xoa's review
1.0
Apparently I bought this more than two years ago and completely forgot about it. Its arrival was a surprise and failed to jog any memory at all of hearing about it, looking for it, deciding I wanted to read it, or buying it. Looking at the summary on the back of the book did not help, as it sounded immediately off-putting and not at all like something I'd enjoy.
Lo and behold: I did not enjoy it. It's cliche, repetitive, trying too hard. No discernible story after a hundred pages.
I was gonna finish it anyway, but Shock's trans backstory was so embarrassing that I had to put it down. Started hormone treatment at ten and got bottom surgery at twelve?
Lo and behold: I did not enjoy it. It's cliche, repetitive, trying too hard. No discernible story after a hundred pages.
I was gonna finish it anyway, but Shock's trans backstory was so embarrassing that I had to put it down. Started hormone treatment at ten and got bottom surgery at twelve?
paracynic's review
5.0
Escapology is a vivid, unique and engrossing work of dystopian cyberpunk.
In a future where most of the lands we know have sunk, where survivors eke out an existence on "land ships' of floating islands, or the overcrowded, unforgiving city on the single remaining piece of dry land, run by either a rigid social order or vicious crime lords, dreaming of escape to the orbiting cities above, the characters try to carve out a life. The Slip, a virtual world of avatars and hacks contrasts and blends and tangles with the real world as we follow hacker Shock Pao on a seeming suicide mission to steal what may bring the whole system down, Amiga, a cleaner working for the most savage boss in the city and Petrie, officer on a land ship whose newest crewmember might just hold the key to the whole sordid situation.
Ren Warom has built a world with echos of Gibson, or of Philip K Dick, but in prose darkly and beautifully poetic. Edgar Allen Poe writing cyberpunk with a foul mouth. This is the kind of book you don't so much read as sink into and give yourself over to.
In a future where most of the lands we know have sunk, where survivors eke out an existence on "land ships' of floating islands, or the overcrowded, unforgiving city on the single remaining piece of dry land, run by either a rigid social order or vicious crime lords, dreaming of escape to the orbiting cities above, the characters try to carve out a life. The Slip, a virtual world of avatars and hacks contrasts and blends and tangles with the real world as we follow hacker Shock Pao on a seeming suicide mission to steal what may bring the whole system down, Amiga, a cleaner working for the most savage boss in the city and Petrie, officer on a land ship whose newest crewmember might just hold the key to the whole sordid situation.
Ren Warom has built a world with echos of Gibson, or of Philip K Dick, but in prose darkly and beautifully poetic. Edgar Allen Poe writing cyberpunk with a foul mouth. This is the kind of book you don't so much read as sink into and give yourself over to.
li4rsl0ve's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
It took me so long to get thru this book i nearly DNF'd it, but something always kept me coming back to it. I'm fairly slow at reading and I think this is the reason why it took me so long. The book takes a while before it gets more interesting, but when it hits that mark, I think it's fantastic.
The voice is compelling and the characters are all very interesting in their own way. My favorites tended to be the scenes with Amiga and Petrie and the characters they interacted with. I also think the action was great. What kills this book is the lack of clarity/specificity when it comes to the technology and world itself. It felt like it needed to be fleshed out and explained more. A lot of the time I had trouble visualizing what exactly was going on, what the technology did and how it functioned. Towards the end it gets very abstract, and I think it can turn some people off. I'm still having some trouble really enjoying the ending but I appreciate on a artistic level the way it pushes the boundaries of what's possible in sci-fi.
The voice is compelling and the characters are all very interesting in their own way. My favorites tended to be the scenes with Amiga and Petrie and the characters they interacted with. I also think the action was great. What kills this book is the lack of clarity/specificity when it comes to the technology and world itself. It felt like it needed to be fleshed out and explained more. A lot of the time I had trouble visualizing what exactly was going on, what the technology did and how it functioned. Towards the end it gets very abstract, and I think it can turn some people off. I'm still having some trouble really enjoying the ending but I appreciate on a artistic level the way it pushes the boundaries of what's possible in sci-fi.
solarpunkwitch's review
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
frasersimons's review
4.0
This book is really, really good. It took a bit to get acclimated to the writing style but once I did, boy was it ever hard to put down. I'm going to go into a spoiler free breakdown of some immediate thoughts and then write a couple spoiler stuff that was fantastic.
