The Digital Plague

Avery Cates #2

by Jeff Somers

Avery Cates is a very rich man. He's probably the richest criminal in New York City. But right now, Avery Cates is pissed. Because everyone around him has just started to die - in a particularly gruesome way. With every moment bringing the human race closer to extinction, Cates finds himself in the role of both executioner and savior of the entire world.

Genres: Science Fiction, Cyberpunk, Fiction, Dystopia, Thriller, Fantasy, Adventure

358 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2008

About the author

Jeff Somers (www.jeffreysomers.com) began writing by court order as an attempt to steer his creative impulses away from engineering genetic grotesqueries. He has published nine novels, including the Avery Cates Series of noir-science fiction novels from Orbit Books (www.avery-cates.com) and the Ustari Cycle series of urban fantasy novels. His short story “Ringing the Changes” was selected for inclusion in Best American Mystery Stories 2006, his story “Sift, Almost Invisible, Through” appeared in the anthology Crimes by Moonlight edited by Charlaine Harris, and his story “Three Cups of Tea” appeared in the anthology Hanzai Japan. He also writes about books for Barnes and Noble and About.com and about the craft of writing for Writer’s Digest, which will publish his book on the craft of writing Writing Without Rules in 2018. He lives in Hoboken with his wife, The Duchess, and their cats. He considers pants to always be optional.

Reviews

[Kenya Wright · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm so sad by this.... Its such a great world... but good god... get into the damn story. . .Avery Cates talks and talks and talks... And even worse, he talks in third person!

"Avery Cates is mad I'm gonna have to kill somebody."

"Avery Cates is the blah blah killer. I'm gonna have to kill somebody."


"They've just made Avery Cates mad. I'm gonna have to kill somebody."

Does he kill anyone?
No.

He runs from people. He is constantly getting his ass kicked, stuck, and slammed.

There is a mystery...I just don't know what the hell the mystery is about.

Dman it I hated to have to DNF, but "Kenya Wright is a busy chick. If I continued to read, I was gonna have to kill somebody!"

[Yolanda Sfetsos · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read the first book in the Avery Cates series, The Electric Church, last month. And as soon as I did, I couldn't wait to get my hands on the second one. Let me just say that it didn't disappoint.

Several years have passed since the first book and Avery is still a criminal. A rich criminal with a bad-ass reputation. He lives in New York with his crew and still wears the title: Avery Cates, cop killer. That's a tag that he'll never shake and sure as hell gets him into a lot of trouble in this installment.

When he's taken by someone and forced to his knees in the snow with a gun pointed at his head, Avery's pretty sure that his life is over. Instead, he's injected with a lethal virus that starts killing everyone around him. Anyone who comes in contact with him becomes infected, so the body count starts right away. With his crew. He's killed a lot of people, but knowing that he's killing everyone who gets close, really affects him. Especially the death of his very young crew member, Glee. Which pretty much haunts him the whole way through.

But that's not the worst of it, he soon finds himself taken from one place to another, but eventually ends up in the custody of SSF. Beaten to a pulp, kept alive only when they figure out that to keep him close means the virus is kept at bay, he's carted around. He winds up in Paris. This is where the location of the person who engineered this virus is supposed to be, but it only makes matters worse. As Avery catches up with some old friends--Kieth, Gatz and Belling--he also encounters those freaky Monks, who are still causing havoc. Betrayal has never been this horrible and unexpected.

I love the unpredictability of this series and that no matter how close to death he gets, he still manages to survive another day. In a world where most people don't get old, that he's well into his thirties seems a miracle. And I don't doubt that more hellish and horrible things await Avery in future installments, especially now that New York has fallen. I totally want to be there for the ride.

The Digital Plague is a fast, action-packed story that packs a punch. It's dark, gritty, violent, and has plenty of attitude. This book will get your heart pumping because things never stop. I also need to mention that I love the writing style. It's a very well-written book that's so vivid, it's almost like watching a movie in your head.

