You are being played.
Your every move is being watched by businesses hoping to manipulate your behaviour. Every picture, every post, every like, every follow, every purchase, every search.
When 17-year-old Riya Sudame inherits her father’s secret AI algorithm, she and a handful of carefully selected Keyholders hold the power to predict people’s futures using their online data. But with great power comes great responsibility, and they must safeguard it from falling into the wrong hands.
Enter Jim Booker, a powerful social media tycoon, who will stop at nothing to steal the technology for himself. Soon Riya faces a critical choice. Fighting ruthless tech giants seems like an impossible task—wouldn’t it be easier to relinquish her father’s creation in exchange for a normal teenage life?
But if she does, she will have to live with the knowledge that she is the reason that, like everyone, you are being played.
Neil Taylor marks his debut in this dark, twisty AI thriller.
What did I think?
WOW! What a cracking debut novel. Anticipation by Neil Taylor is easily one of the best debut novels I have read this year. It hooked me from the start and I read way past my bedtime which, as every reader knows, is a sign of a good book. "Good" doesn't really cover it in Anticipation's case; it's outstanding, exceptional and magnificent all rolled into one.
With a teenage protagonist, Anticipation fits in the YA genre but it is a hugely enjoyable novel for adults too. It has quite a shocking start which sees the reader introduced to 17-year-old Riya who has become a target for the people who are desperate to get their hands on an algorithm that can predict the future.
The future prediction is a fascinating element of the plot and you can just imagine how valuable (and dangerous) something like this would be. It also poses a huge moral dilemma as it could be completely devastating if it fell into the wrong hands.
Social media advertising is also put under the microscope and it really made me think about how we are manipulated by adverts that just happen to be about something we have looked at or even discussed lately. If people are vulnerable, they could quite easily be gently pushed in a particular direction that may not be beneficial to their health but would certainly be lucrative to the advertisers.
With a razor-sharp plot and blisteringly fast pacing, Anticipation is an edge-of-your-seat rollercoaster of a book that I simply couldn't put down. I am delighted to see that it is the first book in the Anticipation series and I can't wait to read more.
I received an ARC to read and review for the blog tour and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.
My rating:
Buy it from:
About the author:
Neil Taylor is a software industry professional whose career has spanned Europe, Japan, and the USA. Now based in Durham, England, Neil works remotely for a leading cloud-based software and services company. With more than two decades of software experience, Neil possesses a deep understanding of how company motivations influence customers and users. Fascinated by the convergence of big data and behavioural science in the tech industry, Neil's debut YA book, "Anticipation," delves into the perilous implications of unchecked social media and AI development.
Follow the tour:
No comments:
Post a Comment