Synchronicity Trilogy Omnibus by Michael McCloskey
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Series: Synchronicity Trilogy, Omnibus (1-3) By Michael McCloskey
I wasn't certain how I would react to reading the same story three times. Thankfully it didn't feel so much like that. There was some overlap but since this written from West World block POV and East World block POV and then Alien POV it worked out quite well.
I think that internally the story stays true to the science presented and as has been pointed out there is a expectation of suspension of disbelief in some parts. But this is science fiction and most of that does expect some suspension of disbelief.
It was a bit difficult to find any single character or set of characters to empathize with or root for and I think that it falls back to part of what the story is all about. What each story has in common is that the people we meet are all living on the edge and in many cases dealing with things that leave them in danger most of the time.
There are the corporate espionage people and the UN police force and the Chinese special forces and then the aliens who seem to be game players who have lived on the virtual edge for so long they are having trouble dealing with reality and have only a marginal understanding of the dangers of living on the edge in reality.
Then there is the ultra intelligent AI's that they all deal with which are the most dangerous feature of their daily lives. They are also the best tools for the needs of each group so that that temptation will always be there even though they know that it could lead to something worse than skynet form Terminator.
The aliens represent a cybernetic human/machine hybrid and are far advanced in many ways and become the target of the greed of all these people.
There are a good share of ethical questions brought into the story with slavery and forced labor and the use of virtual worlds and mind control and then there's the aliens.
Although it could be argued that some of the situations seem too far out, the real point of the story is how each group of people are reacting to what is happening in this particular what if situation. The pace is good the writing might need a bit of polish; but overall it has to be pretty good, because I read all three straight through hanging on to see what happens next.
It has an interesting end.
Great SFF for those not too keen for the Simon Pure type and who like to do a bit of thinking about how they would react to these things.
I definitely would like to know what happens next in this strange universe.
J.L. Dobias
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