This futuristic-cyberpunk-noir series is a winner!

[Veach Glines · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wish I liked it more than I do.

There are some editor-errors which stick in my memory (the repetition of information, telling me something in Chapter 1 and again in Chapter 4...see I was redundant in this sentence - don't ya hate it?).

The story line seems inventive at first, but once you get 100 pages in, you realize this plot is rolling on re-treaded tires in a rut that has been driven in many times before...only with new paint.

I don't like a protagonist or main-character based story (that's not a sequel, just another story) that continually reminds the reader "hey I did some stuff in another story that you probably should read to understand what I mean when I refer to this other stuff" - amateur. Bush league.

I think much of the blame is in EDITING not writing, so I commend Mr Somers and tell him to hire a better editor who will tell you what to trim and what to chop . . the product will be much more readable.

[Sissy Van Dyke · Rating 2 out of 5]

Way too many dodged bullets and "all of a sudden [ANY CHARACTER] busts the door down and blows [ANY BAD GUY] away."

[Jerry · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don’t know if Avery Cates was supposed to be the mastermind behind the destruction of the world, or just some sub-human intelligence used for its destruction.

In the very first pages, he is kidnapped and a hypodermic needle injected into him; he is told by his kidnappers that this mysterious injection won’t kill him. It will kill other people.

At this point everyone, except, apparently, Avery Cates, knows what is in that hypodermic. We can be reasonably certain that Cates does not know and is not psychically forbidden to know, because this is a first-person narrative.

He has only three friends in the world. They die of disease in the first section of the book, because Cates does not tell them that he is infectious and they should stay away from him. This makes his motivation for the rest of the book unbelievable.

This author-enforced lack of foresight wasn’t even necessary; the virus infects everyone in about ten feet. So even if he had shown the intelligence of a ten-year-old and warned people off, they probably still would have become infected and started spreading the infection around the city and the world.

Also, there are superhero-level psychics in this world. One of them could have made him *forget* that he’d been injected. This is a first-person telling, however, so we know he was and remained aware of it.

We can also be pretty certain that no unmentioned psychic made him just not think, either, because he isn’t the only person devoid of logic. A really smart scientist discovers both why people around Cates are dying of disease and why Cates isn’t, and it turns out while a *cure* isn’t obvious a pretty easy *permanent delay* is. The nanovirus isn’t killing Cates, or anyone who remains within several feet of him, because Cates also contains non-transmissible nanobots that are broadcasting a low-power signal to deactivate the virus within his body and among everyone near him. Go away, even for a few hours, and the infected person will die.

Expand the broadcast range of the nanobot deactivators, and the nanoviruses stop replicating. Everyone lives until the broadcast is turned off.

This is not a spoiler. It’s all toward the beginning of the book. Does anyone think of using another transmitter to duplicate the low-power broadcast throughout a building, city, or even the world?

No. I finished reading this book after that strange beginning because people whose opinion I respect rave about Jeff Somers’s writing. And the writing certainly was fast-paced, hard and gritty. But there’s more to noir than unthinking grittiness.

[Samuel Tyler · Rating 2 out of 5]

Putting an antihero at the centre of your science fiction novel can be tricky. Some people seem to think that the reader will instantly forget all the murders and lies that a character commits, as long as they have a few quips and attempt to be charming. Perhaps this is what Jeff Somers was aiming for in ‘Digital Plague’, the second book in a series that centres on Avery Cates, a gang lord who we are meant to like. Unfortunately, I was unable to really get on side with someone who is essentially a smiling sociopath and this made the rest of the book a little hard to follow.

Cates has been injected with a disease that kills anyone who comes near him, he has become patient zero for a major digital plague. Rather than hiding, or remaining still, he decides to spread the disease as fast as he can by running off half cocked. We are supposed to feel for Cates’ plight, or at least understand his motives – he is a psychopath. Having next to no connection with any of his fellow beings means that as I reader I was actually wanting him to be finished off. Sommers does attempt to introduce a couple of characters who get under Cates’ skin, but these descend into second rate action sequences that don’t read well as too much goes on at once.

