Repo Virtual

<b>4.0 Stars<br />It’s always a great feeling when one of your most anticipated books lives up to the hype! Repo Virtual was exactly the futuristic cyberpunk heist I wanted! </b><br /><br />The world building in this one was absolutely fascinating. I loved how the virtual reality overlay that obscured, but did not completely, hide the poverty and crime of the world. The world just felt so real and gritty. I think this would be an excellent book to recommend for fans of the new video game, CyberPunk 2077. <br /><br />Another one of my favourite aspects of the story was the artificial intelligence angle. This perspective was written in such an interesting and unique way, which made for a very engaging experience. The narrative explored the ideas surrounding personhood in a thoughtful, and sometimes humorous, way. I only wished this part of the story began earlier in the book so that I could have spent more time with the AI. <br /><br />Finally, I have to mention the diversity in this book. Within this narrative, I found people of colour, ethnic minorities, non-binary people as well as gay and lesbian characters. These aspects of the story were never the focus, but simply included as normal aspects of society.<br /><br />This book is definitely written as a standalone, but (for the first time ever) I actually found myself hoping for a follow up novel because I want to spend more time with the characters and world. I would recommend this one to anyone wanting a diverse, gritty and humorous heist story with some excellent world building. <br /><br />Disclaimer: I received a digital copy from the publisher, Tor.com

The most frustrating thing about being a fan of a genre publisher, like I am with the science-fiction press Tor, is that for every amazing book they put out, we have to wade through ten mediocre ones, designed mostly for hardcore superfans who burn through a book a day and therefore have a much lower standard of quality than we do, essentially the literary equivalent of bingeing an entire season of <i>Law &amp; Order</i> over a weekend because we're too lazy to get off the couch, and the show provides the barest minimal excuse we need to indulge ourselves. Take Corey J. White's <i>Repo Virtual</i> for a great example, part of that nostalgic retro obsession with '80s and '90s cyberpunk that seems to be coursing through the industry right now. This novel feels like White tore through the complete '80s work of William Gibson one summer, loved it and wanted to try one of his own, but couldn't come up with any original ideas himself, so just threw Gibson's books into a salad spinner until all the pieces came out in a slightly different order than before. To be clear, that doesn't make this a bad book at all; indeed, that's precisely the problem, that it's just middlebrow decent enough that it will never offend anyone, but by definition will never be memorable to anyone either. It's a perfectly fine choice for a convention-going fanboy who's looking for something to kill a random Tuesday afternoon to Wednesday afternoon; but for the rest of us, you can go ahead and start the countdown from nine now, until we're ready for another astounding title from this high-volume publisher.

In the city of Neo Songdo, a failed capitalist autonomous city-state that's located in Korea, Julius Dax "JD" makes his living in the real world as an on-call robot repairman and in the virtual world doing repossession jobs of digital property in a detailed online game called VOIDWAR. In the world of rampant climate change and political collapse an economy that's basically been taken over by robotic production makes it difficult for humans to make ends meet. All of which makes an offer from JD's sibling Soo-hyun to make big money difficult to refuse. The job is to steal something in the real world from the apartment of the man who owns Zero Corporation (the makers of VOIDWAR).<br /><br />But what JD actually steals isn't what he was told it was, and fairly soon he has Soo-hyun's cult leader after him as well as a retired covert operative employed by Zero Corporation on his tail, all while trying to make sense of what he's now in possession of.<br /><br />It's about time someone did a good job at updating the cyberpunk genre for a more modern perspective. It's an interesting update too, with the first and second generations of this sub-genre really skewing towards rampant capitalism and showing the effects of that on people. This one goes a step further to describe a capitalism that has failed leaving countries, cities and people looking for alternatives.<br /><br />JD makes for an interesting character. Ostensibly a thief, but with an interesting point of view, illustrated by a conversation he has with his ex:<blockquote>“I want to be with you, but the you that has a job, that gives a damn about his future.”<br /><br />JD dressed quickly, smell of last night’s clothes filling his nostrils as soon as he was dressed. He met Troy in the hallway between rooms. “Why do you think I do this shit?” he said. “There are no jobs, there’s no fucking future,” he spat the words out, angrier than he’d meant, and Troy stepped back as though struck.<br /><br />Troy crossed his arms over his chest. “You can’t believe that.”<br /><br />“I do, though. I have to make a future for myself any way I can. But sure, you go and teach philosophy to students who’ll wind up working four jobs just to make ends meet. When all this comes tumbling down, at least they’ll be able to chat about Kierkegaard while they’re eating rats around a bonfire.”</blockquote><br />His view isn't even all that different from the cult that JD's sibling is a member of, and it makes for an interesting story where nearly all sides of the conflict realize that they're heading for disaster.<br /><br />I strongly recommend this; it's an excellent read. If you get a chance, the audiobook is also brilliant, and the Australian narrator does a brilliant job of capturing the chatter, particularly between JD and Khoder.

