Nearly fifty years ago counter culture guru and LSD
advocate Timothy Leary popularized the phrase “turn on, tune in and drop out.”
In the current era of hyper-connectivity that phrase might need some altering
and updating to something like “turn on, plug in and lock in.” It is our
seemingly shear dependence on our devices; smart phones, tablets, laptop and now
even watches to run our daily lives that helps to ratchet up the fear factor in
author Chuck Wendig’s latest outing Zeroes:
A Novel.
This one takes a dash on Phillip K. Dick, (think
Minority Report) shakes it vigorously with some William Gibson and add a pinch
of Terminator and you on your well to a scary, high tech thrill ride. Imagine
the National Security Agency (NSA) spying scandal juiced on steroids.
A group of seemingly disparate hackers are snatched off
the streets, are coerced with threats of jail time into going to work for the
government on a super secret project, the details of which they know nothing
about. Wendig doles out the bits and pieces of the storyline like a master chef
reveals a prized recipe. Slowly but surely the group slaps the puzzle pieces in
place and that’s when all hell breaks loose and it’s a battle save not only
themselves, but also the rest of the country.
This would boil down to entertaining sci-fi if it were
not for the simple fact that given the rallying cry of our overgrown government
doing so much in the name of “protecting” us by any means possible, that it
cuts a little too close to reality. It is that ring of the truth that makes
this one a winner.
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