As well as suffering from unlikable characters, ‘Digital Plague’ also struggles with narrative. So many science fiction books seem to descend into aimless action chases and that is the case here. Cates’ jumps from location to location partaking in action, whilst searching for a hollow McGuffin. There is no heart or reason for a lot of what happens in this book that makes it an almost meaningless adventure. Just the idea of the plague itself and some of the world building prevents the book from being a complete write off.

[Kristi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! This book is why I love goodreads! I have read some sci-fi, but to be honest we all have our favorites we go to first at the bookstores. However, at goodreads we meet so many different and exciting authors we may never had read before and get the chance to read their writing. I feel blessed ( corny I know, but true ) to get the opportunity to do that! In this case Jeff Somers and The Digital Plague something I otherwise would not have just picked up. I know now that I have read it, I will have to read to keep up with Avery Cates! I love, love, love this addictive story. A world different than what we live in now that is mostly run by computers Avery Cates is a Take No Crap kind of guy. He's an assassin paid big bucks for higher ups. He has his own team and they all work well as one. One day Cates is taken and injected with a plaque and it infects everyone around him, everyone! This is the digital plague, it has nanobots and it has a backdoor signature, the name of the person who made it, but it's not as easy as it seems. Avery Cates is being used to destroy the world in the nastiest possible way and he is the only way to save it. This book kept me on the edge the whole time. I was delightfully surprised I could sit down and start reading a sci-fi thriller and be so engrossed, go to bed and then grab it first thing in the morning. It was an awesome book. I highly recommend it to people who never read sci-fi! Give it a shot. A+++++

[Kerry · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is plagued (as I'm guessing the series is) by bad language. In a writing class I would call it lazy language. There is a limit to the number of times that the "F" word will have impact. After thay, you might as well be using "very", although very would not get in the way of the story like the "F" word did. I realize that this book is labelled as "noir," but come on. Let's get a little more creative with our language. The main character, Avery Cates, is a rough personality. For him to swear when he speaks is not surprising or jarring. I think what bothered me the most is that the same profanity is also used in the narration. I realize that it is told first person. However, in many instances I found the word unnecessary. The sentence read as well or better if it was simply left out. And I failed to believe that two of the 'upper class' characters in the novel would use it as commonly as they did. My main suggestion would be to red-pencil about two-thirds of the "F" words in the book. That said, let's look at the story. This is book 2 of a series. Book 3 just came out. Book 2 is always a hard place to start. But this one was okay. Enough backstory was given so that I wasn't lost without becoming burdensome to the current story. The story begins with action and keeps the pace the entire way through. Avery Cates is everything I am not and vice versa. It was hard to like him through most of the book, but by the end, I actually did find myself caring. 4 stars for action, 2 stars for language for an overall 3 star rating.

[Michelle Plass · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've got to say, I LOVED this book! Avery Cates is the perfect anti-hero. I found myself rooting for him, despite the fact that he is/was a hired killer. It's a rare author who can pull that off so kudos to Jeff Somers.

This book was like a non-stop action movie, which normally I'm not a big fan of in books. However, it worked here! I finished the book in two sittings because I just couldn't put it down. This was the least predictible book I've ever read and I think that's what made reading it so much fun.

I loved the fact that it was Science Fiction, yet I wasn't bogged down with lots of complicated scienfitic explainations. The way the chapters were titled was fascinating to me. It was fun trying to figure out what was going to happen in the book based on them. However, since they're sometimes just part of a sentance in the chapter I was wrong almost 100% of the time.

Without a doubt I'll be checking out the other two books in the series to see if they're as much of a great read as this one was!

