Ben Elton

This book is for all means and purposes satire of modern society, world where people are more interested in differences than in common points, where everyone is always right and trolls and social-justice-warriors roam the network and spread their gospels on whatever is current at the moment. Main slogan is not to let facts influence ones discussions and statements.

It is world where something needs to happen, all the time, there is no breathing space when good portion of population is glued to their phones and depends on it for tracking what happens around them.

Unfortunately all of the above is more or less how things work in real world - of course story is exaggerated for the dramatic purposes but not by much.

Through detective Matlock author gives picture of cultural clash between old and new generations. Almost everything said and done by "old-ones" is very sure to draw ire from the ultra-politically-correct new generation or rejected because it is old and no more "in" (newspapers eh, who reads them today, right, right!?!?). Which would not be bad if these "correctors" are not so easily fired up by random news to almost extreme levels. It seems like everything is put under microscope and given no option to explain - you are either right or not. And if you are not ..... oh boy.

Author presents all of the above as comedy but so many things are so close to home and echo in reality that it is not funny.

Only thing I did not like is use of Russians as archenemies - this ended up being so cheap it is unbelievable. I don't know why author decided to go this way since he could even taken route of mystery antagonists (it is all in cyberspace right?) but I guess he had to be hip and use them as main puppeteers because it is ... in - right? I guess no country has their own greedy, power hungry and unscrupulous businessmen/criminals and public is always so well informed and naive (including the government) that only external enemy can disturb them? I can only say give me the break. Blaming others for faults in ones society is very disturbing thing to do.

In summary interesting book that shows how society, in times when almost whole human knowledge is at the very tip of the hand, decides to be tricked and led by demagogues and [how is now popular to say] story-spinners (before they used to say these people twisted the truth but I guess that would mean they were liars which is not so politically correct - right?). And demagogues and story-spinners will always find the way out and keep people occupied with things that will keep their pressure up and thinking on hold.

Only thing that could be done better is actual plot that runs in the background. Main antagonist is just ... poor choice.
… (mais)