Miriam W. reviewed on 4/19/2011 + 3 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 3

This book pits a computer hacker protagonist (with psychopathic abilities that he's fleeing) with two sisters who are involved with not conventional witchcraft, but the kind of memory palaces that are referenced in Joshua Foer's current _Moonwalking with Einstein_. You don't have to be really knowledgeable about either, but the novel is more fun if you are interested both in cyberpunk and/or Renaissance traditions of disciplining memory. The book works as a thriller/mystery/murder mystery, but it's also really about the way that an over-reliance on contemporary computer technology makes our brains and memories weak, compared with the kind of discipline that older traditions demand. This concept hooked me--that and the London setting.

It's hard to categorize because it combines kinds of genre fiction--a touch (not tons) of cyberpunk but definite echoes of Sterling and Gibson (the male protagonist) with more paranormal (the heroines), and a little psychopathic powers (another thread of the plot). If you like any of these, there's something here, though if you want straight cyberpunk you'll be disappointed I think--along w/some straight ahead eroticism and thriller/mystery writing. It made me think a bit of Ruth Rendell, esp. -The Bridesmaid_.

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