Halting State

I found it surprisingly tough to finish this book. It wasn't the second-person perspective (which I didn't notice until reading other reviews), and it wasn't that the story lacked any interesting ideas, but somehow everything felt jumbled together in a way I couldn't get fully engaged with.

Surprisingly, the most interesting parts of the story had nothing to do with the overt “theme” of virtual/game worlds advertised by the cover text, celebrity testimonials etc. Hidden behind the seemingly pointless talk of LARPing and orcs is a story about a threat that is much closer (as in, it could happen tomorrow) than any augmented reality overlay or VR world. The exception to this was the SPOOKS game, which ironically wouldn't require any technology more advanced than a cell phone.

In general, I feel like this story would have been more compelling and easier to follow if it was present-day fiction rather than some vague near-future sci fi.