What do you think?
Rate this book
Countermind
In a postprivacy future, secrets are illegal and all communication is supervised. Telepaths are registered and recruited by a government with no qualms about invading the minds of its citizens. Fugitive psychics are hunted by the Bureau of Counterpsychic Affairs, or Countermind.
Alan Izaki is one such fugitive, as well as a hacker, grifter, and thief.
Countermind agent Jack Smith is hunting him through the twisted underbelly of Hong Kong.
But Alan possesses a secret so dangerous and profound it will not only shake Smith’s loyalties, but the foundations of their society.
And Alan isn’t the only one on the run. Rogue psychic Arissa binti Noor escapes Countermind, in search of brilliant game designer Feng Huang. She hopes that together, they can destroy the government’s intrusive Senex monitoring system.
Their goals seem at odds, and their lives are destined to collide. When they do, three very different people must question their alliances and their future, because everything is about to change.
Alan Izaki is one such fugitive, as well as a hacker, grifter, and thief.
Countermind agent Jack Smith is hunting him through the twisted underbelly of Hong Kong.
But Alan possesses a secret so dangerous and profound it will not only shake Smith’s loyalties, but the foundations of their society.
And Alan isn’t the only one on the run. Rogue psychic Arissa binti Noor escapes Countermind, in search of brilliant game designer Feng Huang. She hopes that together, they can destroy the government’s intrusive Senex monitoring system.
Their goals seem at odds, and their lives are destined to collide. When they do, three very different people must question their alliances and their future, because everything is about to change.
286 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 28, 2017
1 person is currently reading
61 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
Read
April 11, 2017DNFed at 15% for extensive problems with harmful representation; no rating.
This review is going to be disjointed because this book, for what I read of it, was disjointed, and I'm having trouble stringing my thoughts together in a logical progression. Because of professional boundaries I try not to write long reviews for DNFs and I'm definitely not going to star rate this, but this book has some bad representation in it that hurt to experience, and that's the one area where that rule relaxes for a more extensive review - if only for the sake of saving others from being hurt by bad rep. Which means I'm going to have to discuss my other issues with the story as well, because you can't extricate issues with characterization and storytelling from overall representation with marginalized main characters.
I tried to stick it out with COUNTERMIND. I really, really wanted to like it; even knowing going in that it's not #ownvoices, I wanted to give it a fair shake because it really sounded up my alley, from the near-future noir-ish science fiction to the Asian setting and protagonist. Asian rep, particularly queer Asian rep, in books is so hard to find that I really, desperately wanted to love this and say all the good things about it. Plus that cover is beautiful, and it's rare that we see well-done covers with Asian models - though considering L.C. Chase is the cover artist, I'm not surprised by just how lovely the cover came out. But nonetheless I quit at 15% in after taking two full pages of cramped, hand-written notes of all the reasons why I wanted to throw this book at the wall until my Nook shattered. Some of this was physically painful to read, to the point of being bloody well racist when it wasn't just plain lazy or offensive.
So, brief summary: some humans now come in various flavors of psychic, and basically psychic activity is illegal unless used for government-sanctioned purposes. Alan Izaki is an unregistered psychic, a scrapper and a thief of unique capabilities, possessed of damning secrets, on the run from government psychic policing agency Countermind and powerful psychic agent Jack Smith.
From the very first page of the prologue, the settings - from Bangkok to Hong Kong - felt uncomfortably Western. There was no sense of familiarity with or understanding of diverse Asian cultures and nuance present in the settings; just place names thrown about without capturing the feeling and character of a location. It could've just as easily been the slums of Los Angeles as the slums of Hong Kong. I felt like I was reading less about a modern, Western-influenced Asian setting and more about the most gentrified block of New York's Chinatown. It's not 海鲜雀巢; it's mall food court moo goo gai pan. There was no life to it, no presence, and no real idea of sensory depth.
The prologue opens on three boys with...I'll call them pseudo-Thai names, as they're not really common in Thai culture (or used at all) and border on someone naming their kids L'mongelo and O'rangelo; there's a reason these names are listed as uncommon when you look them up on Babynames.com: not because they're special, but because they're just weird names to give your kid. Maybe Siam could've been Indian (though it's just odd to have a kid named Siam in a country that used to be called Siam, and I'm just...skeptical), but since Jettrin and Jai are brothers and Jettrin is a (very uncommon) Thai name, I guess...Jai is supposed to be as well? These characters were difficult to empathize with, and I felt like I was reading about three young white American boys with no idea why. This feeling continued in chapter one, as we left these boys behind (for good? Why did the prologue open on them?) and met "the agent and the thief," which is how we first come to know, well before we know their names, the two men I presume will be our romantic pairing. I don't know. I didn't stick it out long enough to be sure if Jack and Alan hook up; by 15% all I knew was that I didn't like either of them, and felt no chemistry between them despite both men acknowledging to themselves that the other is attractive.
Alan in particular was a problem. Japanese and yet with nothing to make him distinguishably Japanese, nothing in his thought patterns or habits to indicate that he has any connection to Japanese culture or awareness of his lack of connection to Japanese culture, which is something that is often a pivotal part of the identities of later-generation Japanese Americans raised in an entirely Western environment as it's hinted that Alan was. Does he understand the significance of shouganai? Does he know what it's like to be The Only Asian in a Western school and expected to represent pretty much Japan, China, and Korea (and sometimes Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, etc.) in one even though he's only one of those and wasn't actually raised in his home culture? Does he feel the hurt of the sharp dividing line drawn between Nihonjin and Nikkeijin? When dealing with Chinese people, does he ever feel the sting of post-occupation resentment and loathing that still lingers after all these years, especially among mainland Chinese? How does he navigate the complexity of being Japanese among heavily Cantonese populations in Hong Kong? Is there anything about his life at all that's been impacted by being a Western-raised Japanese person? Anything where I don't have to get through the first fifth of the book to actually find something that makes me feel like I'm reading a Japanese POV? I'd have taken one little thing. Anything.
I got nothing. Not just on the cultural front, but on Alan as a person with a defined sense of self, emotions, clear voice and personality, an established sense of himself in the world. He was just a collection of data, but none of that data included anything that alluded to his ethnic background.
In fact, since we don't learn his last name is Izaki until later (and by then I had forgotten the blurb, and you shouldn't need the blurb to convey character details your book should cover front and center), I wasn't sure if he was white, Chinese...he could've been Brazilian. I just...didn't know, despite the fact that on first meeting him he takes a pause to lovingly describe himself, his tattoo, his clothing, and current fashion trends for the reader in the middle of a high-tension situation.
What bothered me the most about Alan, though, was that I had no reason to care about him. From the start, I at least understood Jack's purpose even if we'd not yet delved far enough to understand his motivations; he has a job to catch psychic criminals, and he's going to do it. He's failed in his first attempt to catch Alan and gotten himself roundly injured in the process, which creates pathos and a strong reason for his determination not to fail again. Alan...I don't know why he does what he does, or what he wants as driving character motivation other than to continue to survive and evade Countermind. His scenes felt pointless without that knowledge, especially when interspersed with scenes introducing so many characters that by 15% I'd lost count of how many we'd met or what role they were to take. Alan himself is as shallow as an on-brand idoru whose entire existence is a collection of concepts that haven't quite achieved unity, a living male Hatsune Miku with just as much depth, but then that shallowness is something that pervades this story. From the beginning I didn't feel connected to the characters; it felt like the author was trying to hook readers quickly with immediate action and intrigue, but without at least a glimpse of character depth it mostly felt like watching random people do random things in an action film without caring about the outcome.
I know some other reviewers had a problem with the enormous technical infodumps. I...actually didn't, and they were what kept me reading hoping that it would get better, enough for me to at least give the book three stars. I love the science of a story, especially around neuroscience, data technology, cryptography, etc., and I was quite interested in the technological worldbuilding overall. I did, however, have a problem with the writing used to convey that worldbuilding. It was disjointed, disconnected, and didn't seem to know if it wanted to be third limited or third omniscient, and on one occasion I felt like the author broke the fourth wall to speak directly to me as the reader. There were so many instances of telling vs. showing that it felt like the author was struggling not to break POV but still wanted us to know how the non-POV characters felt, and didn't know how to portray that in a way the reader would innately pick up through gesture, tone, body language, expression. Basic issues with sentence structure, with self-description...the writing just wasn't there, as far as style and maturity. And while the technical infodumps were interesting, they came at the wrong moments and without a natural flow that would make them blend seamlessly into the narrative and connect them with character actions in a way that might move the story forward. As a whole the style was uncomfortable to read; I don't know if it was trying to be smart while remaining accessible or trying to be accessible while remaining smart, but in trying to straddle both it accomplished neither, and significantly weakened any sense of character voice.
