"âââââ What intense world building! Wonderful character growth! Crisp story line! Thoughtful science fiction! Imaginative descriptions! I can keep talking in exclamatory phrases but you get my point by now - this is a fantastic book."
- Review by Myra on Reedsy Discovery and Oh Just Books.
This is not a typical SciFi blurb, because this is not a typical SciFi novel.
Start with 1984, add in a healthy dose of Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451, stir in a bit of The Matrix and Blade Runner, and you have Terms of Service. It is a thought-provoking exploration of the profound consequences to our society as the digital world and the all-powerful corporations who rule it play an ever-greater role in our lives and we all wonder, where does it end?
This book presents one chilling possibility, and it is every bit as relevant to our world today as George Orwell's masterpiece was in the aftermath of World War II.
This is a work of literary science fiction, one which has something important to say.
Stylistically, it is a work of mainstream fiction, focused on the journey of the protagonist and on the world in which she lives. It is surreal in places, heavily laced with satire, mystical realism, and even a bit of absurdism. In terms of subject matter, it lies squarely within the boundaries of the cyberpunk genre: virtual reality and sentient artificial intelligences are omnipresent, and our characters live much of their lives within a VR system that sometimes seems more real than reality itself. The virtual world and the AIs who live within it act as a mirror, reflecting our own existence. It is also a solid work of hard science fiction: everything it portrays is technologically feasible, and much of it is already part of our daily lives.
A slow burn with an explosive finish, this is not a book to put down.
Most SciFi novels start out with a bang because the worlds and characters which they portray are already familiar to the reader. Not this one. The start of the book is devoted entirely to world-building and to defining the main character, without which the rest of the story will be impossible to understand. Savor the writing, enjoy the world, and don't worry: there is plenty of conflict and tension in store.
Intrigued? Read on, and follow Kim's amazing journey as she rises from dull complacency to the heights of power and prestige before plunging into the abyss as she struggles with the demons of her past and learns far more than she ever wanted to about what really goes on in the centers of power. You won't be disappointed!
Industry Reviews
Kim serves well as the reader's tour guide of a world full of AI-controlled commute routes, meals, and weekly fashions... not to mention the universal surveillance and regular crackdowns on any individual who insists on being, well, individual. (It turns out that a human's appreciation for good food, music, and specific other humans is hard to erase... and is therefore dangerous to the shadowy Hierarchy's rules enforcing conformity.) As Kim gradually learns more about the nature of the AIs and their role in a repressive society ultimately run by fear, the reader cannot help but share her final moral and emotional response to a world that has too many aspects in common with our own to be ignored.
Imagine if Facebook, Google and the MTA ran the country. That's the feel of Stanfill's Orwellian world. It's a dark reflection of reality; as such its utterly fascinating. Our protagonist is Kim, arguably an alcoholic, unarguably miserable in this world of social cohesion ratings and forbidden ideas about love and gender, about the self, about faith.
Craig Stanfill tells a compelling tale in his first novel, doing a great job of building out a vivid - and not just a tiny bit scary - world for his characters. I found myself engrossed in the story and could picture this dystopian future disturbingly well.