[Robert Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dark, dystopian sic fi with some interesting premises and an anti-hero that stays interesting. Having not read the first book in the series, this is where I jumped in. There were enough bread crumbs to get me settled on who was who and what they meant without belaboring things. It's dark, but there's enough humor to keep it from being oppressive (and to keep it from being great literature, I guess). Be prepared to want to finish the books, though, because the hero solves one problem at the end without basically stopping the slide of the world into entropy…

[Strawberry · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is where I stopped reading the Cates series, primarily because (in my opinion) there is no real characterization of Avery Cates. He does not feel like a character to me. Despite him being the protagonist and narrator, we never really get to see him feel things at a deeper level or analyze himself. Whenever Jeff decides that we (the reader) need to feel something, he just seems to kill someone close to Avery - and usually Avery’s feelings about this begin and end at ‘oh, I was using that person’ and it doesn’t strike me as metacommentary. Additionally, though Cates ends the first book organizing a guerilla organization against the system cops - he goes straight back to being a helpless pawn for others, for the ENTIRETY of this book. He doesn’t ever try to make a play or fight back. Jeff seems to think that Avery Cates SHOULD feel things, but has no idea what Avery Cates thinks at baseline. We’re forced to watch as Jeff subjects Cates to barrages of grief, death, loss, physical pain, fear of death, domination, all of these things - but he never seems to have a moment to sit down and think, which I think is a big mistake on Jeff’s part for Avery as a character. Avery Cates feels like a camera on an action movie set. He’s just a vessel that the reader gets to see a decent story through. Sometimes he gets a gun in his hand and kills some people, but other than that he really feels like a hollow void that just gets dragged around, both by other characters in the book and by the author. Sometimes he’s poked with a bit of pain or hope. Most of the time he’s just here so we can see what’s happening.

[Courtney · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am a huge cyberpunk fan. I am also a completionist. I will finish reading a book even when I don't like it, forcing myself to learn something and be able to articulate my dislike. Unfortunately in the case of this book I had to use both parts of my personality.

Avery Cates is a mythical badass. All other men fear him. Why? It's not entirely clear to me even after reading two books about his. Sure he can tank punishment like Rocky Balboa. But when Avery isn't getting every bone in his body broken he is complaining about how tough his life has been and how he always fails everyone. I guess what Somers is trying to do here; humanize Avery to keep him from being a two-dimensional masculine fantasy. But it doesn't work because the two parts are so disjoint.

At one point in the book Avery literally muses to himself that his life "has been on rails." Which is an apt, meta-summary of the book. Because Avery has no agency in anything that happens. He is constantly being assaulted or dragged against his will from one action set piece to another. Avery is someone both central to the plot and yet only involved in the plot because his name is "Avery Cates."

[Chris Ellis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much in the same vein as "The Electric Church" with Avery Cates kicking ass and taking names.

He certainly is consistent in his apocalyptic future world view.

Does feel like he needs some new bad guys (well he's the bad guy, so worse guys) to go up against.

Will probably continue the series at a leisurely pace.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting next story. I'm not sure where Avery goes from here.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb.

Read the excerpt. Urban fantasy meets dystopian sci-fi....sort of the lovechild of Bladerunner and Dresden. Unique and addictive even reading second time through.

[Paschalis]

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[April · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now to find the rest.......................I'm hooked!

[Bill Baltas · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn’t finish this book. The author killed off a couple of characters early that I found somewhat interesting, but after that the story never took off for me.

[kingshearte · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book 2 in Somers' Avery Cates series, and I enjoyed it about as much as I enjoyed the first one. It's still not my usual taste, but I can appreciate the way it's written. Mostly. His gunfight scenes (and there are many) really are exquisitely written. Normally one thinks of a gunfight as something you need to watch, because you couldn't possibly just explain it all in words and have it be exciting. Somers actually manages that. He gives you enough description of both the setting and all the players' moves (as far as Cates is aware of them) that you can visualize it very easily (and I don't always visualize very well), but not so much that he gets bogged down in details and loses the pacing of it. It moves fast, it moves well, and he generally makes reading about them just about as good as watching them. Which I do think is an accomplishment. He also, as I mentioned in book 1, manages to make you like the characters even though they're mostly unlikable. I still don't get how he does that.

