 2077 universe, it will help immensely when trying to read this book.
As an overall out of 10 rating, as that is what I prefer to use, I would give this book a 9/10. I found that it stays true to the world of Night City, is entertaining all the way through with its breakneck pace, and is a must read for those who are already fans of this world, and maybe even those who are wanting to get into it. I found that, though it has its issues, it is not enough for me to dock it anymore points than I already have.
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Started out really good, but kind of fell apart by the end. I don't know if that's because of the translation, or because they were trying to do too much. They should've kept the story small and compact, but the more they added, the looser it spun until it was more just words on a page than anything. I found it didn't really add anything to the world of Cyberpunk 2077.
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
An excellent cyberpunk read with clear noir influences.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Chronic illness, Mental illness, Schizophrenia/Psychosis
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I see some reviews mention that this book is tightly associated with the setting of Cyberpunk 2077, and it's repeatedly mentioned as a detriment.
If you are not familiar with the setting, don't bother with this one, they say.
Well, that's not an issue for me! See, when they say "choom", I pog. When I see the Trauma team, I clap. As funny as it is, the sentence "Gonk's biz is hazy af, flipped that weefle dirty chrome that got him zeroed" actually makes sense to me. I love the setting. It has all the right things and in right proportions, it's ripe with potential, there's no shortage of stories you can tell in it.
In one word - I'm a fan. And as a fan, I'm here to tell you: don’t bother with this one.
Let's see if my summary can convince you.
Three, two, one action! A group of strangers is hired to pull off a heist. Some of them are in it for money, some do it because they don’t exactly get a choice, and some in for the thrill - but all of them are complete novices at this, not acquainted with the nuances of street life in Night City. Against all odds, the heist is successful and they hand off the payload to the crime boss who hired them, but it quickly becomes evident that:
1) The heist went too smoothly, something's off
and
2) They have loose ends that can - and will - get them into trouble.
Through a series of coincidences(hey), they once again band together to try and survive and make some credits while at it. A premise as good as any other, but this isn't your typical heist story - because right off the bat, it takes a sharp turn right into self-subversion.
You see, our crew has a problem: it's not that they aren't very good, it's that they're narratively designated as perpetual losers, and in cyberpunk, my friend, losers lose big. All their schemes are harebrained and end in disaster, they cause an inordinate amount of collateral damage, they barely scrape by and their situation only ever goes from bad to worse.
They wallow in their misery, aimlessly grasping at the opportunities to improve their lot and close the gaping holes inside their souls that make them what they are, and a lot of time is wasted on establishing this in great detail, so by the time the setup and the characters are laid out, we're somewhere halfway through the book. Coincidentally, that’s where I realized that I no longer understood what the author was trying to do.
Was this perhaps done in hopes that the reader would find that depiction of a low-end cyberpunk heist crew and their struggles entertaining?
Was that a masterful subversion done to remind that not everyone in the world of cyberpunk is a savage street samurai, and an average criminal is as petty, desperate, and pathetic as ever?
Was it done solely in service of the plot, for the sake of the ending?
Regardless of the author's intent, the premise fails to entertain: there's watching screwups, and then there's watching uninteresting screwups. Our crew falls firmly into the latter category, and we’re stuck with them for the rest of the book. To keep things from getting too stale, the perspective jump from one character to another, but switching characters this often means there's simply no time to develop anyone properly, and so we end up periodically exchanging one cardboard cutout soulless kleptopunk for another.
Book crawls forward, primary and secondary antagonists get established - through perspective switches - and dealt with - in the broadest possible sense of the word, as their storylines are as messy and pointless as the protagonists', and are often resolved through coincidences(heyy!).
Even a direct confrontation with their original handler is a letdown, and the encounter peters out pathetically, as if the writer was afraid to have characters confront each other for half a minute and have a meaningful resolution.
Same is true for the protagonist characters - they never come into serious conflict with each other, even though at various point in the story at least two of them are actively working against the group's interest - all inter-group conflicts is resolved by outside forces, dealing out karmic justice as the book meanders into conclusion.