Ren Warom has a fan now and her familiarity with cyberpunk tropes coupled with what must be some pretty in-depth personal knowledge make this book riveting.
Everything that is a veneer in this book at the beginning becomes recycled and pertinent later on. So much so that the name of the book only really becomes entirely clear in the very last paragraph of the book, wrapping a bow on the entire character arc of the main protagonist, Shock Pao.
While Shock is a Haunt, which is essentially a hacker in what's called "the slip", Amiga is a cleaner. She's an infiltration and assassination expert. If you're thinking this sounds like a pretty typical team up of protagonists, you're totally wrong. In fact most of the assumptions I had were blown away at around page 70ish out of 445.
Both of their character arcs are similar and are somewhat eluded to with the title of the book, but both are really well fleshed out and enticing. These are not likeable people (which, I like a lot!) who are thrust together by the repeated consequences of their own actions. One of the best things about this story is that the characters make this story. It is not a story in which the characters and put into, instead, they're entirely the vehicle for everything. And it works.
There's a system in place that grinds people down by way of a psych test when they come of age. Pass and you have a somewhat golden ticket, only they're looking for complacent people, dull individuals, etc. "Fails" are people that get cast aside from society. And the fails are literally outside of it, usually squatters in abandoned buildings barely getting by, but aren't ground up in the corporate gears.
Everyone has a drive that is basically just a flash drive in their heads but also allows them some measure of VR. Some tech lets them do stuff with that like most cyberpunk books, usually weaponry.
Where it's really interesting though is the digital environment. It's not a matrix or grid like system at all, in fact it's called the slip because it's an underwater realm. You literally dive into water and have avatars there for your needs. Most of the time it goes into just Shock doing hacking stuff but it's by clear design that the most freedom anyone has is in this place, and of course jacking in costs money and is regulated and what not for most individuals.
Shocks avatars are an octopus and a shark. Later on in the book the avatars become a predominate part of the fiction that end up being really interesting parts of Shocks and others personalities and identity. I really enjoyed what was done with this.
At its heart, it's about a job that Shock gets forced into doing that goes wrong and shit unravels from there. But it always has just enough going on outside of that and within the headspace of both Amiga and Shock that, it really feels like a lot more is going on.
It gets personal, it's gritty, its unapologetic in its depiction of bad people doing what they do as a reflection of their reality. It's crass only when it feels warranted and the punk elements really sing through with a lot of British speak mixed with some cyberpunk terminology. Fails ride metro lines apart from society, specifically Amiga, a lot. They are often depicted as the most humane compared to people in power. Not a new thing, but the world itself is a faaaairly big drift from typical cyberpunk stuff and it's also super enticing. Bits and scrapes of stuff get thrown out and the writing is in such a way that she puts a lot of faith in the reader to fill in the blanks after giving the larger chunks of world building. This coupled with how unique the slip was makes me really excited for the second book coming in June.
Read this book!
Also, some spoiler stuff I loved about this book below:
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
1) Right away I felt like Shock had a chip on his shoulder and typically this is normal for cyberpunk. They are punks afterall! But slowly learning how Shock completed a transition while walking into the heart of Korea town on page 70 (I think?) was amazing. It mentally clicked everything into place for me. I was elated to read a book with a main character grappling respectfully with the fallout of that decision. But coupled with the absolute assuredly that he'd always been a man. It was just a really great read that wasn't an info dump. You slowly learn about it over time and it becomes a pertinent thing that drives Shock and fuels his every reaction. So. Good.
2) Amiga is the embodiment of the cyberpunk trope "technology is going to make us resemble itself and not humanity", and by having an actual protagonist completely roll with that POV, and making it a character arc as well, was just so satisfying for me. One because it's eventually subverted only because of the interactions between Shock and her. Two because it's pretty deftly done. When she realizes it, so do you. Or I didn't pickup on the trope or took it for granted until it was so blatantly brought to the forefront at a pivotal part in her story. Either way, awesome.
3) Shock's avatars being brought into the story was not something i expected at all. But was teased earlier on by some hints as to what he feels when he's driving the avatar and how he thinks and feels, was super interesting. The shark, a reflection of all the emotions he never ever expresses, most predominately his anger, was really neat. And to have his other avatar, which was assigned at birth, identify as female and have him grapple with those implications until the very last page. Again, extremely satisfying.
