2011-05-08 · in Books · 169 words

Good solid, detailed worldbuilding — inspired, the author says, by the Jesusland map that went around the Web a few years ago. There's plenty of technology hovering in the background, but it's not what drives the story; Morgan has an alt-history writer's feel for societal change.

The good guys — Carl, Tom, and especially Sevgi — are superbly characterised. More SF with bits set in Turkey, please. I found the villains less plausible; I'm prepared to believe that they're real people since they're not too different from those whose heads we do get to see into, but there's not really enough there to get a feel for their motivations, which means the big-picture whodunnit didn't quite work for me.

Extremely unpleasant things happen to people, many of whom die as a result, and (as an exception to the general thriller structure of the book) the ending is generally unsatisfying. This should not come as a surprise to readers of Morgan's other books. Not a happy read, but an interesting one.