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A review by songwind
Bluescreen by Dan Wells
3.0
Bluescreen is clearly a spiritual successor to the cyberpunk of the 80s, but influenced by modern trends in tech and society.
Marissa and her friends are tech savvy teens. They play online games, skip school, and go to clubs. Their biggest worries are pocket-money, relationships, and placing well in an amateur e-sports tournament.
Until their affluent friend Anya tries Bluescreen, a digital "drug" that causes a rush by overloading your implanted computer's sensory interface. It's *not* supposed to make you get up and do strange things while you're high.
Before long, Marissa is in the center of a web of hacking, drug trafficking, and power dealing - and she doesn't even know who the spider is at the center.
The book is pretty good. The vision of future LA is believable but inventive. The themes of man vs. machine, rich vs poor, reality vs virtual reality are all present. The cast is diverse, leaning heavily toward the Mexican denizens of Marissa's neighborhood. The hacking bits are pretty hand-wavy. It's just to be expected - new tech would change things, and real-life hacking is pretty slow and dull most of the time.
I'll check out the second book, [b:Ones and Zeroes|30255941|Ones and Zeroes (Mirador, #2)|Dan Wells|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1467305167s/30255941.jpg|50727813], later this year.
Marissa and her friends are tech savvy teens. They play online games, skip school, and go to clubs. Their biggest worries are pocket-money, relationships, and placing well in an amateur e-sports tournament.
Until their affluent friend Anya tries Bluescreen, a digital "drug" that causes a rush by overloading your implanted computer's sensory interface. It's *not* supposed to make you get up and do strange things while you're high.
Before long, Marissa is in the center of a web of hacking, drug trafficking, and power dealing - and she doesn't even know who the spider is at the center.
The book is pretty good. The vision of future LA is believable but inventive. The themes of man vs. machine, rich vs poor, reality vs virtual reality are all present. The cast is diverse, leaning heavily toward the Mexican denizens of Marissa's neighborhood. The hacking bits are pretty hand-wavy. It's just to be expected - new tech would change things, and real-life hacking is pretty slow and dull most of the time.
I'll check out the second book, [b:Ones and Zeroes|30255941|Ones and Zeroes (Mirador, #2)|Dan Wells|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1467305167s/30255941.jpg|50727813], later this year.