Official Review: Quentin Cundick and The Web of Machinati...
Posted: 08 Nov 2014, 14:54
[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Quentin Cundick and The Web of Machinations" by Alastair Pack.]
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All roads lead to Cardiff in Alastair Pack’s novel Quentin Cundick and The Web of Machinations, which is a sharp-witted exploration of apocalypse in the internet age. It is set in a United Kingdom gone haywire and while England is involved in civil unrest and a recurrence of the Black Plague, Scotland has erupted into anarchy and Wales has declared itself a sovereign nation and also declared war on England. No one seems to remember how it all went wrong, but in the midst of all the chaos a messiah approaches.
The plot follows the increasingly desperate exploits of Quentin Cundick, a bankrupt lawyer in a downward spiral who puts one in mind of Sherlock Holmes, if he were a bit of an idiot. When he loses his practice and his home on the same day, he begins his life of crime by stealing a library book. Before long, he accidentally robs a bank, intentionally steals a taxi, and uses small children as a human shield against an amorous badger. Deciding to turn himself in, he is unable to find a police officer who will take him seriously, so he impersonates one and arrests himself. He is rescued by a tramp who has been following him since he gave him some money and finds himself in the middle of a feud between two secret societies, the technophobic Luddites and the Binary Levers, a group of hackers certain that God is in the internet and is about to reveal himself to the world.
Written with the irreverent and biting tone of Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Pack’s strong point is his fascinating array of characters. The Welsh king Gruffydd the Second, an obese bully who doesn’t speak Welsh and seems to have become king largely by accident, desires only to abdicate his crown and live a quiet life with his young, purple-haired lover Ffion. His royal adviser, Ivor Munchkinhead, is the Welsh reincarnation of Jafar from Disney’s Aladdin, if Jafar were half his height and also unable to use magic. Larry, who works at his father’s butcher shop, believes his is destined to be a hacker, if only he had any computer skills to speak of. Anil, seemingly the chosen one, is a protégé of Tibetan monks on a mountaintop dojo who just really wants to win an Ebay auction. Conner the Wandstrel pretends to be an alcoholic homeless man in a dumpster, but is a secret Luddite with a bad case of Morgellans. When all of their paths meet is Cardiff, the results are explosive, deadly, and nearly bring about the end of the world.
Pack explores the premise that many of us take for granted in our daily lives, the pervasive nature of the internet. It is in nearly every home and we put vast amounts of ourselves online very day, not only personal data, but financial information and plans of national security as well. What if that information were not as secure as we thought? What if the internet, spread across the globe and into space through satellites, was self-aware enough to realize what it knew, and what it could do with that information? Even though the idea of an artificial intelligence attempting to take over the world is not a new concept, Pack approaches it in an engaging and compelling manner, exploring the dangers associated with things we all too often overlook.
I very much enjoyed this book and thought that it was both well written and polished. If I were to find any fault in it, it would be that the author uses an overabundance of adjectives, similes, and metaphors throughout, often to a distracting degree. It is clear from the writing, however, that this is an intentional choice and is even mockingly referenced throughout the book. I found the tongue-in-cheek style to be delightful and it put a smile on my face while reading, but I can imagine it would put some people off.
It also leans toward being too derivative in places. There are very few fresh ideas here, although the writing and strong characters more than make up for it in my opinion. Littered with tropes and plot lines from everything from The Last Airbender to iRobot, Pack weaves these disparate ideas together into something intriguing and worth reading, but not altogether new.
I am giving Quentin Cundick and The Web of Machinations four out of four stars. Despite some flaws, I loved reading this book and had a smile on my face from the first page. The characters come to life on the page and readers will be hooked until the very end, wondering where all of this is going. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of stories about vengeful artificial intelligences, unlikely heroes, and dubiously happy endings.
***
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The plot follows the increasingly desperate exploits of Quentin Cundick, a bankrupt lawyer in a downward spiral who puts one in mind of Sherlock Holmes, if he were a bit of an idiot. When he loses his practice and his home on the same day, he begins his life of crime by stealing a library book. Before long, he accidentally robs a bank, intentionally steals a taxi, and uses small children as a human shield against an amorous badger. Deciding to turn himself in, he is unable to find a police officer who will take him seriously, so he impersonates one and arrests himself. He is rescued by a tramp who has been following him since he gave him some money and finds himself in the middle of a feud between two secret societies, the technophobic Luddites and the Binary Levers, a group of hackers certain that God is in the internet and is about to reveal himself to the world.
Written with the irreverent and biting tone of Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Pack’s strong point is his fascinating array of characters. The Welsh king Gruffydd the Second, an obese bully who doesn’t speak Welsh and seems to have become king largely by accident, desires only to abdicate his crown and live a quiet life with his young, purple-haired lover Ffion. His royal adviser, Ivor Munchkinhead, is the Welsh reincarnation of Jafar from Disney’s Aladdin, if Jafar were half his height and also unable to use magic. Larry, who works at his father’s butcher shop, believes his is destined to be a hacker, if only he had any computer skills to speak of. Anil, seemingly the chosen one, is a protégé of Tibetan monks on a mountaintop dojo who just really wants to win an Ebay auction. Conner the Wandstrel pretends to be an alcoholic homeless man in a dumpster, but is a secret Luddite with a bad case of Morgellans. When all of their paths meet is Cardiff, the results are explosive, deadly, and nearly bring about the end of the world.
Pack explores the premise that many of us take for granted in our daily lives, the pervasive nature of the internet. It is in nearly every home and we put vast amounts of ourselves online very day, not only personal data, but financial information and plans of national security as well. What if that information were not as secure as we thought? What if the internet, spread across the globe and into space through satellites, was self-aware enough to realize what it knew, and what it could do with that information? Even though the idea of an artificial intelligence attempting to take over the world is not a new concept, Pack approaches it in an engaging and compelling manner, exploring the dangers associated with things we all too often overlook.
I very much enjoyed this book and thought that it was both well written and polished. If I were to find any fault in it, it would be that the author uses an overabundance of adjectives, similes, and metaphors throughout, often to a distracting degree. It is clear from the writing, however, that this is an intentional choice and is even mockingly referenced throughout the book. I found the tongue-in-cheek style to be delightful and it put a smile on my face while reading, but I can imagine it would put some people off.
It also leans toward being too derivative in places. There are very few fresh ideas here, although the writing and strong characters more than make up for it in my opinion. Littered with tropes and plot lines from everything from The Last Airbender to iRobot, Pack weaves these disparate ideas together into something intriguing and worth reading, but not altogether new.
I am giving Quentin Cundick and The Web of Machinations four out of four stars. Despite some flaws, I loved reading this book and had a smile on my face from the first page. The characters come to life on the page and readers will be hooked until the very end, wondering where all of this is going. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of stories about vengeful artificial intelligences, unlikely heroes, and dubiously happy endings.
***
Buy "Quentin Cundick and The Web of Machinations" on Amazon