4) Having the entire story be a consequence of choice, bringing forward the case study on escapism and addiction, was just genius for me. Shock continually asks himself why he does the things he does and knows bad things will happen but instead gets high and continues to do it as though it's not a choice. Because it's not right? It's his addiction and it's also a major plot device for the entire book that makes it very organic. Never was there a line where I was like " Aw, fuck why'd you do that, Shock!?" It always made sense because that overriding urge that drove him was spelled out from the beginning. It's never in question and always has its hooks in him and because of that the normal system of control takes a back seat to a much more human one. A timeless one that won't ever stop being relevant and that's what makes a lot of this book so good.
Ren Warom has a fan now and her familiarity with cyberpunk tropes coupled with what must be some pretty in-depth personal knowledge make this book riveting.
Everything that is a veneer in this book at the beginning becomes recycled and pertinent later on. So much so that the name of the book only really becomes entirely clear in the very last paragraph of the book, wrapping a bow on the entire character arc of the main protagonist, Shock Pao.
While Shock is a Haunt, which is essentially a hacker in what's called "the slip", Amiga is a cleaner. She's an infiltration and assassination expert. If you're thinking this sounds like a pretty typical team up of protagonists, you're totally wrong. In fact most of the assumptions I had were blown away at around page 70ish out of 445.
Both of their character arcs are similar and are somewhat eluded to with the title of the book, but both are really well fleshed out and enticing. These are not likeable people (which, I like a lot!) who are thrust together by the repeated consequences of their own actions. One of the best things about this story is that the characters make this story. It is not a story in which the characters and put into, instead, they're entirely the vehicle for everything. And it works.
There's a system in place that grinds people down by way of a psych test when they come of age. Pass and you have a somewhat golden ticket, only they're looking for complacent people, dull individuals, etc. "Fails" are people that get cast aside from society. And the fails are literally outside of it, usually squatters in abandoned buildings barely getting by, but aren't ground up in the corporate gears.
Everyone has a drive that is basically just a flash drive in their heads but also allows them some measure of VR. Some tech lets them do stuff with that like most cyberpunk books, usually weaponry.
Where it's really interesting though is the digital environment. It's not a matrix or grid like system at all, in fact it's called the slip because it's an underwater realm. You literally dive into water and have avatars there for your needs. Most of the time it goes into just Shock doing hacking stuff but it's by clear design that the most freedom anyone has is in this place, and of course jacking in costs money and is regulated and what not for most individuals.
Shocks avatars are an octopus and a shark. Later on in the book the avatars become a predominate part of the fiction that end up being really interesting parts of Shocks and others personalities and identity. I really enjoyed what was done with this.
At its heart, it's about a job that Shock gets forced into doing that goes wrong and shit unravels from there. But it always has just enough going on outside of that and within the headspace of both Amiga and Shock that, it really feels like a lot more is going on.
It gets personal, it's gritty, its unapologetic in its depiction of bad people doing what they do as a reflection of their reality. It's crass only when it feels warranted and the punk elements really sing through with a lot of British speak mixed with some cyberpunk terminology. Fails ride metro lines apart from society, specifically Amiga, a lot. They are often depicted as the most humane compared to people in power. Not a new thing, but the world itself is a faaaairly big drift from typical cyberpunk stuff and it's also super enticing. Bits and scrapes of stuff get thrown out and the writing is in such a way that she puts a lot of faith in the reader to fill in the blanks after giving the larger chunks of world building. This coupled with how unique the slip was makes me really excited for the second book coming in June.
Read this book!
Also, some spoiler stuff I loved about this book below:
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
1) Right away I felt like Shock had a chip on his shoulder and typically this is normal for cyberpunk. They are punks afterall! But slowly learning how Shock completed a transition while walking into the heart of Korea town on page 70 (I think?) was amazing. It mentally clicked everything into place for me. I was elated to read a book with a main character grappling respectfully with the fallout of that decision. But coupled with the absolute assuredly that he'd always been a man. It was just a really great read that wasn't an info dump. You slowly learn about it over time and it becomes a pertinent thing that drives Shock and fuels his every reaction. So. Good.
2) Amiga is the embodiment of the cyberpunk trope "technology is going to make us resemble itself and not humanity", and by having an actual protagonist completely roll with that POV, and making it a character arc as well, was just so satisfying for me. One because it's eventually subverted only because of the interactions between Shock and her. Two because it's pretty deftly done. When she realizes it, so do you. Or I didn't pickup on the trope or took it for granted until it was so blatantly brought to the forefront at a pivotal part in her story. Either way, awesome.
