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My copy of this is an ARC that I picked up at a conference four years ago. Yes, it took me this long to finally read it. Because it's an ARC, I won't be quoting from it.

Phoenix and his team spend their work days fighting battle after battle. Each time they die, they're regenerated. That's because they aren't people - they're the NPC enemies that human gamers try to defeat. The only difference between one day and the next is what game they're in. When Dakota, a new member, is added to Phoenix's team, things gradually start to fall apart.

Dakota won't stop asking questions. She has what she thinks are memories of a life prior to being in the game. Doesn't that mean she, and all of them, are really human? Doesn't that mean there's a life she could get back to? Phoenix tries to ignore her and concentrate on being the biggest, baddest opponent gamers have ever fought against, but then things start happening that even he can't explain away.

I went into this thinking it'd work reasonably well for me. I like "stuck in a video game" stories, and this seemed somewhat in the same vein. Unfortunately, I disliked Phoenix, who I assume was written to primarily appeal to male gamers. His idea of a good life was battles, good weapons, and Mi, his only female teammate prior to Dakota's arrival, tucked under his arm when she wasn't pulling off an impressive number of headshots. Although Dakota annoyed him, he gave her living quarters closer to his because he thought she was hot...which was weird since he acknowledged that all women in his game world were hot.

I spent a good chunk of the book thinking Dakota would have made a better POV character, but I doubt that would have made me like this book any better. She annoyed me almost as much as she annoyed Phoenix. But at least she was less passive than Phoenix, who was aware that things were going on around him that he knew nothing about but who did nothing to learn more about those things.

For a book that contained cannibals and a Mad Max-style dystopian wasteland, this was surprisingly boring. The pacing was really bad, and none of the characters felt like actual people. Part of the latter could have been due to Phoenix's POV. Mi, for example, came across as his token girlfriend. Why were the two of them together? She seemed more inclined to question things than him, and there were hints that she had thoughts and emotions he hadn't even tried to find out about. And yet the two of them stayed together. The only explanation I could think of was that Phoenix was team leader, and as team leader he was required to have a girlfriend. Which was...depressing.

The book's ending was garbage, a last-ditch effort to mess with readers. The result was hugely unsatisfying. Phoenix's shock and horror didn't exactly do much for my opinion of his intelligence, either. The ending he'd been about to have was filled with great big gaping plot holes (not to mention a stunning display of selfishness and wastefulness, but that's a whole other issue). It shouldn't have required dragging him over and rubbing his nose in them for him to see them.

Extras:

I don't know if these made it into the final book, but the ARC came with a few illustrations and stats for Phoenix and his teammates.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

The most difficult things you can do is when you advertise online for your company, a website or anything else you want to be successful with. You need to advertise so you can earn new customers and get something in return. However, you need to figure out various methods and marketing niches to generate traffic and gather prospective consumers. However, with Noccster using his YouTube account, he is able to get subscriptions through the few videos he has uploaded to the website. From there, he aims to let users know how to play his selections of games that are seldom mentioned in other popular sites.

If you’re finding ways how to pay huge search engines like Google and Yahoo for advertisements, you will realize how expensive they can be for this purpose. For instance, if you had to advertise in a pay-per-click section of Google’s advertising, you will need to pay the search engine each time someone clicks your link and is directed to your website. As a result, you can picture those who are clicking intentionally and those who are accidentally doing it. You get to pay Google even for accidental clicks even if you don’t consider them potential customers for your business.

A great thing to earn customers or fans for your business is to organically market. You don’t need to spend so much on advertising. What organic marketing includes is article writing, content, blogs and videos. And this is what Noccster is doing for his potential audience.

Noccster has created a YouTube channel to add gaming videos which he thinks can help and entice people. Here, he finds countless users searching in YouTube for specific videos that can be catchy and interesting to get viewed. However, he needs to provide high quality video that is short but interesting for that user to completely watch the video. He has used his video channel to link to his website and have people redirected to it.

Many people like Noccster has reached their stardom through the help of their YouTube pages. The videos they post in this website make their business recognized immediately. At first, few sets of people will view the video. And you can hardly notice that it will start growing each day, especially if it’s created and done well.

Thanks to the publisher for offering me a free copy of this book, which I freely chose to review.

It is quite difficult to review this novel without revealing any spoilers, and the description does not help much (it is gripping although extremely discreet) but considering the genre, this is pretty understandable, and I’ll try my hardest not to spoil the fun.

I am not a big reader of spy novels but have watched a fair amount of spy movies,and although this is not a spy novel per se, it shares with them many of its characteristics. We have professionals working in an international team, taking up false identities, travelling all over the world to undertake dangerous missions, using weaponry and skills beyond those of most normal individuals. We have the goodies and the baddies (and they are very bad indeed, no question about it), we have secrets, risky situations, and a fair amount of violence. The novel also requires a great deal of suspension of disbelief but not more than is usual in the genre.

The story, as suggested by the title, takes place, in its majority, in Bucharest, and it involves a beautiful model, but also many other women who are at risk. The background of the operation and the individuals the two protagonists —Dan and Nicole, a married couple— are trying to get rid of are bad beyond discussion. We are not dealing with white-collar crimes or morally ambiguous matters. I don’t think any readers will find it difficult to root for the protagonists, who are also likeable and have an endearing, if somewhat idealised, relationship.

The novel manages to combine what might be some women’s fantasies (having plenty of power, running an international company that deals with and avenges those who do evil, helping make the world a better place, knowing how to use powerful weapons and possessing fighting skills, whilst at the same time having the perfect husband and children), with some men’s fantasies (having a gorgeous and younger wife, the perfect family life, retiring after having dedicated one’s life to creating a company that is fun to run [a company that designs computer games], becoming involved in fascinating adventures, and then being able to use his geek skills to save his kick-ass wife). It is a fast-paced adventure, exciting, and there’s not a moment’s boredom. Although we get a sense of what Bucharest is like, there are no lengthy descriptions to slow down the action, and we do not get lost in psychological studies of the characters either.

This is, first and foremost, a plot-driven book, and we do not get to know much about the characters or their motivations, although this is book one in the series and there are hints that we will get to discover some important secrets in future novels. The story is told in the third person but from the points of views of both of the main characters (and sometimes briefly from some of other characters, including one of the baddies), and, although as I said there is no deep analysis of the individuals, having access to their thoughts makes it easy to empathise with them. There is a degree of head-hopping (sometimes the narration quickly moves from the point of view of one of the characters to the other), but I did not find it confusing as it is quite evident who is thinking what. I am not sure the characters are always fully consistent, but they are confronting pretty challenging circumstances and that is not what the book is focused on. (I must confess to feeling quite intrigued by one of the bad characters, the female bodyguard. Not likeable but…) The writing is dynamic and fluid, and although there are some USA-based cultural references, they do not detract from the understanding of the story.

There is violence, some fairly explicit (although not extreme), and there is a scene that although very bloody, will be satisfying to most readers (just deserts come to mind, and I was close to cheering at that point) but the book is not a heavy read. Although it deals with serious matters, these are not the subject of far-reaching analysis but rather an evil that has to be fought.

In summary, this is a fun and quick read, full of action, with a degree of role reversal (strong and powerful females, and males who are side-kicks at best and distractions at worst, although they end up coming quite handy), in an interesting setting, with a very satisfying ending and a promise of more secrets to be revealed in future instalments. I could not help but think of many of the spy movies I’ve watched, and with the right cast, it could turn into a blockbuster. Recommended to lovers of action and spy thrillers looking for a fun, non-taxing read.