As far as the representation, I took enormous issue with how several of the non-POV Asian characters were described, and this was what made me stop struggling with the book and decide to move on because this was making me feel bad - small, cheapened, uncomfortable. In trying to impart some level of cultural familiarity, the author seemed to fall back on stereotype. For instance, when meeting Executive Director Zheng, the only "notable decoration" in his office was "a framed piece of brushwork calligraphy." Which...isn't wholly out of character, fuck, I have brushwork calligraphy in my home, and yes, it's above my little vase of lucky bamboo. But the translation made me groan.
The craft of hanzi brushwork (shūfǎ, and gah this font that won't display the pinyin accent mark correctly) is beautiful, subtle, and often used to convey many things - from a silently impactful single-word character to the length of a poem or even a complete story that's told as much in the writer's unique calligraphic style as in the meaning of the hanzi themselves. It's an art form, and it could have been used to impart quietly meaningful character depth.
Instead the story fell back back on something that practically came out of a pithy pocket book of cheap Confucianisms.
Except this one can't actually be reliably traced to a source as a Chinese proverb, and might actually be Arabic, Sanskrit, Persian, or just one of those modern truisms that we've falsely attributed to some ancient source to give it more weight. I can't find a reliable, even semi-credible source for it anywhere except for the Lady Burton crediting it as an Arabic Proverb in the biography of Sir Richard Burton (source). The clip used in COUNTERMIND isn't even the full proverb; Goodreads attributes the full proverb to Confucius and The Analects, but I'm honestly not sure how much I trust that. If it is from The Analects, then my comment about stereotypically pithy Confucianisms is even more on the nose and... *facepalm* I'd almost rather it be an Arabic proverb, strangely planted in a Chinese setting, written in Chinese language, contextualized in a way that would mislead the uninformed reader into thinking it's Ancient Chinese WisdomTM. Either option is just a mess. We either have bad research or bad stereotypes, and I kind of don't want either. (Aside: this was bothering me so much I downloaded The Analects of Confucius after I finished the bulk of this review, and I can't find this proverb anywhere in the book. Maybe I have a different edition. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
I mean...yes, there are hanzi paintings that do, in fact, depict these little fortune cookie bon mots, many of them actual Chinese proverbs. But there were so many other options. So much more that could've been done with that. So many opportunities left untapped. The choice made here is rather telling, and rather disappointing.
Especially when that little adage, then, is used to characterize Zheng; after yet another physical description - most characters are reduced to that, with very little presence or charisma to truly define them as complex beings that we care about - we're told that he doesn't look the part of a classical wise man, but Smith knows he has the brains of one.
Do I really need to tell you how frustrating it is that the first notably Asian character we meet (as we don't actually get confirmation that Alan is Asian until after this) is characterized as the wise man? The forbidding sage of the mountain, even if Zheng's mountain is an office dominated by mahogany, brass, and leather, looking out over a city that, through the fogged window, leaves impressions of the classic three spatial depths of Chinese and Japanese screen and landscape paintings - which, if intentional, was clever, but by this point I'm not certain it was when I might've just been looking for something to grasp onto so I wouldn't start thumping my head on the coffee table over Zheng. There were a thousand ways to imply Zheng's gravitas and make him a unique character without falling back on that, but...here we are.
There's also an entire discussion in here on the art of cultural subtlety and how we wouldn't be so obvious...but this is getting long enough as it is.
I'm not going to touch on Arissa binti Noor much, because I'd just be saying essentially the same things I did about Alan: that giving a character an Asian name does not make them Asian, or make their voice an Asian voice, and there is nothing in her scenes that even brushes up against the fact that she might be Malaysian except naming conventions and brief mention that she speaks Malay (called Malay in the book, not Bahasa Melayu, from her POV). Of course characters don't need to go about loudly signaling their ethnicity on first meeting, but the thing is...there's a difference in how you perceive and describe your world and yourself when you grow up speaking languages that aren't English, in worlds that don't default to the standard template of the West; there's a different social framework that governs everything from the smallest polite interactions to the most high-conflict situations. And there's nothing to hint at that in any of these character voices, nothing that articulates this difference in worldview - a difference that should be diversely and differentially portrayed when in just a short space we've encountered Japanese, Chinese, and Malaysian, and each will have a different framework. It should be there in the little subtleties, in how their inner narrative works even when they aren't outright proclaiming "this is my culture"...but it's not.
But moving on...next we get to Alan's ongoing efforts to collect data to steal someone's identity for the purpose of escaping Hong Kong after his first bad brush with Jack Smith and Countermind. He's looking for someone who looks enough like him that he can pass himself off long enough to escape without leaving a trace that either psychic or non-psychic police would be able to follow; in doing so he settles on a "scion of an established Jiangxi political family."
*sighs, rubs temples* So, for those of you who don't know...Jiangxi is a province in southeast China. I mean...I'm already like...um...Jiangxi is one of the more highly distinct regions of China with more prominently unique dialects and culture differentials so it's kind of hard to just throw a dart at a map and just say "Oh, sure, Jiangxi," and have it be as good as anywhere else, but okay, this is an alt-universe future, sure, we're just looking for a young man who repeatedly travels between Hong Kong and Shanghai, wasting his rich Jiangxi parent's money on living the high life, it'll work. (Though I did wonder if the author was confusing Jiangxi with Jiangsu, which is actually adjacent to Shanghai and would make a little more sense for someone who repeatedly travels to and from Shanghai...but I'm giving the benefit of the doubt there since Shanghai is a massive global hub of finance, trade, culture, and entertainment, and would definitely be a hot spot for any young wealthy Chinese jetsetter regardless of their family's point of origin.) But...then we get to this young scion's name.
Kim Kyung-Min. Or Kyung-Min Kim, if you write it in the Western order.
Y'all.
Kyung-Min is a Korean given name.
I mean, I was willing to forgive the guy named Chun-Wai written with the hyphen instead of as Chun Wai as there are different accepted rules for hyphenating romanized Chinese two-part given names (though P.S. If you're writing Zheng instead of Cheng you're using Hanyu pinyin, but hyphenating two-character given names is Wade-Giles, so consistency would be nice), but either there needs to be some kind of plausible explanation in the worldbuilding for this Jiangxi scion to be Korean or you need to show me a real live Chinese person from Jiangxi named Kyung-Min. I don't care if they're Hakka or Gan or what, just show me, because no. Nope. Like are we Cloud Atlasing this thing and the South Koreans just took over everything when hallyu/the Korean wave turned into world domination, so most of China is Korean now?
But the final kicker with Kyung-Min is that whether he's Korean or Chinese (or mixed-race, please let him be mixed-race to explain that), he's supposed to be such a spitting image of Alan - Alan Izaki, Japanese - that they could've been related.
*drags hand over face* Ignoring that this really isn't endearing Alan to me any further...if in 2017 I need to tell you that all Asians are not interchangeable or related by blood...FOH. Various East Asian ethnicities have entirely different features, ranging from the shape of monolids and inner eye folds to overall facial contours, feature placement, proportions/ratios, etc. Our skin tones possess notable differences. What's even considered attractive from one East Asian culture to another differs. Generally, we can tell each other apart. The fact that other people can't is beyond insulting, but when it's used as a plot point to basically throw out the old "oh, all Asians look alike" in a book from the POV of a Japanese character...that was an Iron Fist right to my gut, and I shut the Nook down because I just didn't want to read another word.
Read the rest of this review (because yes, there is more, but out of space) at Black Magic Reviews.
This review is going to be disjointed because this book, for what I read of it, was disjointed, and I'm having trouble stringing my thoughts together in a logical progression. Because of professional boundaries I try not to write long reviews for DNFs and I'm definitely not going to star rate this, but this book has some bad representation in it that hurt to experience, and that's the one area where that rule relaxes for a more extensive review - if only for the sake of saving others from being hurt by bad rep. Which means I'm going to have to discuss my other issues with the story as well, because you can't extricate issues with characterization and storytelling from overall representation with marginalized main characters.