3) Shock's avatars being brought into the story was not something i expected at all. But was teased earlier on by some hints as to what he feels when he's driving the avatar and how he thinks and feels, was super interesting. The shark, a reflection of all the emotions he never ever expresses, most predominately his anger, was really neat. And to have his other avatar, which was assigned at birth, identify as female and have him grapple with those implications until the very last page. Again, extremely satisfying.
4) Having the entire story be a consequence of choice, bringing forward the case study on escapism and addiction, was just genius for me. Shock continually asks himself why he does the things he does and knows bad things will happen but instead gets high and continues to do it as though it's not a choice. Because it's not right? It's his addiction and it's also a major plot device for the entire book that makes it very organic. Never was there a line where I was like " Aw, fuck why'd you do that, Shock!?" It always made sense because that overriding urge that drove him was spelled out from the beginning. It's never in question and always has its hooks in him and because of that the normal system of control takes a back seat to a much more human one. A timeless one that won't ever stop being relevant and that's what makes a lot of this book so good.
meghan_is_reading's review
felt kinda like snowcrash in term of pace and cyberpunk, only without the mytho-linguistic stuff. Also ppls feelings felt like they change to fit plot needs but maybe I have no faith in the goodness of humanity?
alexauthorshay's review
3.0
3.5 stars rated down for confusion from the writing
This was a very bizarre book. I'm not an avid reader of the cyberpunk genre; I don't even think I could really describe what cyberpunk is. I will say this book reads like really futuristic, society-changing, whacked out technology so enmeshed into human life it is actually literally impossible to survive without it. A lot of the concepts were really cool, like humans have a drive in their brain that works similar to a computer, allowing IM conversations, downloading, and uploading of themselves as avatars into Slip (the new internet, more or less, I think).
Shock intrigued me as a character, in a sort of I'm-curious-about-how-this-will-turn-out/impersonal way. He's a heavy drug addict, which turned me off right away though it was never written so blatantly that I had to quit the book, obviously. And I do have to admit that when I found out he was FTM trans, I felt a certain obligation to give this book more of a chance than I might of otherwise. I waffled over including the LGBT genre tag for this book, because his gender is never really the focus of the book and doesn't exactly impact the plot in any way (i.e. if he'd been a cis dude nothing would have changed), but it does create personal drama and how he handled his childhood and such does come up a few times.
All the other characters kind of blur for me. Mim is a teched out bitch who manipulated Shock when he and Mim were a thing, turns out they both still have feelings for each other while simultaneously hating each other and going about their respective jobs anyways. Amiga is a Cleaner, which is basically an on-call assassin working for one particular person, who she hates and wants to kill but can't work up the courage to actually make a real life for herself. She too broke up with someone who she still has feelings for and presumably has feelings for her in return. It takes her the whole book and a lot of risky violence to make her realize this, in the same way it takes a lot of scary shit to make Shock face his inner demons (er, avis?) and get on with his life.
Then there are Twist, Li, Ho, and the Queens as villains, all so scary because they are violent without a care. I disliked them all, which is not to say I loved hating them, like you would with Draco Malfoy for example, but rather I just didn't give a shit. I didn't really care about anything that happened, I was just mostly curious about where things would go and I liked the shark.
Where things started to fall apart for me, mostly near the beginning of the book, was the style of description. I don't know if all cyberpunk reads like this or what, but it was extremely difficult to get past the hundreds of metaphors and clunky sentences to know what was actually going on. Constant description, comparisons, details, etc, that could have been worded a hell of a lot more easily, but instead was a convoluted maze of a mess. I don't know if I adjusted to it after a while or Warom just stopped writing it so hard, but it did fade to the background after maybe 50 pages. But it makes it very hard to follow some of the technology descriptions, since you don't know what's real and what isn't when Warom is constantly describing something and then comparing it to something else. Unneeded clutter, though I feel it's likely a personal style. It did suit the genre and the atmosphere in the book, and it worked in some places for emphasis, but some moments that lasted seconds were drawn out for pages by paragraph long tangent metaphors that didn't help me understand anything, instead serving to make me forget what the hell was happening. It's definitely an acquired taste, and even now that I'm done I still don't know if I can say I ever fully acclimated to it. It's a very different style than I've ever encountered, and likely to put some people off when it's so damn heavy in the first couple pages in addition to all these new tech terms you don't know that don't get explained until later.