Much like the rest of the book, said conclusion is handled with a mechanical, German precision: one by one, our unsympathetic protagonists meet their fates, as their delusions and unresolved conflicts inevitably lead them to their demise.
In a shocking twist twist of narrative brilliance not seen anywhere else in the book, the primary male protagonist attempts to conclude his character arc - and it's at this point, that the narrative does an about-face, and it's revealed to the reader that two main protagonists are not who he thought they are, and the entire situation was orchestrated by a megacorporation running a complex test - a social experiment, if you will.
It's heavily hinted that many coincidences - hey, look at the book title! look at it! - throughout the book were not actually coincidental, although it is never fully explained to what extent. Regardless, it’s not important as the entire operation was just a sideshow to a sideshow - none of it really matters.
Upon dropping this banger of an ending, the book peaces out, and you're left with several unresolved questions.
Perhaps someone out there was anticipating these questions to be directed towards the metaplot CDPR metaplot CDPR has been half-heartedly weaving through Cyberpunk 2077. Something like this, perhaps?
"What does it all mean in the context of
"Is there hidden context I'm missing, should I re-read the book?"
"Is this the rework of the plot originally intended for Militech?"
Well, contrary to these expectations, questions that were on my on mind as I put the book away sounded closer to:
"What the fuck?"
"Can't you write like a normal human being for once?"
"Why did I pay for this again?".
And the worst part: this is par the course. I'm a die-hard fan of Cyberpunk, and a turbo consumer of any and all related media, I have read more tie-ins than would be healthy, and I can conclude that every single piece CDPR had their hand in suffered from the same, typified approach.
It's difficult to articulate just how annoying it is - once you notice that pattern, you'll never un-notice it - it's everywhere, it's handled poorly, and it's anything but subtle. In fact, it's so prevalent that I have to conclude that the franchise has become a prisoner of a singular theme.
A theme that, if I had to encapsulate it - and create a strawman out of CDPR's writers in the process (sorry lads)- would be described as a following series of statements: "LIFE IN CYBERPUNK FUTURE IS ALWAYS UNIVERSALLY BAD AND TERRIBLE AS SET FORTH BY LORD AND PROPHET GIBSON; ALL CHARACTERS ARE NOTHING BUT DRAMA FODDER FATED TO MEET ANTICLIMACTIC ENDS; WHAT DOES ONE’S LIFE MATTER IN THIS BLEAK FUTURE?; BAD ENDINGS WITH HEARTBREAK ONLY, FINAL DESTINATION; ITS MODERN SHAKESPEARE CAN'T YOU SEE THAT? WHY DON'T YOU GET IT WHY DON'T YOU GET IT?"
Alas, the only thing that goes through my mind as I consume my Cyberpunk scoptent these days is:
"Za devetimi gorami in devetimi vodami, in the Night Kraków there lived a guy named V, and everything in his life was gloomy and miserable, and even the freshest pierogi tasted to him like yesterday's leftovers...".
But wait, can you really criticize a cyberpunk novel for being disjointed, messy and depressingly pointless? That's just a book trying to stay close to the genre's roots. Cyberpunk is all about building a vision of a horrible future-just-around-the-corner, a vision that must feel realer-than-real-life, and hey, newsflash - the real life is also cheap, ugly and nasty. It doesn't make much sense, either: events just happen sometimes, and we're forced to deal with consequences. There's rarely a greater purpose to anything, all the happily ever after-s are earned at a significant cost, and even then, they rarely last. This book is true to life, true to genre, it's gritty, noir and cyberpunk, and if you can't handle that - well friend, the problem lies with you!
And that's all true, I'll grant you that, my imaginary advocatus diaboli, but consider the following: I just wasted six hours of my very limited time on this Earth on a tale told by an idiot, and if that’s the only defense that can mustered for this narrative masterpiece - well, I don't know what world you live in, but in our cold, harsh, and petty reality full of nastiness that sort of a time-waster deserves a one-star review.
If you are not familiar with the setting, don't bother with this one, they say.