I tried to stick it out with COUNTERMIND. I really, really wanted to like it; even knowing going in that it's not #ownvoices, I wanted to give it a fair shake because it really sounded up my alley, from the near-future noir-ish science fiction to the Asian setting and protagonist. Asian rep, particularly queer Asian rep, in books is so hard to find that I really, desperately wanted to love this and say all the good things about it. Plus that cover is beautiful, and it's rare that we see well-done covers with Asian models - though considering L.C. Chase is the cover artist, I'm not surprised by just how lovely the cover came out. But nonetheless I quit at 15% in after taking two full pages of cramped, hand-written notes of all the reasons why I wanted to throw this book at the wall until my Nook shattered. Some of this was physically painful to read, to the point of being bloody well racist when it wasn't just plain lazy or offensive.
So, brief summary: some humans now come in various flavors of psychic, and basically psychic activity is illegal unless used for government-sanctioned purposes. Alan Izaki is an unregistered psychic, a scrapper and a thief of unique capabilities, possessed of damning secrets, on the run from government psychic policing agency Countermind and powerful psychic agent Jack Smith.
From the very first page of the prologue, the settings - from Bangkok to Hong Kong - felt uncomfortably Western. There was no sense of familiarity with or understanding of diverse Asian cultures and nuance present in the settings; just place names thrown about without capturing the feeling and character of a location. It could've just as easily been the slums of Los Angeles as the slums of Hong Kong. I felt like I was reading less about a modern, Western-influenced Asian setting and more about the most gentrified block of New York's Chinatown. It's not 海鲜雀巢; it's mall food court moo goo gai pan. There was no life to it, no presence, and no real idea of sensory depth.
The prologue opens on three boys with...I'll call them pseudo-Thai names, as they're not really common in Thai culture (or used at all) and border on someone naming their kids L'mongelo and O'rangelo; there's a reason these names are listed as uncommon when you look them up on Babynames.com: not because they're special, but because they're just weird names to give your kid. Maybe Siam could've been Indian (though it's just odd to have a kid named Siam in a country that used to be called Siam, and I'm just...skeptical), but since Jettrin and Jai are brothers and Jettrin is a (very uncommon) Thai name, I guess...Jai is supposed to be as well? These characters were difficult to empathize with, and I felt like I was reading about three young white American boys with no idea why. This feeling continued in chapter one, as we left these boys behind (for good? Why did the prologue open on them?) and met "the agent and the thief," which is how we first come to know, well before we know their names, the two men I presume will be our romantic pairing. I don't know. I didn't stick it out long enough to be sure if Jack and Alan hook up; by 15% all I knew was that I didn't like either of them, and felt no chemistry between them despite both men acknowledging to themselves that the other is attractive.
Alan in particular was a problem. Japanese and yet with nothing to make him distinguishably Japanese, nothing in his thought patterns or habits to indicate that he has any connection to Japanese culture or awareness of his lack of connection to Japanese culture, which is something that is often a pivotal part of the identities of later-generation Japanese Americans raised in an entirely Western environment as it's hinted that Alan was. Does he understand the significance of shouganai? Does he know what it's like to be The Only Asian in a Western school and expected to represent pretty much Japan, China, and Korea (and sometimes Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, etc.) in one even though he's only one of those and wasn't actually raised in his home culture? Does he feel the hurt of the sharp dividing line drawn between Nihonjin and Nikkeijin? When dealing with Chinese people, does he ever feel the sting of post-occupation resentment and loathing that still lingers after all these years, especially among mainland Chinese? How does he navigate the complexity of being Japanese among heavily Cantonese populations in Hong Kong? Is there anything about his life at all that's been impacted by being a Western-raised Japanese person? Anything where I don't have to get through the first fifth of the book to actually find something that makes me feel like I'm reading a Japanese POV? I'd have taken one little thing. Anything.
I got nothing. Not just on the cultural front, but on Alan as a person with a defined sense of self, emotions, clear voice and personality, an established sense of himself in the world. He was just a collection of data, but none of that data included anything that alluded to his ethnic background.
In fact, since we don't learn his last name is Izaki until later (and by then I had forgotten the blurb, and you shouldn't need the blurb to convey character details your book should cover front and center), I wasn't sure if he was white, Chinese...he could've been Brazilian. I just...didn't know, despite the fact that on first meeting him he takes a pause to lovingly describe himself, his tattoo, his clothing, and current fashion trends for the reader in the middle of a high-tension situation.
What bothered me the most about Alan, though, was that I had no reason to care about him. From the start, I at least understood Jack's purpose even if we'd not yet delved far enough to understand his motivations; he has a job to catch psychic criminals, and he's going to do it. He's failed in his first attempt to catch Alan and gotten himself roundly injured in the process, which creates pathos and a strong reason for his determination not to fail again. Alan...I don't know why he does what he does, or what he wants as driving character motivation other than to continue to survive and evade Countermind. His scenes felt pointless without that knowledge, especially when interspersed with scenes introducing so many characters that by 15% I'd lost count of how many we'd met or what role they were to take. Alan himself is as shallow as an on-brand idoru whose entire existence is a collection of concepts that haven't quite achieved unity, a living male Hatsune Miku with just as much depth, but then that shallowness is something that pervades this story. From the beginning I didn't feel connected to the characters; it felt like the author was trying to hook readers quickly with immediate action and intrigue, but without at least a glimpse of character depth it mostly felt like watching random people do random things in an action film without caring about the outcome.
I know some other reviewers had a problem with the enormous technical infodumps. I...actually didn't, and they were what kept me reading hoping that it would get better, enough for me to at least give the book three stars. I love the science of a story, especially around neuroscience, data technology, cryptography, etc., and I was quite interested in the technological worldbuilding overall. I did, however, have a problem with the writing used to convey that worldbuilding. It was disjointed, disconnected, and didn't seem to know if it wanted to be third limited or third omniscient, and on one occasion I felt like the author broke the fourth wall to speak directly to me as the reader. There were so many instances of telling vs. showing that it felt like the author was struggling not to break POV but still wanted us to know how the non-POV characters felt, and didn't know how to portray that in a way the reader would innately pick up through gesture, tone, body language, expression. Basic issues with sentence structure, with self-description...the writing just wasn't there, as far as style and maturity. And while the technical infodumps were interesting, they came at the wrong moments and without a natural flow that would make them blend seamlessly into the narrative and connect them with character actions in a way that might move the story forward. As a whole the style was uncomfortable to read; I don't know if it was trying to be smart while remaining accessible or trying to be accessible while remaining smart, but in trying to straddle both it accomplished neither, and significantly weakened any sense of character voice.
As far as the representation, I took enormous issue with how several of the non-POV Asian characters were described, and this was what made me stop struggling with the book and decide to move on because this was making me feel bad - small, cheapened, uncomfortable. In trying to impart some level of cultural familiarity, the author seemed to fall back on stereotype. For instance, when meeting Executive Director Zheng, the only "notable decoration" in his office was "a framed piece of brushwork calligraphy." Which...isn't wholly out of character, fuck, I have brushwork calligraphy in my home, and yes, it's above my little vase of lucky bamboo. But the translation made me groan.
He who knows and knows that he knows is a wise man.
The craft of hanzi brushwork (shūfǎ, and gah this font that won't display the pinyin accent mark correctly) is beautiful, subtle, and often used to convey many things - from a silently impactful single-word character to the length of a poem or even a complete story that's told as much in the writer's unique calligraphic style as in the meaning of the hanzi themselves. It's an art form, and it could have been used to impart quietly meaningful character depth.
Instead the story fell back back on something that practically came out of a pithy pocket book of cheap Confucianisms.
Except this one can't actually be reliably traced to a source as a Chinese proverb, and might actually be Arabic, Sanskrit, Persian, or just one of those modern truisms that we've falsely attributed to some ancient source to give it more weight. I can't find a reliable, even semi-credible source for it anywhere except for the Lady Burton crediting it as an Arabic Proverb in the biography of Sir Richard Burton (source). The clip used in COUNTERMIND isn't even the full proverb; Goodreads attributes the full proverb to Confucius and The Analects, but I'm honestly not sure how much I trust that. If it is from The Analects, then my comment about stereotypically pithy Confucianisms is even more on the nose and... *facepalm* I'd almost rather it be an Arabic proverb, strangely planted in a Chinese setting, written in Chinese language, contextualized in a way that would mislead the uninformed reader into thinking it's Ancient Chinese WisdomTM. Either option is just a mess. We either have bad research or bad stereotypes, and I kind of don't want either. (Aside: this was bothering me so much I downloaded The Analects of Confucius after I finished the bulk of this review, and I can't find this proverb anywhere in the book. Maybe I have a different edition. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
I mean...yes, there are hanzi paintings that do, in fact, depict these little fortune cookie bon mots, many of them actual Chinese proverbs. But there were so many other options. So much more that could've been done with that. So many opportunities left untapped. The choice made here is rather telling, and rather disappointing.