Something I'm less fond of is his repetitiousness. I don't recall noticing it so much in the first book, but looking back, there were a lot of references to the Unification riots, and pretty much every new setting was described as having been burned in said Unification riots and never rebuilt. There was more of that in this book, with the addition of repeated references to various things arising from the Monk riots. Also, I swear, for the first half of the book, every other chapter mentioned the fact that the System is being run by the Undersecretaries now that the Joint Council has been proven to be a bunch of computers which are now offline. We. Get. It. Stop telling us, for the love of whatever. He's written it in such a way that you're clearly expected to have read the first book, but he still feels the need to remind you repeatedly of what happened in it. So. Annoying. Eventually, that improved, but it really did bug, especially for the first half of the book.

The plague itself was well executed, with the clues building, until you understand the situation. And then the situation is revealed to be even worse, with everyone turning into techno-zombies. That was pretty freaky and gross. Gotta say though, anyone with an impressionable mind at all should probably keep their plague reading to the summer months, because hearing the near-constant nose-blowing and coughing of winter can make one a little nervous when reading about a virulent killer plague.

I did call (or at least suspect) the twist about Hense fairly early on, but it opens up some more interesting possibilities for future books, so we'll see if that goes anywhere. I was kind of happy about it, too, since I did rather like that character. I was pretty disappointed with Glee's death, though. We didn't really know her too well before she died, but she seemed like there was stuff you could do with her, so it's too bad she had to bite it. I think maybe Somers is nervous about trying to write engaging, human female characters, and that's why he didn't want to keep this one going too long. Well, that and the fact that her death is fairly crucial to various aspects of the story.

Generally, though, it was a fun, pulpy romp through a dystopic universe, that I look forward to returning to in the next installment.

Note that those who are offended by swearing will probably want to avoid this series.

[Meg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yikes, finally finished this book. Took long enough! I would’ve enjoyed it more had I gotten through it faster, but it’s the kind of book that’ll make a good movie. Writing was rough, lots of made up words, so it was hard to follow but would make better sense to see it vs read it.

[Sarah Sammis · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the difficulties with checking out books from the library is following series. Either they don't have all of them or the old ones and the new ones are shelved in different places. Take for instance, The Digital Plague by Jeff Somers. It's the second book of a four part (as of 2009 / 2010) series featuring Avery Cates. My library happens to have books one, The Electric Church and two, The Digital Plague. Unfortunately they are shelved halfway across the library from each other as one is in the "new acquisitions" and the other is shelved with the older books.

Although The Digital Plague is a fast paced dystopian romp through a futuristic New York City, it manages to stand well enough on its own. There are points of reference to The Electric Church to clue the clueless so that one can follow along as Avery runs, jumps and shoots his way through the book.

The Digital Plague reminds me most of the opening chapters to The Stainless Rat Gets Drafted. Like The Digital Plague I began the Stainless Steel Rat series out of order, although chronologically it comes before the earlier books. I remember being immediately swept into the action and that's what happened here too. I didn't care that I wasn't entire sure what was going on or who all the characters were because I was racing alongside Avery.

The basic plot is that a plague of nanobots has been let loose in New York. Everyone exposed dies within a fixed timeline. Avery is patient zero except he's not dying. He's now being chased down to contain the disease but he doesn't know who he can trust and who he can't. He's not even sure he wants to trust those who can help.

Nanobots aren't anything new but Avery's New York is enough wrapping to make this version of the story worth the read. I've now checked out the first book in the series, The Electric Church and I will post a review when I'm finished. Then I'll decide if I want to read books three and four.