Well, that's not an issue for me! See, when they say "choom", I pog. When I see the Trauma team, I clap. As funny as it is, the sentence "Gonk's biz is hazy af, flipped that weefle dirty chrome that got him zeroed" actually makes sense to me. I love the setting. It has all the right things and in right proportions, it's ripe with potential, there's no shortage of stories you can tell in it.
In one word - I'm a fan. And as a fan, I'm here to tell you: don’t bother with this one.
Let's see if my summary can convince you.
Three, two, one action! A group of strangers is hired to pull off a heist. Some of them are in it for money, some do it because they don’t exactly get a choice, and some in for the thrill - but all of them are complete novices at this, not acquainted with the nuances of street life in Night City. Against all odds, the heist is successful and they hand off the payload to the crime boss who hired them, but it quickly becomes evident that:
Spoiler
1) The heist went too smoothly, something's off
and
2) They have loose ends that can - and will - get them into trouble.
Through a series of coincidences(hey), they once again band together to try and survive and make some credits while at it. A premise as good as any other, but this isn't your typical heist story - because right off the bat, it takes a sharp turn right into self-subversion.
You see, our crew has a problem: it's not that they aren't very good, it's that they're narratively designated as perpetual losers, and in cyberpunk, my friend, losers lose big. All their schemes are harebrained and end in disaster, they cause an inordinate amount of collateral damage
Spoiler
(of particular note is an incident where they burn an abandoned building with poor homeless orphans(!) inside as a result of poor planning)They wallow in their misery, aimlessly grasping at the opportunities to improve their lot and close the gaping holes inside their souls that make them what they are, and a lot of time is wasted on establishing this in great detail, so by the time the setup and the characters are laid out, we're somewhere halfway through the book. Coincidentally, that’s where I realized that I no longer understood what the author was trying to do.
Was this perhaps done in hopes that the reader would find that depiction of a low-end cyberpunk heist crew and their struggles entertaining?
Was that a masterful subversion done to remind that not everyone in the world of cyberpunk is a savage street samurai, and an average criminal is as petty, desperate, and pathetic as ever?
Was it done solely in service of the plot, for the sake of the ending?
Regardless of the author's intent, the premise fails to entertain: there's watching screwups, and then there's watching uninteresting screwups. Our crew falls firmly into the latter category, and we’re stuck with them for the rest of the book. To keep things from getting too stale, the perspective jump from one character to another, but switching characters this often means there's simply no time to develop anyone properly, and so we end up periodically exchanging one cardboard cutout soulless kleptopunk for another.
Book crawls forward, primary and secondary antagonists get established - through perspective switches - and dealt with - in the broadest possible sense of the word, as their storylines are as messy and pointless as the protagonists', and are often resolved through coincidences(heyy!).
Spoiler
Even a direct confrontation with their original handler is a letdown, and the encounter peters out pathetically, as if the writer was afraid to have characters confront each other for half a minute and have a meaningful resolution.
Same is true for the protagonist characters - they never come into serious conflict with each other, even though at various point in the story at least two of them are actively working against the group's interest - all inter-group conflicts is resolved by outside forces, dealing out karmic justice as the book meanders into conclusion.
Spoiler
Much like the rest of the book, said conclusion is handled with a mechanical, German precision: one by one, our unsympathetic protagonists meet their fates, as their delusions and unresolved conflicts inevitably lead them to their demise.
In a shocking twist twist of narrative brilliance not seen anywhere else in the book, the primary male protagonist attempts to conclude his character arc - and it's at this point, that the narrative does an about-face, and it's revealed to the reader that two main protagonists are not who he thought they are, and the entire situation was orchestrated by a megacorporation running a complex test - a social experiment, if you will.
It's heavily hinted that many coincidences - hey, look at the book title! look at it! - throughout the book were not actually coincidental, although it is never fully explained to what extent. Regardless, it’s not important as the entire operation was just a sideshow to a sideshow - none of it really matters.
Upon dropping this banger of an ending, the book peaces out, and you're left with several unresolved questions.
Perhaps someone out there was anticipating these questions to be directed towards the metaplot CDPR metaplot CDPR has been half-heartedly weaving through Cyberpunk 2077. Something like this, perhaps?