Especially when that little adage, then, is used to characterize Zheng; after yet another physical description - most characters are reduced to that, with very little presence or charisma to truly define them as complex beings that we care about - we're told that he doesn't look the part of a classical wise man, but Smith knows he has the brains of one.
Do I really need to tell you how frustrating it is that the first notably Asian character we meet (as we don't actually get confirmation that Alan is Asian until after this) is characterized as the wise man? The forbidding sage of the mountain, even if Zheng's mountain is an office dominated by mahogany, brass, and leather, looking out over a city that, through the fogged window, leaves impressions of the classic three spatial depths of Chinese and Japanese screen and landscape paintings - which, if intentional, was clever, but by this point I'm not certain it was when I might've just been looking for something to grasp onto so I wouldn't start thumping my head on the coffee table over Zheng. There were a thousand ways to imply Zheng's gravitas and make him a unique character without falling back on that, but...here we are.
There's also an entire discussion in here on the art of cultural subtlety and how we wouldn't be so obvious...but this is getting long enough as it is.
I'm not going to touch on Arissa binti Noor much, because I'd just be saying essentially the same things I did about Alan: that giving a character an Asian name does not make them Asian, or make their voice an Asian voice, and there is nothing in her scenes that even brushes up against the fact that she might be Malaysian except naming conventions and brief mention that she speaks Malay (called Malay in the book, not Bahasa Melayu, from her POV). Of course characters don't need to go about loudly signaling their ethnicity on first meeting, but the thing is...there's a difference in how you perceive and describe your world and yourself when you grow up speaking languages that aren't English, in worlds that don't default to the standard template of the West; there's a different social framework that governs everything from the smallest polite interactions to the most high-conflict situations. And there's nothing to hint at that in any of these character voices, nothing that articulates this difference in worldview - a difference that should be diversely and differentially portrayed when in just a short space we've encountered Japanese, Chinese, and Malaysian, and each will have a different framework. It should be there in the little subtleties, in how their inner narrative works even when they aren't outright proclaiming "this is my culture"...but it's not.
But moving on...next we get to Alan's ongoing efforts to collect data to steal someone's identity for the purpose of escaping Hong Kong after his first bad brush with Jack Smith and Countermind. He's looking for someone who looks enough like him that he can pass himself off long enough to escape without leaving a trace that either psychic or non-psychic police would be able to follow; in doing so he settles on a "scion of an established Jiangxi political family."
*sighs, rubs temples* So, for those of you who don't know...Jiangxi is a province in southeast China. I mean...I'm already like...um...Jiangxi is one of the more highly distinct regions of China with more prominently unique dialects and culture differentials so it's kind of hard to just throw a dart at a map and just say "Oh, sure, Jiangxi," and have it be as good as anywhere else, but okay, this is an alt-universe future, sure, we're just looking for a young man who repeatedly travels between Hong Kong and Shanghai, wasting his rich Jiangxi parent's money on living the high life, it'll work. (Though I did wonder if the author was confusing Jiangxi with Jiangsu, which is actually adjacent to Shanghai and would make a little more sense for someone who repeatedly travels to and from Shanghai...but I'm giving the benefit of the doubt there since Shanghai is a massive global hub of finance, trade, culture, and entertainment, and would definitely be a hot spot for any young wealthy Chinese jetsetter regardless of their family's point of origin.) But...then we get to this young scion's name.
Kim Kyung-Min. Or Kyung-Min Kim, if you write it in the Western order.
Y'all.
Kyung-Min is a Korean given name.
I mean, I was willing to forgive the guy named Chun-Wai written with the hyphen instead of as Chun Wai as there are different accepted rules for hyphenating romanized Chinese two-part given names (though P.S. If you're writing Zheng instead of Cheng you're using Hanyu pinyin, but hyphenating two-character given names is Wade-Giles, so consistency would be nice), but either there needs to be some kind of plausible explanation in the worldbuilding for this Jiangxi scion to be Korean or you need to show me a real live Chinese person from Jiangxi named Kyung-Min. I don't care if they're Hakka or Gan or what, just show me, because no. Nope. Like are we Cloud Atlasing this thing and the South Koreans just took over everything when hallyu/the Korean wave turned into world domination, so most of China is Korean now?
But the final kicker with Kyung-Min is that whether he's Korean or Chinese (or mixed-race, please let him be mixed-race to explain that), he's supposed to be such a spitting image of Alan - Alan Izaki, Japanese - that they could've been related.
But he bore such a resemblance to Alan that he had to wonder if he'd discovered a distant cousin. Kim's expression in the photo was serious and analytical. Though his haircut was shorter and tidier than Alan's, and he wore glasses and a button-down shirt and tie, the delicate features were in such a similar mold to Alan's that they provoked a frisson of narcissistic attraction.
*drags hand over face* Ignoring that this really isn't endearing Alan to me any further...if in 2017 I need to tell you that all Asians are not interchangeable or related by blood...FOH. Various East Asian ethnicities have entirely different features, ranging from the shape of monolids and inner eye folds to overall facial contours, feature placement, proportions/ratios, etc. Our skin tones possess notable differences. What's even considered attractive from one East Asian culture to another differs. Generally, we can tell each other apart. The fact that other people can't is beyond insulting, but when it's used as a plot point to basically throw out the old "oh, all Asians look alike" in a book from the POV of a Japanese character...that was an Iron Fist right to my gut, and I shut the Nook down because I just didn't want to read another word.
Read the rest of this review (because yes, there is more, but out of space) at Black Magic Reviews.
February 28, 2017
When you’re constantly contemplating whether it would be better to quit and write a DNF review or continue reading to get to one-star it, then something is definitely not going right.
I wanted to read this book because I lived in Macao for two years and I was in Hong Kong several times because it’s only a one-hour ride with the ferry. I’m also studying Chinese and I love dystopian novels, so all this made me really excited for this book.
Consider me disappointed and utterly annoyed.
The best part of the story is the premise, but my imagination of what this book could have been and reality are like miles apart.
There are several issues I had with this book. For one—and I get this might not bother everyone—the setting does not feel Asian to me. The only part that reminds of Asia, and in this case mainly China and Hong Kong, are the names of places and people. Someone at least studied a map. I think that the author has either never been in Hong Kong or China, or that he just wasn’t capable of transporting any sense of it to the reader.
I mean, the first thing you notice when you’re in Hong Kong is the climate, because it’s fucking hot and humid, like the-air-is-palpable-humid, and when you’re inside, there is air-con everywhere. In the hotels, the bars, the busses and taxis, the shops, so that you’re permanently confronted with the climate. But in this book, nada. There is a typhoon, though, so at least that is realistic.
Apart from the climate, Hong Kong is either super crowded or if you’re on the islands the total opposite. There is food everywhere and traffic and basically it’s like no other place you’ve ever been to, but you guessed it, in Countermind we can witness nothing of it. And the people… You know, while yes, we are all people, Asians do have their own culture and everything and there was, again, nothing.
One could argue that the book is set in the future and that I am not supposed to inflict my contemporary expectations on it, but, first of all, I think I still can, and on the other hand, I can’t even tell when the book is set because sense of place and time are utterly missing. And maybe it’s a parallel universe or whatever, but after having read more than half of the book it should be somehow clear. However, I guess the book plays in our future because halfway through the book one of the protagonists goes to North Korea and explains that it’s regime collapsed some time ago.
And now there are zombies there. Yes.
While this made me laugh (because seriously whaaaaaaa? I thought I was reading a book about psychics, but okay), the plot was already lost on me because of all the incredible coincidences, and I was constantly alternating between questions of what, why, and how… The whole story is totally hanebüchen, like we Germans would say.
There is an explanation given for the zombies, though. Heh. And maybe it all makes sense, as incredible as things might seem, but if you want to surprise your reader in the end with your brilliance, you still can’t lose them on the way there.
And I was definitely lost when Agent Smith hikes to Seattle to investigate Alan’s past and not only runs into another psychic, which he himself thinks is a chance of one in a million, and then when he needs to talk to a scientist about Alan’s past and he gets hooked up with Kim who is the very same person that Alan is trying to steal their identity from. The odds are like— I can’t even. It felt to me like the plot had to develop in a certain way and credibility was thrown to the winds in favour of it.
But not only had I trouble believing everything that was presented to me, there are pages (I mean that literally. Really.) long descriptions of technical researches and investigation procedures that totally bogged down the story. I was so bored and had to skip/skim a lot. Have a look, I brought you some fine examples of it ;-)
This scene goes on and on (I said pages, right?), but I was so nice as to only copy the first paragraph for you. And here is another one, which you can always skip/skim, too ;-)
I realise that this review has already gotten out of hand, but it was kinda cathartic to write this all down.
