
standalone (?)
Scifi, Cyberpunk, YA
Hodder & Stoughton; September 1, 2022
320 pages (ebook)
10hr 42m (audiobook)
Goodreads • StoryGraph
Author Website • Socials
8.5 / 10 ✪
I was kindly granted an advance copy in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to Hodder & Stoughton and NetGalley for the eARC! All opinions are my own.
I apologize in advance if this is a bit rougher and more… rambly (?) than my other reviews. I’ve been struggling with my headspace for months now, and it’s affected my ability to word properly.
Eighteen-year-old Mindwalker Sil Sarrah is the best of the best at what she does. Shame she’s due to die in under twelve months, when the supercomputer grafted to her brain burns out. But while she may die young, Sil is determined to go out on top.
The Mindwalker program: the pride of the Syntex Corporation. This secret program is dedicated to commandeering agents minds from afar (with the agents’ consent, of course) and using their Walkers’ supercharged skills and supercomputer intellect to extract the agents from whatever situation they’ve gotten themselves into. After ten years in the program, Sil retains a perfect record—not a single agent lost, not a single mission failed.
A record Sil’s determined to keep; a way to ensure that her legacy survives her.
Until she fails a redacted mission on the public stage, disobeying a direct order in the process. Forced to flee the company she’s called home for over half her life, Sil is completely cut off: no way to contact her friends, no reason to contact her family, and with no resources to bring to bear—though at least she still has access to her CIP (Cerebral Intelligence Processor), Jarvis. And at least she has a plan to regain her standing, and return home.
To do so she must infiltrate the Analog Army—the biggest thorn in Syntex’s side—and do whatever she can to bring the terrorists to justice.
But after a few days on the lam, Sil already has a mounting list of problems. Not the least of which is the cocky smile and good looks of Ryder, an AA cell leader. Though there’s also the conspiracy she’s stumbled upon. “Mindjacking”, so-called as it focusses on hijacking the unwilling minds of anyone connected to the net and wearing their body like a meat-suit. Which, in this enlightened future, is pretty much anyone at all. A conspiracy that apparently centers on the one place Sil can’t go—the Syntex Corporation.
—
Mindwalker came out back in September to rave reviews. While it wasn’t initially on my radar—or the radars of any of my friends or followers, really—after maybe a week of scrolling through the endless praise and comments, I knew I had to read it. Set in a dystopian world where a fractured United States (yeah, I know those terms contradict one another) rules only by outsourcing so much of their process to corporate contractors, the setting for this evokes a dystopian sphere, heavy with science fiction and cyberpunk themes.
Fresh into its pages I was immediately taken with the world—albeit… less so with the plot. While done in an interesting way, Mindwalker is essentially a new take on an old classic; a dystopian world where our corporate protagonist joins up with the ragtag rebels to expose a conspiracy and win the day! I mean, it’s not exactly breaking the mold here. That said, despite this far-from-unique model, and a somewhat lacklustre romance, Mindwalker is really quite a good read.
The setting makes the story, but the characters keep the focus—and Sil is far from the eminently hatable corporate rat that I initially took her for. Stubborn, distrusting, but somehow full of emotion and passion (no, not that kind), she makes a good lead, even through the romance which usually bores me. That said, the romance in this is only really heavy at the close, and even then it never takes the pace from the overarching story completely. Lena, Jondi, Miles, even Lin and Risler help set the plot up as believable, a world made up of human characters in a plausible setting. Before long this list includes Ryder and more, but never expands beyond the memorable handful of faces, leaving a sea of nameless, faceless masses without a story or purpose. Despite the world supposedly being massive, it doesn’t feel like it from the handful of characters. I’d’ve liked to see a few more (even) throwaway characters, or randoms. Instead, we get a few bullet-sponges, soon-to-be dead’uns, and nameless guards, that Sil—despite her decade in the program—doesn’t recognize. Neither does she recognize (or at least mention) any other Walkers beyond her two friends. So, to recap: characters—great main, good supporting, but anything after that is a complete wash.
All in all, I had little problem getting into Mindwalker and—despite the fact that it took me a month to read (which I ascribe more to the goings-on in my personal life than anything of the text itself)—was never of the illusion that I’d not finish it. Though my opinion of the book isn’t exactly the golden standard that I’ve seen set for this title, it does speak well to its success. Currently on Goodreads, only 13% of all ratings are under 4 stars (9% of these are 3). Which means that even the people who don’t absolutely love this really enjoy (or quite) it.
Where was I going with this? I guess that I’d recommend it? Because I would. Pretty good read.