The Peace War

Cool ideas, but the execution of this story was not good. If you like books that are really just showcases for imagined technology, and don't mind if the characters function as little more than spokesmodels for said technology, then this would be an okay book. If you don't mind if female characters are in a super-minority, and mostly function as vehicles for the further exploration of male ego, then this is an okay book. But if you do expect some depth to the characters or consistent pacing of plot or attention to the (non-technological) workd-building, this book is not a great read. The characters were flat; if they were given a few traits or a back story, these often seemed to have little connection to their actions. The pacing is strange; some scenes that don't really seem that important get a lot of detail, while other sectiosn of the plot jump ahead in a way that's a little disorienting. And for all the detail given to the technology, the world itself made no sense. For instance, one conceit is that the Authority controlling the world has basically banned most useful technology in the name of maintaining peace... but then it seems inexplicably legal for people to basically turn themselves into super-intelligent semi-cyborgs, which seems, perhaps, not ideal when you're trying to control the populace. They also seem completely fine with gangs of "slavers" violently kidnapping children into slavery. (It's also kind of unclear what happens if you are taken into slavery, even though the main character is presented as an escaped slave.) And maybe I stopped reading closely at some point, but it's not totally clear by what mechanisms the Authority monitors or enforces any of its rules. Etc. I'm sure apologists could argue why some of these things make sense, but I'm just not willing to do that work.