To wrap this up now, I would very much love to read a dystopian science fiction set in Asia with LGBTQIA characters. The book has tons of them, by the way, which is cool, but also felt a little unnatural the way it was written. Alas, this book is not it, and I absolutely cannot recommend this to anyone. Mel out. Mic drop or how you call it…
____________________________________
Genre: Science Fiction, Dystopia, Paranormal
Tags: Gay Character, Bisexual Character, Transgender Character, POC, Psychics/Telepaths, Government Control, Zombies, MMO, Asia
Rating: DNF @69%, 1 star
Blog: Review for Just Love
Disclosure: ARC for Review
I wanted to read this book because I lived in Macao for two years and I was in Hong Kong several times because it’s only a one-hour ride with the ferry. I’m also studying Chinese and I love dystopian novels, so all this made me really excited for this book.
Consider me disappointed and utterly annoyed.
The best part of the story is the premise, but my imagination of what this book could have been and reality are like miles apart.
There are several issues I had with this book. For one—and I get this might not bother everyone—the setting does not feel Asian to me. The only part that reminds of Asia, and in this case mainly China and Hong Kong, are the names of places and people. Someone at least studied a map. I think that the author has either never been in Hong Kong or China, or that he just wasn’t capable of transporting any sense of it to the reader.
I mean, the first thing you notice when you’re in Hong Kong is the climate, because it’s fucking hot and humid, like the-air-is-palpable-humid, and when you’re inside, there is air-con everywhere. In the hotels, the bars, the busses and taxis, the shops, so that you’re permanently confronted with the climate. But in this book, nada. There is a typhoon, though, so at least that is realistic.
Apart from the climate, Hong Kong is either super crowded or if you’re on the islands the total opposite. There is food everywhere and traffic and basically it’s like no other place you’ve ever been to, but you guessed it, in Countermind we can witness nothing of it. And the people… You know, while yes, we are all people, Asians do have their own culture and everything and there was, again, nothing.
One could argue that the book is set in the future and that I am not supposed to inflict my contemporary expectations on it, but, first of all, I think I still can, and on the other hand, I can’t even tell when the book is set because sense of place and time are utterly missing. And maybe it’s a parallel universe or whatever, but after having read more than half of the book it should be somehow clear. However, I guess the book plays in our future because halfway through the book one of the protagonists goes to North Korea and explains that it’s regime collapsed some time ago.
And now there are zombies there. Yes.
While this made me laugh (because seriously whaaaaaaa? I thought I was reading a book about psychics, but okay), the plot was already lost on me because of all the incredible coincidences, and I was constantly alternating between questions of what, why, and how… The whole story is totally hanebüchen, like we Germans would say.
There is an explanation given for the zombies, though. Heh. And maybe it all makes sense, as incredible as things might seem, but if you want to surprise your reader in the end with your brilliance, you still can’t lose them on the way there.
And I was definitely lost when Agent Smith hikes to Seattle to investigate Alan’s past and not only runs into another psychic, which he himself thinks is a chance of one in a million, and then when he needs to talk to a scientist about Alan’s past and he gets hooked up with Kim who is the very same person that Alan is trying to steal their identity from. The odds are like— I can’t even. It felt to me like the plot had to develop in a certain way and credibility was thrown to the winds in favour of it.
But not only had I trouble believing everything that was presented to me, there are pages (I mean that literally. Really.) long descriptions of technical researches and investigation procedures that totally bogged down the story. I was so bored and had to skip/skim a lot. Have a look, I brought you some fine examples of it ;-)
Then he turned to Senex. This involved an access request to a department within the Safety Ministry. The request, carrying the imprimatur of the Executive Director of Counterpsychic Affairs, was promptly approved, and Smith was directed to a secure website cluttered with a search bar, various text warnings, instructional links, advanced options, and a reminder that all use of Senex was subject to monitoring by the Safety Ministry. Smith entered a search for mentions of Quentin Izaki appearing adjacent to any mentions of a son or family. He restricted the search to a range of a few years and to North American regions.
This scene goes on and on (I said pages, right?), but I was so nice as to only copy the first paragraph for you. And here is another one, which you can always skip/skim, too ;-)
With a wireless keyboard in her lap, she logged in to PartyYǒu’s internal systems and reviewed the numbers: total hours played, average hours played per session, peak usage time, lowest usage time, total unique players, total new players, peak concurrent players, average concurrent players, total new user data, and average new data per user. Each of these statistics was presented raw as well as with seasonal adjustments, population controls, historical data, and trendlines. Everything looked positive, the gentle upward slopes encouraging confidence, and without the spikes that could indicate system stress or a sudden collapse in player activity.
I realise that this review has already gotten out of hand, but it was kinda cathartic to write this all down.
To wrap this up now, I would very much love to read a dystopian science fiction set in Asia with LGBTQIA characters. The book has tons of them, by the way, which is cool, but also felt a little unnatural the way it was written. Alas, this book is not it, and I absolutely cannot recommend this to anyone. Mel out. Mic drop or how you call it…
____________________________________
Genre: Science Fiction, Dystopia, Paranormal
Tags: Gay Character, Bisexual Character, Transgender Character, POC, Psychics/Telepaths, Government Control, Zombies, MMO, Asia
Rating: DNF @69%, 1 star
Blog: Review for Just Love
Disclosure: ARC for Review
March 10, 2017
3.5 Stars
This is a great premise, an interesting book in a sea of same-same, and the cover is glorious. Paul has reviewed this for the blog and I agree with his thoughts -
http://ontopdownunderbookreviews.com/...
My primary issue with this book is that it's somewhat disjointed in delivery, affecting the flow of arcs, thus the overall book. It's also a book where you have to concentrate otherwise you miss points. That's not normally an issue for me because I like to made to think but because I felt the arcs chopped and changed it made it fractionally frustrating.
There is quite a bit of world building, always a plus, and Countermind reminded me of Psi Corps from Babylon 5 - controlling powerful psychics and telepaths, there it was between space and Earth, here it's on Earth in another time - which I liked a great deal.
I'd be interested to read more by this author in the future because there's real potential in their writing, and the genre needs new voices and ideas.
This is a great premise, an interesting book in a sea of same-same, and the cover is glorious. Paul has reviewed this for the blog and I agree with his thoughts -
http://ontopdownunderbookreviews.com/...
My primary issue with this book is that it's somewhat disjointed in delivery, affecting the flow of arcs, thus the overall book. It's also a book where you have to concentrate otherwise you miss points. That's not normally an issue for me because I like to made to think but because I felt the arcs chopped and changed it made it fractionally frustrating.
There is quite a bit of world building, always a plus, and Countermind reminded me of Psi Corps from Babylon 5 - controlling powerful psychics and telepaths, there it was between space and Earth, here it's on Earth in another time - which I liked a great deal.
I'd be interested to read more by this author in the future because there's real potential in their writing, and the genre needs new voices and ideas.
May 1, 2019
There are maybe 5 books that I've read in the past few years that gripped me so much that I skipped work to finish reading them in 1 or 2 days. For me, Countermind joins a list that includes Ender's Game, 1984, and the Godfather.
I started reading this book on a five hour bus journey. The author is so skilled and drawing a picture that when I peered up from my seat, I was surprised not to be on a train instead, following the narrative. From the very first chapter this book is replete with creative insight about the simplest of circumstances. The author's words were a movie reel spinning in my head projecting onto my mind.
Suspense, romance, politics, philosophy and violence dished out in just the right portions and at the right times, the skilled wrapping of intense short stories into the main narrative, this book reads like one written by a seasoned novelist rather than the freshman publication of a new author.
This book is a timely discourse on advertising in a networked world, where our preferences are scanned so our behavior can be modified. What are these systems doing to us? How much do you actually control yourself? How "free" is your will? The author does a deep examination of the subject so well that you find yourself wondering if your neighbor is scanning your computer... I mean "mind", scanning your mind. Is this book itself a self-encrypted message with a cipher just strong enough to evade the government's still fledgling but increasing control of communications?
Apart from the titular subject matter, this book is a tidy exploration of what it is to be a child, to have a child, to grow, to think, to become conscious. Additionally, the amount of sound psychological and business advice for a web developer or video game company is astounding. I wondered at the author's qualifications and wasn't surprised to see, when I arrived at the end of the book that he is a Ph.D.