SCREAMING<br /><br />-------------------------<br /><br />COREY J. WHITE WRITING A FULL-LENGTH NOVEL ABOUT A CYBERPUNK HEIST TAKING PLACE IN REAL AND VIRTUAL REALITIES IN THE HUNT FOR A TRUE AI ASLDFKGHAS I CANNOT EVEN.

➸ <u>Trigger warnings</u> for <input type="checkbox" class="spoiler__control" aria-label="The following text has been marked spoiler. Toggle checkbox to reveal or hide." onchange="this.labels[0].setAttribute('aria-hidden', !this.checked);" id="31793114-ed25-4b0b-985b-bd361f745e49" /><label aria-hidden="true" class="spoiler" for="31793114-ed25-4b0b-985b-bd361f745e49">racism &amp; racial slurs, classism, transmisia, deadnaming, misgendering, blackmailed outing*, alcohol consumption, recreational drug use mentioned, blood &amp; gore depiction, graphic physical injuries, chronic pain due to an old injury, gunshot wounds, death of a friend (on-page), murder &amp; attempted murder, torture, physical assault, explosions, gun violence, strangulation, kidnapping &amp; hostage situation, cult, car accident, fire, blackmail, flood, war themes mentioned, animal death mentioned, poverty, and homelessness mentioned. <br /><br /><u>Explanation</u>: One of the protagonists is blackmailed into investigating a crime by a person who would release documents that would out her as a trans woman</label>.<br /><br />▷ <u>Representation</u>: JD (mc) is Black, achillean &amp; has a chronic knee injury; Troy (li) is Black, achillean &amp; has vitiligo; Enda (mc) is a sapphic trans woman; Soo-hyuan (mc) is nonbinary (they/them); queer, disabled and bipoc scs.<br /><br /><a href="https://typedtruth.wordpress.com/" rel="nofollow noopener"> Blog</a> • <a href="https://triggerwarningdatabase.com/" rel="nofollow noopener">Trigger Warning Database</a> • <a href="https://twitter.com/typedtruths" rel="nofollow noopener">Twitter</a> • <a href="https://www.instagram.com/typedtruths/" rel="nofollow noopener">Instagram</a>

<b>"Thousands of hours spent creating a universe for people to war over. Millions of people spending billions of collective hours fighting imaginary wars. Mining digital ore to build digital ships--every atom in the universe accounted for, artificial scarcity through detailed simulation. For eighteen years the simulation held. Children grew up inside it. They learned math through transactional trial and error. They learned spelling, comprehension, cusses and slurs through in-game chat channels.<br /><br />It was just as real as the real, sometimes more so.<br /><br />It was real until it wasn't.<br /><br />It was real until the heat-death of that digital universe, locked forever inside a server farm in the formerly United States of America, data degrading year by year until only a corrupt reality remained.<br /><br />Corrupt reality? Which one? This one?"</b><br /><br />Repo Virtual is the first full-length novel from Corey J. White.<br /><br />When I heard that White was writing a new book, I was excited to see what else he has up his sleeve as a fan of his criminally underrated series, The VoidWitch Saga. I had the opportunity to interview him before the final installment, Static Ruin, was released. He briefly mentioned that Repo Virtual would be the next book and that it's an updated look at the cyberpunk subgenre.<br /><br />With hackers, AI heists and found family, it certainly has many aspects that I adore! And robot dogs. WHO DOESN'T WANT TO READ ABOUT A ROBOT DOG?!<br /><br />Julius Dax, aka JD, is a thief and online repo man in the city of Neo Songdo. Neo Songdo is a city in Korea that blurs the line between reality and virtual life, melding together computer-generated digital elements into our real world environments. Zero Corporation is a massive tech company that runs the worlds largest online simulation, Voidwar.<br /><br />JD is a schemer, hustling his way through life. Barely scraping by, he is unable to pass up the chance to make a fuck ton of money by stealing a package containing a computer virus from the reclusive billionaire, Zero Lee.<br /><br /><b>"Too late, Enda realized that perhaps she shouldn't have throat-punched the messenger."</b><br /><br />Themes of racism, chronic pain, corruption, religion, capitalism, technology advancement. Repo Virtual was a bit of a mixed bag overall. Like a cyberpunk echo chamber of Snow Crash and Ready Player One, but with much-needed diversity. Unfortunately, White didn't expand upon the glorious representation he had at his fingertips. The biggest letdown was the depiction of Soo-Hyun, JD's stepsibling. Soo-Hyun is an enby character who basically exists in order to develop JD's narrative further. They are a plot device, a puppet in JD's play, if you will. This was a missed opportunity to fully flesh out someone who is frequently underrepresented.<br /><br />Repo Virtual is a solidly entertaining read that gives a necessary shakeup to the otherwise clichéd character tropes often found in cyberpunk. However, the mark was missed when it comes to reinvigorating the canon plot, introducing magnetic personalities, diverse characters with agency and bringing something uniquely original to the (often intimidating) SFF table.<br /><br /><i>(Thanks to Tor.com Publishing for sending me a copy!)</i><br /><br /><i>**The quotes above were taken from an ARC &amp; are subject to change upon publication**</i>

