After preventing conservative MP Victor Palgrave from engineering a human mind-controlled teenage army, Joe Dyson and Ani Lee, operatives for a secret youth division of British Intelligence, have probably earned a rest. But there's no time to be lax with bizarre new developments popping up across the UK and the world.
While busting a group that's pressing teen runaways into slave labor building tech, Joe discovers a computer component not yet out on the market, linked to a very popular, but highly secretive gaming company based in California. Meanwhile, skilled hacker Ani works her way into a vigilante hacking ring intent on using viral social media to bring the truth to the world and bring world governments to their knees. They're method: rewriting reality, virtually, so that the world never knows the difference.
As Ani's and Joe's missions draw closer together, they realize that they have been corralled into a real-life video game--one where the levels are constantly being rewritten, and the stakes are constantly shifting.
What happens when AI evolves to the point where it has a mind of its own? When the computer threatens to turn on its master? Joe, Ani, and the world are about to find out.
Dotwav was an enjoyable sci-fi/teen spy novel in the same vein as Alex Rider. Dotmeme picks up shortly after the events of Dotwave, and sends Ani and Joe on important missions dealing with mysterious computer chips and a skilled hacker group. Plenty of pop culture and gaming references are great in this novel. The meme chapter titles/headers are a nice touch.
Taking place after the events of Dotwave, Ani and Joe are back at it again. This time each have their own case. Ani on the trail of a hacking organization called victorious. Joe on the trail of computer chips that explode when in the wrong hands. What do these two cases have in common?
I liked this book, but it was not as good as the first one (dotwav). I wish that there was more interactions with Joe and Ani, as the whole book seemed to be building up to them meeting, but they didn’t even really talk that much.
After reading dotwav, I couldn’t help but feel like I was craving for more. Which is where dotmeme came in. The concept is very scary, and the execution was quite vivid. It felt like watching a movie rather than just reading words on my phone screen. Definitely will be reading more of Lancaster’s work.