The narrative is interspersed with profound truths and amusingly dry humor. "The deluded craved nothing more than the opportunity to persuade others of their delusions," was one of the more striking sentences to catch me near the end of the book.
Many neat twists and turns that keep you surprised and wanting to know what's next; by the time I got to the last chapters I couldn't put it down. And I wasn't disappointed: the final sentences of this novel are catalogued in my mind along with "he loved big brother" and "she prayed for his soul".
I started reading this book on a five hour bus journey. The author is so skilled and drawing a picture that when I peered up from my seat, I was surprised not to be on a train instead, following the narrative. From the very first chapter this book is replete with creative insight about the simplest of circumstances. The author's words were a movie reel spinning in my head projecting onto my mind.
Suspense, romance, politics, philosophy and violence dished out in just the right portions and at the right times, the skilled wrapping of intense short stories into the main narrative, this book reads like one written by a seasoned novelist rather than the freshman publication of a new author.
This book is a timely discourse on advertising in a networked world, where our preferences are scanned so our behavior can be modified. What are these systems doing to us? How much do you actually control yourself? How "free" is your will? The author does a deep examination of the subject so well that you find yourself wondering if your neighbor is scanning your computer... I mean "mind", scanning your mind. Is this book itself a self-encrypted message with a cipher just strong enough to evade the government's still fledgling but increasing control of communications?
Apart from the titular subject matter, this book is a tidy exploration of what it is to be a child, to have a child, to grow, to think, to become conscious. Additionally, the amount of sound psychological and business advice for a web developer or video game company is astounding. I wondered at the author's qualifications and wasn't surprised to see, when I arrived at the end of the book that he is a Ph.D.
The narrative is interspersed with profound truths and amusingly dry humor. "The deluded craved nothing more than the opportunity to persuade others of their delusions," was one of the more striking sentences to catch me near the end of the book.
Many neat twists and turns that keep you surprised and wanting to know what's next; by the time I got to the last chapters I couldn't put it down. And I wasn't disappointed: the final sentences of this novel are catalogued in my mind along with "he loved big brother" and "she prayed for his soul".
March 10, 2017
CLICK HERE FOR PROPER BLOG REVIEW
In a futuristic world where more and more people are born everyday with powerful telepathic and psychic gifts. Governments around the world now perceive them as an enormous threat to humanity. Some have become extremely dangerous individuals. The abilities most have can allow them to take control of others then wipe their minds so they have no recollection of what they have done. Enslave them, cause mass panic and hallucinations with their thoughts, carry out espionage and corporate espionage, organise terrorist attacks, steal classified information, can completely incapacitate others, wipe minds, use mind control and kill with a thought. The scariest thing about this is that the psychic's are getting other people to do some of this work for them and they have no idea.
People are terrified of them, they were shunned by family and friends and turned to lives of crime to survive in this harsh new world. With a quick brush of someones mind they can collect anything they need to know to continue living. That was until the government made it illegal to be an unregistered psychic, it was illegal for them to use their powers at all. Most were involuntarily recruited, but most families were happy to hand their children over if they tested positive. The few that didn't work for the government were closely monitored. A new global watchdog was born and run by the new world government. If they couldn't stop them then who better to have them working for? The Government perchance? The Bureau of Counterpsychic Affairs known as Countermind, headed up the global agency and The Security Ministry was for State Affairs.
Their main objective? Capture fugitive psychic's, rogue agents or children that slipped past the testing system for reprogramming. Most are petty thieves just trying to get by but they are ruthlessly hunted. They instinctually know they'll be wiped if caught, where others like Jack are more than happy to work for them. The general public are constantly scanned on mass without their knowledge or permission, privacy no longer exists. Every child across the globe is subjected to rigorous testing every year, searching for powers. The government has assured the public that their system for testing has been deemed infallible.
The majority of the public and families with strong psychic bloodlines are monitored closely. The children that are taken in by the government for training are to become government operatives. The few who resist the ruthless training once they know of its moral ambiguity are brainwashed or wiped. They become a clean slate and are then turned into borderline sociopaths to be able to hunt down and taught how to use their skills to maximum advantage. It's to beat the empathy out of the few psychic's who can't let it go, they can become sympathisers to a cause and are considered liabilities.
The unregistered people both good and bad are constantly running for their lives. Countermind is powerful and has agents out looking for suspects constantly, once you hit their radar, its time to run like you stole something. I was baffled by the fact that a mundane human with no powers always had to be in charge of Countermind. To make sure that there were never any agents with secret agenda's. Maybe I missed something but who was supposed to protect the Commanding Officer against psychic attack?
Due to psychic's not being able to read people over the internet, it can be their greatest downfall. Since most psychic's have no great need for it they generally stay away from it . This highly advanced and technologically based culture has no idea that they too are having their every movement tracked. Massive main frames with hundreds of servers in place log everything. Every phone call, email and internet traffic is all being sucked in by the biggest watchdog of them all, Senex. There really is no where left to hide.
Set in South East Asia, Countermind Agent Jack Smith is their best agent by far. He is ruthless at tracking down suspected psychic's because he's so powerful himself, no one stands a chance against him. If you are bought to his attention it's only a matter of time until he catches you. It's not until he's given a tip off from Hong Kong's PD that a suspected psychic is involved in a series of theft's. A man that has never been caught by HKPD has gotten away with three robberies that they're aware of.
Jack has been patiently watching him for days, he hasn't given off a single iota of possessing psychic abilities. He knows all to well that this suspect is casing the place to rob it though. Jack sets up his own surveillance camera's in the shop to watch how this guy operates. Unlike any psychic, he watches him pick the locks to get in, then use bolt cutters to open the grate door. Then he's shocked to see him inside searching for the safes combination, which takes him over an hour.
Jack finally gets so annoyed that he's been sent on a wild goose chase, he goes in to take him out for the HKPD. He's wasted days on this guy and just as he's about to arrest him. Jacks life begins to change rapidly from that night forever. This elusive man evades Jack's clutches more than once that night. Jack is severely injured, taking him off the case and out of the job for four weeks to recover. The reason he can't leave it alone is due to the fact that this mystery man's powers only seem to work while he's under attack, and he is by far the most powerful psychic that Jack has ever faced.
He finally gets the reports from the HKPD and confirms that there was indeed psychic tampering at the scene of every theft. The problem is that not a single police officer can remember his face. The mystery thief had wiped his image from all of their minds. Executive Director of Countermind, Zheng thinks of Jack like his own son and gives him office work while he heals. Even though Jack is officially off the case he just can't let this go. Jack had begun working from his hospital bed trying to find anything he can about this mystery man who handed him his arse. It was quite a spectacular fight scene.
By the five week mark he is going out of his mind. He is the only person that can make up a decent composite of his face to run through facial recognition. He is at it for days until he caves and goes to see Director Zheng, begging for time to run his image through the most thorough data base in the world, Senex. He knows it will reflect badly on Zheng and Countermind, but Zheng agrees and Jack finally gets his first hit.
It's the spitting image of the guy, minus the facial tattoo, until he looks at the date and its over fifty years old. He is looking at one Quentin Izaki, no criminal record, American born Japanese. With two PhD's and so many different assorted degree's in everything from, engineering, computing, biological, biomedical and then come the multitude of publications and honours. He ended up retiring in the hills outside of Seattle until he was killed in an explosion. His home lab had blown up. No official mention of family but the American records were sloppy but he had his starting point, Izaki. That also launches Jack into high gear.
The novel follow's suit, rapidly moving through it's other sub-plots which I found a bit jarring at first. It's one of those books that you really need to pay attention too while reading it. This is a good read but it's also quite dark in places. The sub-plots are initially kept very seperate from each other at first, with new characters and different arc's. This is where you need to pay attention as they initially come across as their own seperate story, but they're not. I'm not going to even try to incorporate them into this review. It will make it too confusing because like I said, they're literally their own seperate stories that tie in together at the end.
I can see where the author was going with this and for a first novel its well written with strong characters but the switching of sub-plots could have transitioned a bit more smoothly. As each one begins there is little to no crossover until half way through the book, yet Jack is nearly in all of them. It eventually settles down as they fall into line. Each sub-plot holds a vital key to unlock the story at the end.
Jack requests to go to Seattle where he finds out from the locals that Quentin Izaki did have a son called Alan. A quiet surly kid who never spoke but just glared at everyone he encountered. Jack returns to Hong Kong like a rabid dog and begins tracking Alan relentlessly across Asia as he flee's. Alan's a pro, but so is Jack. He's unfortunately blinded by the rapidly growing list of offences piling up against Alan, who just want's to be left alone. Alan holds secrets that could bring the world to it's knees if the government got a hold of him. He finally has to tell Jack, while they pop up briefly on a zombie infested Island in North Korea?????
