BZRK - Michael Grant

I received a free pre-read copy of the Dutch translation of this book via www.ezzulia.nl. Thank you!

 

It took me so long to figure out BZRK is supposed to mean Berserk. (I saw that it is already stated in the English blurb; but in the Dutch one it wasn't). I just read it as letters and not as a word. I felt very stupid afterwards...

 

A war is going on, the only problem is, it's so small you can't see it. The two sides are using different types of nano-robots to control synaptic junctions in people's brain and thus control their actions (or so they explain it in this book; it's a fictional SF work, so I won't digress on the biological possibility and everything). And not just any person's brain, no, think politicians, UN members etc. Besides, they also fight on this nano level for control over certain people. This is extra tricky because some of the robots are linked to the actual people who control them and losing that robot will mean the controller goes Berserk...

 

This is a very action-packed, fast paced book. In other ways though, i was less similar to Michael Grant's popular Gone series. We still get many POVs (on both sides of the war) and a lot of plot lines are going on on the same time, but it didn't really feel as good though. Sometimes it felt a bit hasted, unrealistic and the ending was very chaotic. It's the start of a new series, and this book really ends on a cliffhanger (there is a short epilogue to make it possible to just read this book, but really, it doesn't answer the questions I had). So, basically, you'll have to continue the series. I haven't done so yet, but I'm planning on at least reading the second book, and see just how the story is going to develop.

 

Nice touch from my real life. I went to the University campus just a day or so after finishing this book and they had just placed new posters revealing that the new building they're building is going to be 'one of the world's leading state of the art centres in nano technology' xD Looking forward to it already.

 

Note: I read a Dutch translation of this book