Needs to be a bit clearer on some scenes and definitely where the technology is described, but though I didn't feel emotionally invested in any of the characters, there was something that kept me reading instead of putting it down or getting so bored I didn't pick it up again. An interesting take on future tech and virtual reality, but definitely something you need to be willing to give a bit of brain processing power to.
This was a very bizarre book. I'm not an avid reader of the cyberpunk genre; I don't even think I could really describe what cyberpunk is. I will say this book reads like really futuristic, society-changing, whacked out technology so enmeshed into human life it is actually literally impossible to survive without it. A lot of the concepts were really cool, like humans have a drive in their brain that works similar to a computer, allowing IM conversations, downloading, and uploading of themselves as avatars into Slip (the new internet, more or less, I think).
Shock intrigued me as a character, in a sort of I'm-curious-about-how-this-will-turn-out/impersonal way. He's a heavy drug addict, which turned me off right away though it was never written so blatantly that I had to quit the book, obviously. And I do have to admit that when I found out he was FTM trans, I felt a certain obligation to give this book more of a chance than I might of otherwise. I waffled over including the LGBT genre tag for this book, because his gender is never really the focus of the book and doesn't exactly impact the plot in any way (i.e. if he'd been a cis dude nothing would have changed), but it does create personal drama and how he handled his childhood and such does come up a few times.
All the other characters kind of blur for me. Mim is a teched out bitch who manipulated Shock when he and Mim were a thing, turns out they both still have feelings for each other while simultaneously hating each other and going about their respective jobs anyways. Amiga is a Cleaner, which is basically an on-call assassin working for one particular person, who she hates and wants to kill but can't work up the courage to actually make a real life for herself. She too broke up with someone who she still has feelings for and presumably has feelings for her in return. It takes her the whole book and a lot of risky violence to make her realize this, in the same way it takes a lot of scary shit to make Shock face his inner demons (er, avis?) and get on with his life.
Then there are Twist, Li, Ho, and the Queens as villains, all so scary because they are violent without a care. I disliked them all, which is not to say I loved hating them, like you would with Draco Malfoy for example, but rather I just didn't give a shit. I didn't really care about anything that happened, I was just mostly curious about where things would go and I liked the shark.
Where things started to fall apart for me, mostly near the beginning of the book, was the style of description. I don't know if all cyberpunk reads like this or what, but it was extremely difficult to get past the hundreds of metaphors and clunky sentences to know what was actually going on. Constant description, comparisons, details, etc, that could have been worded a hell of a lot more easily, but instead was a convoluted maze of a mess. I don't know if I adjusted to it after a while or Warom just stopped writing it so hard, but it did fade to the background after maybe 50 pages. But it makes it very hard to follow some of the technology descriptions, since you don't know what's real and what isn't when Warom is constantly describing something and then comparing it to something else. Unneeded clutter, though I feel it's likely a personal style. It did suit the genre and the atmosphere in the book, and it worked in some places for emphasis, but some moments that lasted seconds were drawn out for pages by paragraph long tangent metaphors that didn't help me understand anything, instead serving to make me forget what the hell was happening. It's definitely an acquired taste, and even now that I'm done I still don't know if I can say I ever fully acclimated to it. It's a very different style than I've ever encountered, and likely to put some people off when it's so damn heavy in the first couple pages in addition to all these new tech terms you don't know that don't get explained until later.
Needs to be a bit clearer on some scenes and definitely where the technology is described, but though I didn't feel emotionally invested in any of the characters, there was something that kept me reading instead of putting it down or getting so bored I didn't pick it up again. An interesting take on future tech and virtual reality, but definitely something you need to be willing to give a bit of brain processing power to.
rainsomnia's review against another edition
adventurous
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
milos_dumbraci's review against another edition
1.0
It's got all the cyberpunk background elements and they are heavy and dense, which is exactly what I'm looking for. What it doesn't have is... much else. Two main characters, male and female, which are actually the same, and that is a person with some unsolved issues with an ex. And with ridiculous, teenish behaviour, though they are supposed to be super tough and best of the best in the crime world.
Immature would be the best word to sum up this book.
Immature would be the best word to sum up this book.