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A review by tobyyy
Alpha by Colin F. Barnes
3.0
I'm kinda surprised that there aren't more reviews on this (or even ratings -- counting my rating, so far there are only two). I don't think it came out particularly recently. It's odd to me, too, that there's not even a blurb on it on Goodreads. (Side note -- this is the 6th book in the anthology that I have been reading.)
Anyway. Since there's not a blurb, I'll try to summarize it a little bit (I usually avoid doing that because if you want to know what the book's about, the blurb usually has it all). So Alpha is a dystopian, futuristic sci-fi novel. It's slightly reminiscent to me of the Hunger Games, but not due to any of the key plot points (i.e., the author did not take any ideas from the Hunger Games trilogy).
Gerry Cardle lives in City Earth, where the Family rules with an iron hand. People live to be a thousand years old there, but there is no real freedom. However, since those who are Gerry's age and younger (I believe he was in his mid-30s) have no concept of a life where there is freedom, where you are not being watched all the time by artificial intelligence implants, there really isn't any rebellion.
But then... the book begins when Gerry realizes that he was "chosen" for what is called the "D-lottery" -- if you are chosen for that, you die within 7 days. The whole book revolves around the code used for screwing up the algorithms that run the AI implants, and how someone who was very very skilled with code (and who was also very high up in the echelon at the company where Gerry worked) was planning on killing off everyone by assigning them to the D-lottery.
I enjoyed Alpha -- it wasn't as good as some of the other books in the anthology, and the writing got a bit worse as the book went on. Early in the book there were very few grammatical errors, weird sentence construction problems, etc. However, by about two thirds of the way through the book, there were more errors (e.g., feeling a "slither of hope" instead of "sliver of hope"). It wasn't enough to really detract from my enjoyment of the book, but it did get irritating. There are a couple places where punctuation is left out, as well, in the latter third of the book.
My main problem with it is that it was very code-heavy. That makes sense, given the plot arc of the novel, but since I'm not very tech-savvy, it was a little overwhelming at times. Because my husband is a comp sci nerd, I understood more than I would otherwise, but still, it wasn't 100% reader friendly for those people who don't have a clue how coding works.
I would recommend this, though, but it wouldn't be my first recommendation to anyone. It's interesting -- and it ends on a cliffhanger, which is irritating -- but although it held my attention, it isn't in any of my go-to genres for books that will definitely keep me entertained. Also, there was a bit more gore/violence than was really necessary, I think.
Anyway. Since there's not a blurb, I'll try to summarize it a little bit (I usually avoid doing that because if you want to know what the book's about, the blurb usually has it all). So Alpha is a dystopian, futuristic sci-fi novel. It's slightly reminiscent to me of the Hunger Games, but not due to any of the key plot points (i.e., the author did not take any ideas from the Hunger Games trilogy).
Gerry Cardle lives in City Earth, where the Family rules with an iron hand. People live to be a thousand years old there, but there is no real freedom. However, since those who are Gerry's age and younger (I believe he was in his mid-30s) have no concept of a life where there is freedom, where you are not being watched all the time by artificial intelligence implants, there really isn't any rebellion.
But then... the book begins when Gerry realizes that he was "chosen" for what is called the "D-lottery" -- if you are chosen for that, you die within 7 days. The whole book revolves around the code used for screwing up the algorithms that run the AI implants, and how someone who was very very skilled with code (and who was also very high up in the echelon at the company where Gerry worked) was planning on killing off everyone by assigning them to the D-lottery.
I enjoyed Alpha -- it wasn't as good as some of the other books in the anthology, and the writing got a bit worse as the book went on. Early in the book there were very few grammatical errors, weird sentence construction problems, etc. However, by about two thirds of the way through the book, there were more errors (e.g., feeling a "slither of hope" instead of "sliver of hope"). It wasn't enough to really detract from my enjoyment of the book, but it did get irritating. There are a couple places where punctuation is left out, as well, in the latter third of the book.
My main problem with it is that it was very code-heavy. That makes sense, given the plot arc of the novel, but since I'm not very tech-savvy, it was a little overwhelming at times. Because my husband is a comp sci nerd, I understood more than I would otherwise, but still, it wasn't 100% reader friendly for those people who don't have a clue how coding works.
I would recommend this, though, but it wouldn't be my first recommendation to anyone. It's interesting -- and it ends on a cliffhanger, which is irritating -- but although it held my attention, it isn't in any of my go-to genres for books that will definitely keep me entertained. Also, there was a bit more gore/violence than was really necessary, I think.