Alan has to weigh the risks of telling Jack his secrets because Jack finally gets his man. Alan's father made one mistake, and that was telling his neighbour in Seattle, whom Jack spoke with and also told him the exact same thing as Alan. If the government were ever to get their hands on his research, he'd rather blow it all up. So did his father blow himself and his lab to smithereens. It sure looked possible after Alan told him his story and his neighbour back in the US was possibly an informant. Jack's stubborn nature still made him drag a resigned Alan back to Hong Kong. Was it too late?
As Jack arrives home, more information is discovered about the true nature of Countermind. A shocking revelation is exposed but with it comes a solution. Will these handful of relative strangers who had all burnt each other badly. Not to mention their intense dislike of each other, be able to come together in time to stop a monumental breech of ethics within the Agency or is it too late?
February 28, 2017
4.5 Stars ~ I admit I’m not really sure where to even begin talking about this book. It’s so different than anything I’ve read recently, and I’m honestly not even able to articulate whether or not I liked it. It kind of ended up being bigger than like or dislike for me. So, in no particular order, let me tick off a few general thoughts I had while reading Countermind, then try to sum up a bit at the end. Apologies in advance for the weirdness of this review.
Great world building – Wow, is there ever a really detailed alt-world in this book. And Adrian Randall does not spoon feed you any exposition. There are so many tantalizing bits of information that get dropped that I would LOVE more details on.
This is not a romance. Do not go in looking for anything remotely like a romance. You should read it anyway.
The blurb accurately represents the book but makes the plot sound way more linear than it actually is. There are a lot of characters acting along many seemingly disparate and unrelated arcs. The overarching story is barreling toward a single resolution but not all the players are aware of each other, or as intentionally motivated about finding each other, or playing their parts as the blurb seems to indicate. Plus, the main characters are not as clearly defined as the blurb makes it seem; I would call this an ensemble piece if it were a movie.
Excellent, EXCELLENT use of the unreliable narrator.
You are going to hit a point in the book where it suddenly seems to slide into a whole other genre/niche. As in, “What the heck, I did not think this was THAT kind of story.” DO NOT RAGE QUIT. It all gets wound back into the main genre in a totally acceptable (and terrifyingly chilling) way. But man, did it throw me off for a bit.
I’m pretty sure this book made me smarter. I googled the heck out of words and scientific theories to better understand the story, and it was absolutely worth it.
Now, I totally understand if you read those six points and ask yourself whether you actually want to read Countermind. Let me just say, you absolutely 100% do. Part of the reason I can’t be more explicit in my review is that it would flat out ruin so many of the twists and turns the story takes, and those twists are both thrilling and critical to the impact of the book. So, sorry not sorry about the vagueness.
Just know that I’m pretty sure this is going to be one of those books that will stick with me a long time. It’s partly paranoia about how plausible some of this seems, particularly in regards to how much information there is available about a person on the internet. Though the science itself certainly seemed acceptably plausible to me as well. In addition, the book feels as if it is set in the much nearer future than other spec fic I’ve read. As in, I could see it being right now, or the next ten years. I’m also (thrillingly) not sure how resolved things actually are at the end.
So, the summary of this seemingly random and possibly unhelpful review? Compelling. I keep circling back to that word. Countermind made me think really hard about privacy, technology, morality, social responsibility, and a slew of other big ticket themes. Adrian Randall did a masterful job of keeping me guessing and on the edge of my seat. I wasn’t sure where the story was going until nearly the last page, and it’s been a while since I read something that I found so unpredictable. 4 Stars…5 stars? Heck, I’m not even sure how to rate it. 4.5 Stars! So all you lovers of spec fic, sci fi, and thrillers, this one is for you.
Reviewed by Cassie for The Novel Approach Reviews
Great world building – Wow, is there ever a really detailed alt-world in this book. And Adrian Randall does not spoon feed you any exposition. There are so many tantalizing bits of information that get dropped that I would LOVE more details on.
This is not a romance. Do not go in looking for anything remotely like a romance. You should read it anyway.
The blurb accurately represents the book but makes the plot sound way more linear than it actually is. There are a lot of characters acting along many seemingly disparate and unrelated arcs. The overarching story is barreling toward a single resolution but not all the players are aware of each other, or as intentionally motivated about finding each other, or playing their parts as the blurb seems to indicate. Plus, the main characters are not as clearly defined as the blurb makes it seem; I would call this an ensemble piece if it were a movie.
Excellent, EXCELLENT use of the unreliable narrator.
You are going to hit a point in the book where it suddenly seems to slide into a whole other genre/niche. As in, “What the heck, I did not think this was THAT kind of story.” DO NOT RAGE QUIT. It all gets wound back into the main genre in a totally acceptable (and terrifyingly chilling) way. But man, did it throw me off for a bit.
I’m pretty sure this book made me smarter. I googled the heck out of words and scientific theories to better understand the story, and it was absolutely worth it.
Now, I totally understand if you read those six points and ask yourself whether you actually want to read Countermind. Let me just say, you absolutely 100% do. Part of the reason I can’t be more explicit in my review is that it would flat out ruin so many of the twists and turns the story takes, and those twists are both thrilling and critical to the impact of the book. So, sorry not sorry about the vagueness.
Just know that I’m pretty sure this is going to be one of those books that will stick with me a long time. It’s partly paranoia about how plausible some of this seems, particularly in regards to how much information there is available about a person on the internet. Though the science itself certainly seemed acceptably plausible to me as well. In addition, the book feels as if it is set in the much nearer future than other spec fic I’ve read. As in, I could see it being right now, or the next ten years. I’m also (thrillingly) not sure how resolved things actually are at the end.
So, the summary of this seemingly random and possibly unhelpful review? Compelling. I keep circling back to that word. Countermind made me think really hard about privacy, technology, morality, social responsibility, and a slew of other big ticket themes. Adrian Randall did a masterful job of keeping me guessing and on the edge of my seat. I wasn’t sure where the story was going until nearly the last page, and it’s been a while since I read something that I found so unpredictable. 4 Stars…5 stars? Heck, I’m not even sure how to rate it. 4.5 Stars! So all you lovers of spec fic, sci fi, and thrillers, this one is for you.
Reviewed by Cassie for The Novel Approach Reviews
March 9, 2017
A Joyfully Jay review.
4.75 stars
Right off the bat, to cop a phrase from the author’s tumblr, this is a “paranormal cyberpunk thriller.” I can but concur. I found myself thinking wistfully back to those early days when I first saw Ghost in the Shell (you know, back when you had to have fellow fans subtitle bootleg VHS tapes for you and you traded them from your dorm room) and being enamored of the utter cool factor that glittering, beautiful, and dystopian future offered.
For me, the strongest element of this story is how well planned and executed the various threads are. And this is a story that has several clear and distinct threads: (1) the Jack Smith and Alan Izaki agent/fugitive thread, (2) the Jack Smith and Zheng agent/commander dynamic, (3) everything about Doctor Kim Kyun-Min, (4) Huang the programmer and Arissa the ex-agent and super psychic, both dissidents but from different aspects of the same authoritarian government, and (5) runaways Jettrin, Jei, and Sian.
At times, the story seems somewhat disjointed. For example, we open with the three runaways trying to sneak away on a boat bound for another country. We don’t see them again until the middle of the book and again at the end of the book. The Smith and Arissa characters, in their capacities as agents of Countermind, end up assuming alternate personalities. In Smith’s case, however, it wasn’t clear he was working under an assumed identity until the need for that identity passed…I wouldn’t say it was a “holy shit!” moment, but it did help me (A) identify Jack Smith as a sort of wunderkind agent and (B) manage an already large cast.
Read Camille’s review in its entirety here.
4.75 stars
Right off the bat, to cop a phrase from the author’s tumblr, this is a “paranormal cyberpunk thriller.” I can but concur. I found myself thinking wistfully back to those early days when I first saw Ghost in the Shell (you know, back when you had to have fellow fans subtitle bootleg VHS tapes for you and you traded them from your dorm room) and being enamored of the utter cool factor that glittering, beautiful, and dystopian future offered.
For me, the strongest element of this story is how well planned and executed the various threads are. And this is a story that has several clear and distinct threads: (1) the Jack Smith and Alan Izaki agent/fugitive thread, (2) the Jack Smith and Zheng agent/commander dynamic, (3) everything about Doctor Kim Kyun-Min, (4) Huang the programmer and Arissa the ex-agent and super psychic, both dissidents but from different aspects of the same authoritarian government, and (5) runaways Jettrin, Jei, and Sian.
