Review 6-11-16

Infomocracy 

By: Malka Older 

First of all I would like to thank Tor Publishing company and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book to review on the blog! I was hesitant to pick this book up in the beginning and unfortunately I was rightfully hesitant to choose it. 

Tag Line: Government has fractured and information rules, which faction will win the fight to rule as the Supermajority.

Plot: 

"It's been twenty years and two election cycles since Information, a powerful search engine monopoly, pioneered the switch from warring nation-states to global micro-democracy. The corporate coalition party Heritage has won the last two elections. With another election on the horizon, the Supermajority is in tight contention, and everything's on the line.

With power comes corruption. For Ken, this is his chance to do right by the idealistic Policy1st party and get a steady job in the big leagues. For Domaine, the election represents another staging ground in his ongoing struggle against the pax democratica. For Mishima, a dangerous Information operative, the whole situation is a puzzle: how do you keep the wheels running on the biggest political experiment of all time, when so many have so much to gain?" (Goodreads.com)

General Thoughts: 

• We can all agree with this book that the cover is amazing!
• This book had some issues with pacing. 
• As you began there was a ton of poorly crafted set up and frankly a lot of information dumping (pun intended) 
• The second half of the book worked better for me as far as pacing is concerned.
• Along with the pacing being off, this book has many many names of differing governments that do take some time to get used to and comprehend what each and everyone stands for in the end. However it is not impossible to do, it just takes time.
• The plot of the book is seemingly aimless for a good portion of the novel, however when you hit halfway Malka decides a direction and runs with it. 
• This direction she takes the book in is very fast paced and thrilling, keeping you an the edge of your seat the whole way through. 
• Overall I really did enjoy the plot of the book and would like to see another one be released in the same world, as the novel leaves you thinking.

Characters: 

• The characters honestly are not the greatest I have ever read, and are not the lynch pin of the story.
• The fact that the characters are not the center of the story made their rather flat personalities bearable in the end. 
• I would have liked to see some greater development on the part of the characters that are being given such a great role in the story, including Ken and Mishima. 
• There is some romance that arises in this novel, however I liked that the author did not play on this fact to much. The romance is seen more as a complicated relationship with some saucy times.
• This is something that I would recommend that you read for the plot and not as much to see the development and story arc of characters.

Overarching Themes:

• Control
• Too much government 
• The issues of bureaucracy and changing powers within states

This book I found to be very complex and evocative to read with the US governments elections in the fall. I personally would like to see something like this world and its multitude of choice for governmental systems, rather than the two parties that we have like Democratic and Republican parties. Honestly this is a fun read and worth the flick through to evoke great amounts of thought and questions surrounding government systems. 

Happy Reading!

Check in later this week for a review of NineFox Gambit!