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Void Star

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'Void Star' by Zachary Mason is a futuristic dystopian novel that delves into the complexities of reality, artificial intelligence, memory implants, and interconnected protagonists. The plot is described as geek-oriented, with a focus on the uncertainty of reality due to advanced AIs. Despite being set in a future world with elements like virtual reality, AI, and martial arts, the book's writing style is praised for its spare and beautiful prose, intriguing narrative, and affecting characters. The story follows multiple characters with memory implants as they navigate through a world where the nature of reality is constantly questioned.

Characters:

Characters are emotionally detached and lack depth, resulting in weak connections with the reader.

Writing/Prose:

The writing is beautifully crafted and vivid but can sometimes be overly complex or confusing.

Plot/Storyline:

The plot lacks emotional depth and coherence, with multiple narrative lines and sudden events that disengage the reader.

Setting:

The setting is a standard cyberpunk dystopia filled with familiar elements like AIs and corporate greed.

Pacing:

The pacing is quick, resulting in a passive reading experience and insufficient character development.
Below her are the lights of the valley, like burning jewels on a dark tide. The Bay is a negative space around them, its leaden ripples picked out in the moonlight. There is, Irina realizes, a pattern...

Notes:

Zachary Mason previously wrote a well-received book called The Lost Books of the Odyssey.
Void Star is considered a dystopian and cyberpunk novel.
The prose in Void Star is praised for its beauty and vivid imagery, though some find it lacking iconic lines.
Critics note that the plot feels less emotionally resonant despite the well-crafted language.
The novel includes multiple protagonists with intersecting narratives, which some readers found confusing.
Mason's writing style is described as 'flocculent' and sometimes harder to read due to the complex language.
The book explores philosophical ideas about time, memory, and self-hood.
Some readers appreciate the book's intelligence but found the plot opaque and difficult to follow.
Void Star includes tropes typical of the cyberpunk genre, such as AI and powerful corporations.
The character development and world-building are seen as areas that could have been improved.

Sensitive Topics/Content Warnings

Content warnings for Void Star include themes of dystopia, artificial intelligence, and complex reality, which might be challenging or dense for some readers.

From The Publisher:

A riveting, beautifully written, fugue-like novel of AIs, memory, violence, and mortality

Not far in the future the seas have risen and the central latitudes are emptying, but it's still a good time to be rich in San Francisco, where weapons drones patrol the skies to keep out the multitudinous poor. Irina isn't rich, not quite, but she does have an artificial memory that gives her perfect recall and lets her act as a medium between her various employers and their AIs, which are complex to the point of opacity. It's a good gig, paying enough for the annual visits to the Mayo Clinic that keep her from aging.

Kern has no such access; he's one of the many refugees in the sprawling drone-built favelas on the city's periphery, where he lives like a monk, training relentlessly in martial arts, scraping by as a thief and an enforcer. Thales is from a different world entirely-the mathematically inclined scion of a Brazilian political clan, he's fled to L.A. after the attack that left him crippled and his father dead.

A ragged stranger accosts Thales and demands to know how much he can remember. Kern flees for his life after robbing the wrong mark. Irina finds a secret in the reflection of a laptop's screen in her employer's eyeglasses. None are safe as they're pushed together by subtle forces that stay just out of sight.

Vivid, tumultuous, and propulsive, Void Star is Zachary Mason's mind-bending follow-up to his bestselling debut, The Lost Books of the Odyssey.

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About the Author:

Zachary Mason is a computer scientist and the author of the New York Times bestselling novel The Lost Books of the Odyssey. He lives in California.

 
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