At times, the story seems somewhat disjointed. For example, we open with the three runaways trying to sneak away on a boat bound for another country. We don’t see them again until the middle of the book and again at the end of the book. The Smith and Arissa characters, in their capacities as agents of Countermind, end up assuming alternate personalities. In Smith’s case, however, it wasn’t clear he was working under an assumed identity until the need for that identity passed…I wouldn’t say it was a “holy shit!” moment, but it did help me (A) identify Jack Smith as a sort of wunderkind agent and (B) manage an already large cast.
Read Camille’s review in its entirety here.
Read
March 17, 2017 Review can be read at It's About The Book
I thought I would love this book. I kept waiting for that moment that would hook me but it just never came. I pushed on because I almost never quit reading a book. I want to like everything I read no matter how unrealistic that might be. I go into it hoping it’s amazing. Countermind ticked so many of my boxes I was sure I’d at like it. I’m fascinated by anything Hong Kong. The shadier the better for me. Then there’s a little sci fi and tech elements. Special abilities are one of my favorite things to read about. Secret government agencies? Yes please! Guys from opposing sides coming together. YES! However none of that could hold my interest. I know. Surprised me too!
This book has multiple POVs. Some more engaging than others. The story is delivered in pieces from all those POVs. I’ll assume it was all building up to something. I kept waiting for a moment when things started to come together. AND I kept waiting and waiting. I put the book down and made myself pick it up for days. I told myself the next chapter something was going to happen. Then I just gave up. I hate doing that but there’s only so long a person can hang in there. I generally enjoy figuring out the mysteries with little nuggets dished out to me. That type of thing usually has me turning pages. The thing was I never got enough. I was jerked here and there with POV changes that never satisfied me. Never helped me settle into the story.
The other thing that keeps me going is some kind of connection to the characters. This book had intrigue but somehow I never actually cared about it. So bizarre for me. I’m totally nosy. Alan’s character was somewhat interesting. His paranoia was well written but his day to day life became monotonous. Which is silly considering he’s in constant danger. I had a hard time writing this review because I don’t know if at 72% something amazing happens that could have changed everything for me. Then I thought after reading over 100 pages if I still have no clue who these people are or what’s going on and don’t care either way why bother. If I sound a little bitter I am. I really wanted to love this.
I thought I would love this book. I kept waiting for that moment that would hook me but it just never came. I pushed on because I almost never quit reading a book. I want to like everything I read no matter how unrealistic that might be. I go into it hoping it’s amazing. Countermind ticked so many of my boxes I was sure I’d at like it. I’m fascinated by anything Hong Kong. The shadier the better for me. Then there’s a little sci fi and tech elements. Special abilities are one of my favorite things to read about. Secret government agencies? Yes please! Guys from opposing sides coming together. YES! However none of that could hold my interest. I know. Surprised me too!
This book has multiple POVs. Some more engaging than others. The story is delivered in pieces from all those POVs. I’ll assume it was all building up to something. I kept waiting for a moment when things started to come together. AND I kept waiting and waiting. I put the book down and made myself pick it up for days. I told myself the next chapter something was going to happen. Then I just gave up. I hate doing that but there’s only so long a person can hang in there. I generally enjoy figuring out the mysteries with little nuggets dished out to me. That type of thing usually has me turning pages. The thing was I never got enough. I was jerked here and there with POV changes that never satisfied me. Never helped me settle into the story.
The other thing that keeps me going is some kind of connection to the characters. This book had intrigue but somehow I never actually cared about it. So bizarre for me. I’m totally nosy. Alan’s character was somewhat interesting. His paranoia was well written but his day to day life became monotonous. Which is silly considering he’s in constant danger. I had a hard time writing this review because I don’t know if at 72% something amazing happens that could have changed everything for me. Then I thought after reading over 100 pages if I still have no clue who these people are or what’s going on and don’t care either way why bother. If I sound a little bitter I am. I really wanted to love this.
September 7, 2024
I marvel at the complex, world-changing plot, level of intrigue, and character development introduced and resolved in a single book. The description was so densely packed, it enriched the dystopian setting, intensified the science in the science fiction, and slowed down the action, but only a little. The plot still moved fast; introducing in powerful bursts the psychics being hunted, the forces of Countermind hunting them, and those caught between them; along with subplots involving zombies and a roleplaying game which weaved themselves with cohesive smoothness into the main storyline and introduced an additional layer to the world. It was hard to keep up with everything, but thrilling to do so. All the while, the intensity was peppered with a little humour in the character interaction which kept me guessing. Seldom do I get this much satisfaction in a single novel.
February 21, 2017
4 Hearts Reviewed by Shorty.
Review will be posted on 28th Feb. MM Good Book Reviews
Review will be posted on 28th Feb. MM Good Book Reviews
February 27, 2017
I am just going to be completely honest when I say that this book was totally not my cup of tea. I honestly did not enjoy this book and was only able to make it too 45 percent of the book before I finally just gave up.
I gave this book a three star rating in the respect that this book was something that I did not enjoy but that I do feel that other people may enjoy it more then I did.
My main reasoning behind not enjoying this book is because it is not an easy book to follow in my opinion. It is a very technical read which for the type of book it is, it is probably a good thing but I, myself felt like I was overwhelmed while trying to read it so I never was able to connect with any of the characters. I felt like I spent more time trying to figure out what exactly it is that was going on then I did enjoying what I was reading.
Even with getting to the 40% mark in the book, I am still not sure what it is that I read. So in my opinion that is not a good thing. I love supernatural books but I also love a book that I am able to connect with and also able to be engrossed in what is happening. This was just not the book in that respect for me.
With all that said, I do believe that there is people who will enjoy a read like this and will be fulfilled after reading it. I do not want to discourage anyone who loves this type of book by my rating because when it comes down to the nitty gritty, it is just a personal preference on why I could not give a better rating. So therefore, if this is the type of book you would normally enjoy, then I would recommend this book for you.
Was given this galley copy for free for an open and honest review
I gave this book a three star rating in the respect that this book was something that I did not enjoy but that I do feel that other people may enjoy it more then I did.
My main reasoning behind not enjoying this book is because it is not an easy book to follow in my opinion. It is a very technical read which for the type of book it is, it is probably a good thing but I, myself felt like I was overwhelmed while trying to read it so I never was able to connect with any of the characters. I felt like I spent more time trying to figure out what exactly it is that was going on then I did enjoying what I was reading.
Even with getting to the 40% mark in the book, I am still not sure what it is that I read. So in my opinion that is not a good thing. I love supernatural books but I also love a book that I am able to connect with and also able to be engrossed in what is happening. This was just not the book in that respect for me.
With all that said, I do believe that there is people who will enjoy a read like this and will be fulfilled after reading it. I do not want to discourage anyone who loves this type of book by my rating because when it comes down to the nitty gritty, it is just a personal preference on why I could not give a better rating. So therefore, if this is the type of book you would normally enjoy, then I would recommend this book for you.
Was given this galley copy for free for an open and honest review
March 6, 2017
A Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words.com Review
Rating: 4 stars out of 5 with notations
For the full review visit http://wp.me/p220KL-9N8
From that review: " If there was ever a book I could divide up and give different ratings to, it would be Countermind. Its taken me a while to decide how exactly to approach this review because I have such mixed emotions over this story. If I had my druthers, the ratings would look something like this:
Rating: 2.5 stars for 50 percent of the book
Rating: 5 stars for the remaining 50 percent of the book
And that changes as I remember different parts, both good and bad. Sometimes its 60/40 or 40/60. Or even 30/70. Really, this book confounds me..."
for all our reviews, author interviews, and all things bookish, visit us at http://scatteredthoughtsandroguewords...
Rating: 4 stars out of 5 with notations
For the full review visit http://wp.me/p220KL-9N8
From that review: " If there was ever a book I could divide up and give different ratings to, it would be Countermind. Its taken me a while to decide how exactly to approach this review because I have such mixed emotions over this story. If I had my druthers, the ratings would look something like this:
Rating: 2.5 stars for 50 percent of the book
Rating: 5 stars for the remaining 50 percent of the book
And that changes as I remember different parts, both good and bad. Sometimes its 60/40 or 40/60. Or even 30/70. Really, this book confounds me..."
for all our reviews, author interviews, and all things bookish, visit us at http://scatteredthoughtsandroguewords...
no-thank-you
April 26, 2018I'm not going forward reading this because of the wisdom in this review: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews