3 out of 4 stars
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Published in 2015, Alex Fayman’s first book of the Superhighway trilogy definitely targets a 21st century reader interested in high-speed communication, travel and technology. At a first glance, the novel is written for a young adult audience since the narrator and protagonist of the events is 18-year-old Alexander Fine who grows up in a rundown orphanage in downtown Los Angeles until the moment he accidentally discovers not only his power to travel through network cables to any destination in the world where a computer is available, but also to access any electronic archives, to download huge databases and manipulate classified information of famous banks or government agencies. On a closer reading, some may argue that the presence of a few graphic descriptions of violent or sexual scenes does not make it appropriate for a younger audience although such descriptions are reduced to a minimum and they are ultimately used as a warning against the types of dangers and mistakes teenagers living in contemporary society are likely to face and make.
Seemingly inspired by comic books where protagonists are either superheroes or supervillains, Alex Fayman does his best to imagine a main character who gradually acquires credible and tridimensional characteristics. From the very beginning the novel borders on science-fiction starting with the image of Alex travelling at the speed of light through the darkness of a vast fiber optic web to his castle-like property on Galicia, his own private Caribbean island. The author skillfully uses the first three chapters of the novel to offer the readers the necessary background on Alex’s hard start-up in life, his two failed attempts to live with foster parents and his attachment to Ms. Jenkins, the orphanage’s administrator. At this point, I particularly enjoyed the author’s art of storytelling with Alex’s confession of the physical abuse he suffered in one of his foster families and his life in the orphanage reminding me of Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist, one of the most memorable orphan figures in English literature.
Unlike his 19th century counterpart, Alex Fine does not find life in the orphanage intolerable due to Ms. Jenkins’s care and protection; he proves to be very smart and from an early age he shows his interest in math and his passion for reading. He understands that education is his surest ticket to freedom, yet everything changes when he turns 18 and is only a couple of months away from moving to a Stanford college dormitory. The moment the orphanage gets a small computer lab Alex becomes aware of his capacity to travel through the complex web maze and plunges into a series of adventures leading him to a variety of locations from a luxurious resort in Hawaii to Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam or Switzerland’s largest commercial bank in Zurich. Alex’s superpowers and the way they make him feel and change his personality make me draw another parallel between the Superhighway trilogy and Andy Brigg’s series HERO.COM and VILLAIN.NET similarly featuring young protagonists who stumble on a website that turns them into superheroes and makes them battle supervillains.
One of the greatest achievements of the novel is the author’s talent to make Alex raise beyond a mere schematic figure of the Robin Hood type. Apart from acting the superhero stealing from the bad guys and giving to the poor, Alex also displays a complexity of emotions and feelings typical of any ordinary teenager who can identify himself with the protagonist. Conscious of his God-like skills, he plans to use them against people like Henry Langhout, the alleged head of a Dutch crime syndicate, yet on his way to maturity he will realize that every action has its consequences so he will soon pay a heavy price for his otherwise good intentions. From my perspective, Alex’s sometimes moral ambiguity makes his character more veridical: he experiences the hustle and bustle of Amsterdam night life drinking his first vodka cranberry, smoking marihuana and having his first sexual experience; he cheats on his girlfriend and either rents or buys very expensive cars and properties for his own personal benefit. At the same time, he often feels guilt and remorse and sets up a foundation to identify charity and other worthy targets for funding. All in all, the storyline is intense keeping the readers connected to Alex’s romantic and adventurous life up to the climactic moment when he learns the truth about his parents and the source of his incredible powers. Even the novel’s cliffhanger falls in line with the plot as a whole paving the way for a sequel where the author is expected to follow the adventures of a more mature protagonist and thus readjust his style and perhaps change his target readership.
With the exception of a few minor mistakes such as missing prepositions or auxiliary verbs, the editing is very good and contributes to my overall good impression of the book. I choose to rate this book 3 out of 4 stars mainly because of the recurrence of a number of stereotypical patterns in either plot or character development.
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Superhighway
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