Grade C-
Void Star, Zachary Mason’s apocalyptic techno thriller, is like a mind-meld of Philip K Dick and David Mitchell, telling the story of three people whose paths eventually cross as they battle to retain memory under the oppression of AI. Or, I think it is, anyway. Incredibly dense, rambling, and challenging, Void Star was as equally frustrating as it was thought-provoking. Mason is clearly an extremely talented writer, capable of towering world building such as the favelas that have come to engulf the future Bay Area and mind-bending technical prowess such as the inner-workings of AI server farms, but this book was overly long for me and I could sense early on that the payoff wasn’t going to pay off the way I wanted it to. Certainly an achievement and dystopian sci-fi heads will probably love it, but I just didn’t connect to the characters or the exhausting interweaving of their respective narratives.
Void Star: A Novel
The Bibliofool 