Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Outstanding. So smart, imaginative and original. The possibility of a scenario like this happening freaks me out, but I sure love reading about it. Fantastic. ( )

This was one of those odd cases where I think the novel was very clever, with an intricate, well thought out plot, but I just couldn’t make myself like it.

There are three separate plot lines revolving around a young Persian-American woman working for an NGO in Burma, a young man who has just lost his job working for a childcare setting in Portland, Oregon, and an author of a self-help manual who is working the promotional chat show circuit. There is no apparent connection between them … except that they might be subject to scrutiny by a secret ‘shadow government’. From there it trundles on as a conspiracy thriller.

I think my difficulties with this book arose from the narrative tone – the plot was potentially strong, but it just didn’t hang together as a book. I wonder whether the author was too concerned with how it might be filmed. ( )

This book was maddening. The first half was great, the 2nd drug on a bit and then....poof. The author takes a current tech trend (Big Data) to an extreme, pitting a good side against a bad side for what amounts to world domination. There are Gen Xers, evil business people, drugs, an international charity, monolithic computing power, sex, strange processes, and Lord knows what else involved. The writing is excellent, the dialogue great, and the story interesting. What's not to like?

Well, when you're reading a physical (hardback) book and the pages remaining are dwindling to the point where there are just a few left, and you know that what's been laid out in the story could take another, oh, couple hundred pages to come to some sort of conclusion, and it just peters out.... that's what not to like.

When I review books, I look at writing, dialogue, plot, character development, and conclusion, and WTF was great on all counts except for the conclusion. You know how a movie may end abruptly, but you actually kind of know what's going to happen because it's been baked into the plot? Well, that doesn't happen here. It ends and it's anyone's guess that happens to the guy who could save humanity. Or not.

Loved the writing, loved the technology stuff (both real and imagined), but WTF? ( )

Such a slow start (perhaps the first 100 pages), but then I couldn't put it down. ( )

This story is about a megalomaniac who intends to intercept and record every piece of information transmitted and eventually hold this information hostage if it suited him. There are, however, (and of course), those who wish to stop him and they recruit a young woman who happened across one of the huge server farms in the jungles of Burma (who has a genius sister) and the writer of a self-help book that was being wooed to be the Storywriter-in-Chief for the Committee.

The story was rather slow in building and the author's voice came through periodically as rants. The story ended abruptly and I hope this doesn't mean a sequel is coming. ( )