The Fast Track

Fast Track (The Dance of Truth and Lies) #1

by Tom Draycott

Two generations hence, in a world dominated by artificial intelligence, a cruel exam separates members of the Establishment from the Plebians. A pass ensures an easy life, and a failure… well, let’s not talk about that now.Stephen ‘Mac’ Mackenzie, Yoshiko Williams and Dinesa ‘Ditz’ Agrawal score one hundred percent and are sent to Cambridge to learn the art and science of being a ‘Tech’, one of the secret few responsible for maintaining progress and stability. Yoshiko is keen to escape and visit her beloved Uncle; Dinesa wants to help her brother, and Mac is about to learn the realities of power.Follow their adventures in this new, fast-paced point-of-view novel and feel yourself being pulled in.

Genres: Science Fiction, Dystopia, Fiction, Amazon

214 pages, Paperback

Published February 15, 2024

Reviews

[Cookie M.]

DNF
Not a lot of substance here. I think it is supposed to be a shocking distopian YA novel, but it is just sex, drugs, and people manipulating other people for their own benefit. I'd rather watch the news.

[Zara Porteous]

Very promising start to this but it really lost me as we went on felt like a bit of a drag

[KENISHA SHAW]

Intriguing!!

An interesting read from Draycott. Great concept and intriguing characters do make for a wonderful reading experience. It was difficult to put this book down once I got started.

[Bruce]

I don't normally write reviews on books unless I really enjoy them. But this is different. I gave it a lot of thought, and I'm sure I could write my own novel length review about everything I find wrong with this book. But I'll summarize it thusly. I'm fairly certain that it was written mostly by A.I. I suffered through the entire thing out of morbid curiosity. It didn't even seem all that bad at first. But as the story went on, it felt like it was written by a teenager with no understanding of character development or story telling in general. Thus my theory that A.I. was involved. Either way, it was an interesting concept, that could have made for a thought provoking series in the right hands. This however, is slop. And I'm giving it one star, because somebody (Tom Draycott apparently) actually put in the effort to produce this novel. And two sequels. This seems to me, to be the literary equivalent of the movie "The Room" Except in that case, the movie was so bad it was good. This is just awful. Please avoid it at all costs.

[K]

think I've found my new favourite sci-fi series. With nods to Brave New World and echoes of 1984, this book brings a modern perspective to the classics. The characters are intriguing; the world is familiar yet foreign; and the story is captivating. I can't believe it ended where it did - I kept trying to find more pages just in case! This definitely makes my top ten of 2024, and I am so excited to read more.

[Sue]

Super!

A dystopian novel with hope. Clever satire and interesting twists. Creative world building that is not difficult to imagine. Interested to see how this series develops. It keeps the reader immersed in the story.

[Mr Anthony Bowen]

Excellent holiday read

The story is imaginative and interesting. The characters held my attention and I finished the book quite quickly. Worth a look.

[Ashlee Robbins]

Really intriguing plot line, but something about the story lacks depth. I hope the next books in the series help fill things out.

[M. Majeris]

Since Tom Draycott is a new author and I wasn't sure what to expect, the decision to buy and read "The Fast Track" was a kind of a stab in the dark.

The Huxley-esque premise of the book is well written and admittedly quite intriguing.

That said, once the first curtain of the unknown falls, the plot does not present any new significant intrigues. There's plenty of action (including of pretty explicitly romantic kind) but it all seems shallow.

All main characters (The Fast Track does not have one protagonist, but switches to the perspective of whatever person the chapter is about) have it all too easy. Everything seemingly comes too easy for them. They can even learn new fascinating skills on a whim using technologies that the author does not attempt to explain to make them believable.

To sum up, it's an easy, undemanding read, catering to the fans of dystopian future genre. The plot is evenly paced, without significant ups and downs or emotional build-up or even culmination at the end, which is just a set up for "The Fast Track 2" (which is also available).

[Macjest]

Sounded interesting but turned in to a drag. Students at a school take an exam which will determine their future. 3 score 100% and are sent off to become techs, and will eventually help run things. The book switches narratives amongst them, but their personal lives weren’t interesting. Just when things started to get interesting, the book ended. I’m not fond enough of them to read the next book.

[Lyn Corry]

Potential to be good but fell short. Mistakes in book - at one point Emma is referred to as Laura. Characters don’t feel genuine or believable. Annoying that it finishes saying the next bookin the series is set in my home town….. 😩

[Carter Bullock]

Got this book for free, but I didn’t finish it. The writing didn’t make sense, there wasn’t a natural flow to anything that was happening. Also the characters were super cringy haha, just like always saying weird things. I’m not one to give up on a book but I couldn’t do it for this one.

[gemma]

I just didn’t have a clue what was going on half the time. Thought it was an interesting concept but the characters lack substance, the sex is out of place and outlining the set up and the technology should have been given more focus.

[Liza]

I nearly quit in the first few chapters but persisted. It seemed to switch between characters too much. As the story continued (maybe because I had learnt the characters), the switches became less disruptive.

Ultimately enjoyable

[riri]

Decent book will carry on with book 2

[Scott Torok]

Okay Book

This Book I found to be Boring. It isn't Original. I am Personally tired of the AI Genre. AI will Destroy the World is way over done...

[Jeff]

Bizarre. DNF

[Stella]

DNF @ 30% Started out really interesting. Started to lose my interest when there were three pages of teenagers’ sex-capades, and finally lost me after they became Techies and yellowing started happening more than showing

[Ellyn]

Interesting in the beginning- then slowed down too much. I didn’t know it was a series of 3 books- so it really didn’t have a stand alone ending. And now I’m committed to reading 2 more books.