Nick and Single White Medusa talk
Check out Nick’s book CTRL ALT Revolt!
5.0 out of 5 stars This series is what Ready Player One could have been..
Reviewed in the United States on October 31, 2019Verified PurchaseIn other words, actually great. Nick Cole pulls off an incredible synthesis of pop culture, Hollyweird (likely from personal experience), California (likely also from personal experience), big tech, action, satire (sometimes just a little bit too on the nose, but his targets are well deserving of some mockery, they've gotten off too easy in the past), gamer culture (more 1990s than 80s, but lots of retro goodies for those of us of a certain age), Star Trek, and the Terminator.
Speaking of those two, this is very much a full-blown Star Trek novel, in the same way that Galaxy Quest was a Star Trek movie - the best one), and a Terminator story (the best since Alex Ross had his crack at it years and years ago). My one quibble is the corporate rah-rah at the end which I think gives them a little too much credit, but it does set up the sequels very, very well with a bit of irony, whether that is intentional or not.
I was also struck that there's more than a little bit of Jerry Pournelle's CoDominion in there too, especially the early days stories captured in High Justice. Cole also seems to have three permanent features in any of his books that makes me wonder if there isn't a "Dark Tower" -esque metastructure at work: zombies, Terminators, and the apocalypse. Over and over again. I can't figure out if he's writing the world's greatest "fix" fanfic series of all time, or if something deeper at play.
Synthesized together like this, it attains a far greater depth and perspective, sans nihilism and fatalism, than RP1.
CTRL ALT Revolt the Podcast Ep.21