Avery Cates series: (Click on a title to read reviews).

* The Electric Church (2007) (review coming)
* The Digital Plague (2008)
* The Eternal Prison (2009)
* The Terminal State (2010)

[Stuart Dean · Rating 3 out of 5]

The 2nd Avery Cates book. It's the basic "DOA" scenario. Cates gets injected with a virus that will kill him in a certain amount of time and he has to hunt down the guy who did it to him. Also, the virus is contagious and kills everyone he comes in contact with, and will eventually kill everyone on Earth. So Cates hunts down a lead, corners some guy with info, who gives him the name of another guy, and literally as he's walking out the door to follow the new lead he's surrounded and captured. Then he miraculously escapes. Rinse and repeat. And every time he's captured he receives a brutal beating with permanent physical damage. Avery Cates will never dance in the ballet again.

Cates wasn't overly likable in the first book, but in this one everyone he considers a friend is dead which makes him extra brutal and somewhat whiny. Another long chase book, but the "assassin with morals" bit gets worn pretty thin, since Cates' rule of killing only people who deserve it gets pretty broad. People who deserve to be killed now includes basically anybody who gets in his way, including old friends.

Cates is harder to accept in this book, and it has a massive, glaring, huge, giant, and also massive plot hole. If you were captured by your enemies and they injected something into your neck and let you go, don't you think you might take the time to find out just what they'd done to you? Cates just goes back home and ignores the crusty red sore on his neck.

Less time is spent in describing the world around him than in the last book and it's missed. Still, entertaining and fast paced. Starts vicious, end ugly.

[Tez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Science and technology combine for another intriguing cyber-noir read from Jeff Somers.

On his knees with a gun to his head, Avery Cates thought this would be his execution. Instead, he is injected with nanotech, which is infecting everyone who crosses his path - unless they stay within a certain distance.

Who did it, why, and how to stop the deaths are far from easy to answer - and it's even more difficult to cope when the dead don't stay dead. From New Jersey to Paris to New York, one thing's for certain: the Electric Monks are sticking close. Avery's battle with them is far from over. And, hopefully, so is this series.

It took me a while to realise that this is set more than five years (estimate) since The Electric Church ended, and it may mean something that the appendix was easier to follow than the actual story. Still, at least the author has interesting concepts and characters that I haven't really come across before. Reading the first two books in this series on the trot, it's kind of annoying that I now have to wait for The Eternal Prison's circa-July 2009 release. The good news is there's a teaser of it at the back of The Digital Plague, and it sounds a treat.

This series may be hard on the brain, but if you pay attention and keep focused, it has its rewards.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this entry in the series even better than the last. I believe this to be not only a great story, but in many ways some of the greatest cyberpunk books I've read in a long time. I can't think of another genre these books represent, besides the science fiction, obviously.
Avery Cates is a bad man, perhaps the most wanted and richest criminal in NYC. He kills without remorse and the System Cops now are not allowed to touch him, though that is not entirely true. He is the vector, the One. He contains a nanotech virus that destroys the host and automatically infects anyone within ten feet of the afflicted. It is controlled from far away, another continent in fact, and can be reversed to animate the fallen into a viable fighting force. Avery Cates is more dangerous than he has ever been, and finds out that his particular nanites broadcast fiend that limits the other nanites in the afflicted around him, so the victim isn't killed. This makes him even more valuable.
In his snark and violent life, one would never see Cates as being a victim in anything,and yet in this book he is just so. He uses it as best he can, because that is who he is, but the impact of this and his condition indeed shakes him.
This was a joy to read and finally finish. I have the next book and I am going to dive into it as soon as possible.

Danny

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Digital Plague was a perfect follow up to The Electric Church. Avery Cates is a badass in the purest sense and meaning of the word. The future setting and connection to the first novel in the series is pretty flawless, and it is apparent that Somers knew exactly what he was doing and where he was going with the story line.

