Review: Brilliance

Brilliance by Marcus Sakey

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Amazon-Prime-Lending (one book per month, this is for September 2014), so did not buy it. Read other books which interested me more, in between so I did not finish it in September and had to struggle to finish it on the last day (Halloween, October 31st).
While the book is straight forward, it reminds me of a John Brunner Novel like Stand On Zanzibar or The Shockwave Rider or a film by Paul Verhoeven like Robocop or Totall Recall. Like these books&films there are short fake news and short ads for fake books. But unlike Brunner, there is only one story, and with only few twists, the main one I guessed early on - what would happen to the hero and John Smith, so I do not count that as a spoiler, I will not go into details.
Around the time after 60% (train-platform / meeting Shannon) the search for John Smith began and the book started to drag for me, I had trouble to get over that point, guessing how it might play out, not in detail - that was nicely done and very well written, saved this book getting 3.5 rounded to 3 stars. In some places it gets 4.5 stars, but as a whole and for being predictable (nearly from the beginning) 4 stars it is.
Recommended to fans of a believable alternative future, where in the past 9/11 has not happened, instead, part of population was gifted.
I will certainly read at some point the next book in the series (probably all, but the third is not published yet).



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