Actual rating: 3.5<br /><br />First things first (I'm the realest). Sorry, whenever I say that phrase, that lyric from Fancy always pops into my head. Anyway!! My point was I first wanted to focus on the premise - a heist? An AI? Yes. Two of my favorite things. I went into this book being pretty sure I would love it. Sadly I didn't quite LOVE it, but I still did enjoy it a lot.<br /><br />The book is split into three parts, but I would say the split is more like two main arcs. The first is the heist part, which lasts about the first third of the novel. The second is the post-heist, the investigation of the heist and exploration of the AI.<br /><br />I thought for sure I'd be hooked by the beginning - I mean, it's a heist! I love heists. But it draaagged and I wasn't that invested!! I had a hard time connecting and feeling anything for the characters. The world was also super interesting, but confusing! As the book went on I kind of got more of a feel for it, but at the beginning I was confused and couldn't picture it well.<br /><br />However, the second part felt TOTALLY different. I LOVED it. The main difference was that there was the introduction of two characters - Enda and the AI - who really made the difference for me. I love them both. Enda is a badass bitch and takes no shit and is totally awesome - and flawed in a way that is realistic and makes her interesting to read about. The AI character is also great. For one, because I just love AIs. But two, because since you get to read from its perspective, you get to literally watch it develop a personality. That was honestly so interesting and cool to read. <br /><br />Also, the pacing in the latter 2/3 felt much more even, and I wanted to keep reading to know what happened. There were more pieces and it was more complex than the simple beginning heist, and I think that made a big difference in it just being more interesting. As I said, the world also became clearer, probably just because of having been immersed and reading about it for longer. <br /><br />I think my main issue with this book that prevented me from loving it was really the characters. As I said, I only really connected with Enda and the AI, and they don't show up until at least a third of the way through the book! That makes a large part of the book hard to enjoy.<br /><br />I also want to talk about one particular character, Soo-hyun, who is nonbinary. Having that sort of diversity and representation on page is great, however what isn't great is that I felt like this character didn't have much agency of their own. They seemed to exist to only be used by other characters, namely one of the antagonists. This isn't a good thing for any sort of character, but it makes me especially uncomfortable when it's the one nonbinary person.<br /><br />I think many people will be able to love this book, and I'm sad I'm not one of them! But as I said, I still did enjoy reading it and I do want to try more from this author!

This was incredibly tightly plotted and a different take in the usual beginning of an AI. The characters were well drawn and I could visualize the world in its mix of poverty and VR overlay-so very satisfying! Oh and I also enjoyed the writing and the audio narrator was first class. So glad my GR buddy Lindsay mentioned this book. Highly recommended!

Cyberpunk seems to be slowly creeping back into current Scifi novels. This pretty much mashes up most of whats been done before into a more straight forward story of rebels or outcasts bringing down the mega corps. The action was great, the character representation was well done, however the story was a little cliched. I also found the villains to be one dimensional. Good but there's much better scifi being written.

The city of Songdo blurs the line between virtual reality and the real; a smart city designed to be viewed through a rig with all the trademarks of a corporate facade, complete with plenty of advertisements.<br />The population steals and hustles on the streets to survive while the Zero Corporation continues to control the world, both virtual and real.<br /><br />Julius Dax (JD) is an online repoman trying to make ends meet.  In need of enough money to cover a knee surgery and pay off debts, JD can't turn down a job willing to pay fifty thousand euro.  All he has to do is steal a piece of software that was stolen from the inventor.<br /><br />The problem is that the tech billionaire behind Zero Corporation is the person in possession of the software and the inventor is an influencer named Kali who has created a commune to preach her disgust for the system and belief in the power of AI.<br /><br />Stealing the software isn't overly complicated with the right team but the plan changes when JD realizes the software is actually a sentient AI that could change the future of the entire world.<br /><br />Neither Zero Corp or Kali are aware that the software is actually the first sentient AI in existence but they both know it's powerful enough to fight (and even kill) for.  JD pulled off the heist but now he has to bring down his pursuers to save the world from their further influence.<br /><br />There isn't a shortage of cyberpunk heists these days which means <b>Repo Virtual</b> is right on trend in sci-fi publishing.  <br />The problem for me is that it gets lost in the genre with the same old storyline:  a team of rebel outcasts pull off a dangerous heist and then have to save the world from villains using tech.<br />The worldbuilding was weak and I struggled to understand certain scenes for lack of detail.<br />The caricatured villains lacked depth and I rolled my eyes at the nonsense that Kali offered up.  Zero Corporation and Kali never felt like real threats.<br />I did enjoy the action scenes, diverse character representation, and overall atmosphere despite subpar worldbuilding.<br /><br /><b>Repo Virtual</b> doesn't stand out as exceptional among the recent cyberpunk releases but it's still an entertaining addition to the genre.<br /><br />Thanks to Edelweiss and Tor.com for providing me with a DRC in exchange for my honest review.  <b>Repo Virtual</b> is scheduled for release on April 21, 2020.<br /><br />For more reviews, visit <a target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow" href="http://www.rootsandreads.wordpress.com">www.rootsandreads.wordpress.com</a>