"What does it all mean in the context of
Spoiler
Mr. Blue Eyes?""Is there hidden context I'm missing, should I re-read the book?"
"Is this the rework of the plot originally intended for Militech?"
Well, contrary to these expectations, questions that were on my on mind as I put the book away sounded closer to:
"What the fuck?"
"Can't you write like a normal human being for once?"
"Why did I pay for this again?".
And the worst part: this is par the course. I'm a die-hard fan of Cyberpunk, and a turbo consumer of any and all related media, I have read more tie-ins than would be healthy, and I can conclude that every single piece CDPR had their hand in suffered from the same, typified approach.
It's difficult to articulate just how annoying it is - once you notice that pattern, you'll never un-notice it - it's everywhere, it's handled poorly, and it's anything but subtle. In fact, it's so prevalent that I have to conclude that the franchise has become a prisoner of a singular theme.
A theme that, if I had to encapsulate it - and create a strawman out of CDPR's writers in the process (sorry lads)- would be described as a following series of statements: "LIFE IN CYBERPUNK FUTURE IS ALWAYS UNIVERSALLY BAD AND TERRIBLE AS SET FORTH BY LORD AND PROPHET GIBSON; ALL CHARACTERS ARE NOTHING BUT DRAMA FODDER FATED TO MEET ANTICLIMACTIC ENDS; WHAT DOES ONE’S LIFE MATTER IN THIS BLEAK FUTURE?; BAD ENDINGS WITH HEARTBREAK ONLY, FINAL DESTINATION; ITS MODERN SHAKESPEARE CAN'T YOU SEE THAT? WHY DON'T YOU GET IT WHY DON'T YOU GET IT?"
Alas, the only thing that goes through my mind as I consume my Cyberpunk scoptent these days is:
"Za devetimi gorami in devetimi vodami, in the Night Kraków there lived a guy named V, and everything in his life was gloomy and miserable, and even the freshest pierogi tasted to him like yesterday's leftovers...".
But wait, can you really criticize a cyberpunk novel for being disjointed, messy and depressingly pointless? That's just a book trying to stay close to the genre's roots. Cyberpunk is all about building a vision of a horrible future-just-around-the-corner, a vision that must feel realer-than-real-life, and hey, newsflash - the real life is also cheap, ugly and nasty. It doesn't make much sense, either: events just happen sometimes, and we're forced to deal with consequences. There's rarely a greater purpose to anything, all the happily ever after-s are earned at a significant cost, and even then, they rarely last. This book is true to life, true to genre, it's gritty, noir and cyberpunk, and if you can't handle that - well friend, the problem lies with you!
And that's all true, I'll grant you that, my imaginary advocatus diaboli, but consider the following: I just wasted six hours of my very limited time on this Earth on a tale told by an idiot, and if that’s the only defense that can mustered for this narrative masterpiece - well, I don't know what world you live in, but in our cold, harsh, and petty reality full of nastiness that sort of a time-waster deserves a one-star review.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
funny
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
i will eat up anything set in night city and i hope they keep making companion books. that said, i think this was a good concept of a heist story/characters that stayed true to the game, but it just wasn't executed well. the sudden switches between povs were jarring and i imagine if i hadn't been listening to the audiobook i would've been thoroughly confused (no surprise that Cherami Leigh's narration is excellent).
i have HUGE beef with the final act which i thought was just me being stupid. then i realized how many other people were also on reddit and wikis trying to figure out what the hell happens in the last chapter and i felt better. if half your readers don't have a single clue what is going on in your finale, then it probably wasn't very well done. probably incomprehensible to read if you haven't played the game at all.
i have HUGE beef with the final act which i thought was just me being stupid. then i realized how many other people were also on reddit and wikis trying to figure out what the hell happens in the last chapter and i felt better. if half your readers don't have a single clue what is going on in your finale, then it probably wasn't very well done. probably incomprehensible to read if you haven't played the game at all.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gore, Sexual content, Violence, Murder
Moderate: Alcohol
Minor: Kidnapping, War