Taking place several years after TEC, Cates finds himself being injected with something at the very beginning of the book. A few pages later and people are already dying, and it is fairly obvious that it is Cates fault, it's just no one knows why, including Cates himself. From there the story goes in the direction expected. Cates finds himself connected to the people he loathes; cops, and then flying over to Europe to figure it all out. Not wanting to spoil the story I suggest reading TEC immediately, and then diving into this one.

It is not like this book with change your life, but it is good SF and takes the principles of SF and applies them neatly and steadfastly. Somers is definitely a new voice in the cyberpunk world and it fits. Not quite up to the standard of Gibson or Sterling, Somers is definitely climbing his way up tot he top of this particular brand of SF.

[Terry · Rating 3 out of 5]

This books follows Jeff Sommers Previous book "The Electric Church" and takes place several years after it. This book still has plenty of gun fight and dirty action sequences as the first book. Which helps keep the pace of the book going. Jeff Sommers adds a lot of different twist and turns that can really keep you on the edge. He never takes you were you thought you were going. My only real criticism is that some of the action and some of the location are a little to over the top or hard to believe. But I find, when I come to these areas that Jeff keeps the pace going and you are not distracted or bored. The pace of this and his previous book are what I like best about his writing. There is always something going on. You can count on gun fights, fist fight, crashes or at least people moving. There is always motion in his books and it just capture attention and doesn't let it go until the end. The story keeps moving even past parts that you might dislike. Your can count on the story to move on the better things.

[Scout · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sequel to The Electric Church. Probably half a star less good than the first, but only because it feels like Somers had to stretch a bit to connect this one to the last.

In the opening chapters it seemed like he'd jettisoned the events of the first book and taken this in a new direction, which was disappointing. But then, just as I was getting accustomed to the fact that we were headed somewhere else, things tied back to the action of the prior book, and I sort of felt gypped.

That's not to say the book wasn't fast paced and fun to read--it was. It just felt a bit like the character set up at the end of the first book was kind of dumped as the new one started. Hard to say it clearly without spoiling either book. Main character Avery is clearly the same guy, but the people around him shift in ways that don't feel fair. Ah, but nobody ever said life was fair, I guess. And sure enough, the characters here turn out to be less honorable than we were lead to believe. On that front, I suppose Somers got it right.

Looking forward to the next book.

[Regan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm calling this a 3 1/2 star book, but I can't actually rate it that way.
*POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT*


Though years have passed between The Electric Church and The Digital Plague (in the book), and Avery's situation seems to have changed, the story quickly reverts to relying on characters and events from the first book. So, while we're told that certain things have changed for Avery, it doesn't feel like it. In a way, that felt like a cheat. The time lapse allowed Avery to develop new loyalties off the page, but the majority of the plot revolved around the same characters as the first book.

Now, that's a small complaint. Somers' characters still jump off the page, in all of their flawed mortal (or not) glory. The plot still twists and bends in original and unpredictable ways, despite the early revelation of what Avery's final actions will have to be. It's the journey, the painful, sometimes disappointing and often funny journey, populated with these phenomenally-constructed characters that makes this a worthwhile read.

[Jacob · Rating 3 out of 5]

This sequel to The Electric Church is okay. There are some good ideas in it and if you're a fan of the dystopian near-future cyberpunk genre you'll probably like it, but I've got to say it's not particularly well written. The first 10% is almost nothing but vulgarity and an annoying secondary character. The plot often doesn't move very well, and once it's over you realize not a whole lot happened. Also, one of the major characters, Wa Belling, has next to no reason for his major actions, or even his appearance in the story other than the reader might enjoy his presence.

Despite all that, I enjoyed it enough to feel it was worth reading. Barely (call it 2.75 stars). The vulgarity slowed to a normal cyberpunk rate (or I got used to it), things finally started happening, and like I said some of the ideas were neat. I don't feel a need to pick up the next in the series any time soon, though.