Friday, March 8, 2019

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Implanted by Lauren C Teffeau




Implanted is a Cyberpunk thriller by Lauren C. Teffeau.  I don't read a lot of cyberpunk (although that's changed a little the last month or so), so I would definitely not call myself an expert on this subgenre.  But in general, I've enjoyed what I've read, with its ability to pose interesting ideas through its mechanics while still serving as a solid framework for thrillers and other scifi literature.  So when Implanted popped up on a recommended list somewhere I saw online, I bookmarked it for later purview - and it was available as a Hoopla audiobook, so I snatched it up this past month.

And I enjoyed Implanted quite a bit.  It's definitely a lot of fun, with a bunch of ideas being used to make a really quick paced thriller, a very solid main character and a plot that twists in ways that kept me guessing throughout.  On the other hand, it never really takes the leap from "fun" to truly "great," with the plot having a few issues along the way, and an ending that is just a bit too tidy.  Still, if you want a fun thriller, you could do a lot worse than Implanted. 

Note: I read this as an audiobook, and the audiobook reader is quite good.  So if you're looking for a book in that format, this is definitely a solid choice.  However, as a result, I'm very likely to screw up the spelling of names, so forgive me if you notice me messing up in that area.  
---------------------------------------------Plot Summary-------------------------------------------------
In the future, environmental disaster has forced humanity to live inside Domed Cities with controlled environments, until work and science could be done to reclaim the land outside for the future.  In the domed city of New Worth, the citizens dream about "Emergence" - the day they return to the outside world - but in the meantime most people get by using their implants - neurally implanted devices that citizens to access to the city's network in their heads, to perform other computing/cyborg-like functions, and to communicate with each other, both verbally and through the transmitting of emotions and feelings.  Still, even implants can't make the city a perfect place to live - with the lower levels of the dome, like the Terrestrial District, being much more poverty-stricken and dangerous, and some people being unable to afford or use the Implants to begin with, causing great resentment beneath the surface.

Emery Driscoll is a college student in New Worth who grew up in the Terrestrial District, who wishes she could lift her parents out of the District so she'd never have to go back.  But due to a tragedy from her past, she's taken it among herself to take vengeance upon some of the seedier elements of New Worth's criminals in the Terrestrial District, using her skills obtained in the VR arcades to her advantage.  But when a secret organization finds out about Emery's activities and uses it to blackmail her, Emery is forced to give up her identity, her friends, and family, and to become a courier: an agent trained to travel surreptitiously through the City with valuable data encoded directly into her blood, with failure carrying's potentially deadly consequences.

Yet when a mission for the Government goes badly wrong, Emery finds herself on the run caught between multiple factions seeking Emery out for their own agendas....and with her employer potentially compromised and her old friends and family thinking her dead, Emery finds herself with no clear options, and the fate of the whole city lying encoded in her blood.....
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Implanted is told from Emery's first person point of view, which works because she's a rather interesting heroine for a thriller.  She's pretty damn capable and quick thinking at times, but is far from infallible and there's no particular skill that she's clearly the "best" at, unlike similar heroines in other thrillers.  At the same time, she's incredibly insecure about herself, her abilities, her relationships, and her feelings - an insecurity which is magnified in this world in which people can be connected mentally and emotionally, and where being cut off from those connections is thus literal, not just metaphorical - when Emery's forced to abandon her friends, she's not just losing the ability to contact them, she's losing literal presences in her head.  It's a really interesting concept that the book takes to interesting places with Emery (and the other characters).

At the same time, Emery finds the work as a courier, a work she was blackmailed into doing, kind of exciting and interesting, and feels kind of guilty about it when she thinks about it (or is confronted about it).  It's almost a Stockholm Syndrome like effect - aided by the fact that her arcade game playing habits made her invested in this type of risk taking from the beginning, and it adds to the rest of her personality to make her decisions and actions even more interesting to read.  It's a whole package that makes her a rather enjoyable lead character for a thriller, which is good because she's the one we're riding with from beginning to end.

The rest of the cast isn't nearly as developed alas, but they're generally interesting, and the world itself is really well done.  The amount of concepts we have here - class inequality, environmental restoration, emotional/personal connections through implants and the devastation of those being removed, the discrimination of people without same - is quite a lot but the book never feels like its skimping too much on any of these issues, unlike some other thrillers I've read.  At one point I wondered if the book had forgotten something it had raised a while earlier, but the book picked it up shortly thereafter and managed to meld everything together in a way that's genuinely well done.

Still, I had three issues with Implanted, none of which were major, but all bugged me to some degree.  First, while the book's ending is kind of satisfying, it attempts to really tidy everything up with a neat bow and it doesn't really work and feels like there's stuff missing - we go from a "the main threat is resolved, but our protagonists are in danger/trouble from the acts they took to get there" situation to "actually everything's good!' in 5 seconds.  It felt very much like the author wanted to ensure there was a happy ending and couldn't quite figure out how to make it work, and just shoved it in there anyhow, which was a little jarring.

Secondly, the book, through Emery's narration, has a habit of infodumping quite a bit, even at times where the info is pretty obvious to the reader from before.  Emery's voice is strong enough that this still works and I never felt it bogged down the pacing, but it becomes noticeable due to how often the book relies upon it.  Finally, and this may sound silly - but it really did bug me! - the book introduces a cyberpunk concept that is basically treated like a replacement for sex - "Calibration", where two people fit their neural receptors in their hands together so their physical sensations (in addition to their mental ones) become attuned to each other.  Which is fine, cool, this works in this world where connections are everything....except it certainly seems like Sex should still exist itself in this world, and even in cases where you'd think it'd be brought up, the book kind of treats calibration as if it replaced sex entirely (one character makes a sex joke in the epilogue, but that's it), which not only makes no sense but just seems incredibly silly in some of these contexts.  It's not a major complaint I know, but it was something that sort of affected my Suspension of Disbelief in a book with a major romance subplot!

Long story short, I enjoyed Implanted and kind of blazed through it as an audiobook, so I'd definitely recommend it to anyone seeking a scifi thriller.  It's not exactly anywhere near a must-read, but it's a lot of fun, and that's plenty enough for me.
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