3 out of 4 stars
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World Incorporated by Tom Gariffo gives readers a glimpse of the future, and for all its shimmer and shine, it's not pretty. In fact, it's downright terrifying to think that the world we live in today could one day become Tom Gariffo's modern dystopia. All it would take is a few more technological advancements, and the right push.
In World Incorporated, Agent Sliver is an unregistered asset working for World, Inc., one of the five supercorporations that control the world. His job is quite simple. When someone becomes a threat to the corporation's dominance, Agent Sliver is dispatched to eliminate the threat. Sometimes, all it takes is a forceful conversation, while other times the target requires a more permanent solution. He is the product of a specialized training program, and as such feels no remorse for his actions. He doesn't feel anything at all. Nothing that is, until he meets Kelly during one of his missions. What happens when a man like Agent Sliver suddenly remembers what it is like to feel? And what would happen if World Inc. ever found out?
The thing I loved most about this book was the future technology. With a few exceptions, it is easy to imagine today's technology evolving over the next 40 years to become exactly what Tom Gariffo describes. For example, there are already debates raging over the use of consumer data collection tools and facial recognition technology. World Inc. uses both, albeit more advanced versions of them, to keep the people in line.
I was also a huge fan of the character development in this book. The author does a fantastic job showing subtle, but meaningful changes, to Agent Sliver’s personality throughout the story. The same can be said of almost every character that Agent Sliver surrounds himself with. It was so refreshing to read a book where none of the characters came across as one-dimensional.
There were a few chapters that were a bit slow for my taste, but that is more so due to my preferences, and not due to any fault on the author’s part. Also, this only occurs in two of the chapters, so it did not lessen my overall enjoyment of the book. Still, I feel it’s worth mentioning, since it may matter to some readers.
There was only one real problem I had with World Incorporated. There were a lot of grammar errors. To be more specific, there were a lot of the same error made when writing dialogue; either there was no comma preceding the dialogue tag, or the incorrect punctuation was used at the end of the dialogue. This was very distracting at times.
Overall, I rate World Incorporated 3 out of 4 stars. The plot and the characters were fantastic, and I desperately wanted to give this book a 4-star rating, but I had to remove one star due to the grammatical issues. They caused too much of a distraction for me. With another round of editing, it would probably be perfect. I firmly believe that any lover of the science fiction genre will enjoy it.
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World, Incorporated
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