Grid Seekers - Book Review

Grid Seekers (Grid Seekers #1)
by Logan Byrne

What is it about:
In a dystopian future, WorldNet, a semi-autonomous evolved form of the Internet, controls daily life. WorldNet allows people to plug themselves in, transporting their minds and sensory organs into what citizens call the grid while their physical bodies stay put. Inside WorldNet they can shop, bank, dine, travel, and do everything they can do in the real world, and although WorldNet itself is free, there’s a cost for doing business.

Any citizen aged sixteen to sixty who accesses WorldNet during the year is entered into a lottery. Twenty-four people, four from each of six megacities, are randomly chosen to compete in an annual televised competition in which they’re plugged in and forced to search for one of two hidden talismans. If they fail to find one of the talismans, or if they die in the process, they’re sentenced to three years of hard labor. But if they win, they’re granted one wish, any wish, that could completely change their lives—or the world.

What did I think of it:
24 people battling it out every year as a punishment for a rebellion a long time ago. Does that sound familiar?

Yup, this book is The Hunger Games all over again, including the participants getting trained before being send off to fight it out in a foresty (virtual) world.

But as The Hunger Games isn't original either and draws heavily from Battle Royale, I couldn't hold it against Grid Seekers.

This is an entertaining read. I had hoped that Byrne would use the fact that these games are set in a virtual environment to its full advantage, but alas. Apart from some minor thing the whole virtual part of the games could have been left out. I also didn't get Alexia. You get entered into the lottery if you used WorldNet in the previous year. Now maybe I missed something and Alexia did use it earlier that year, but it read like she decided to use WorldNet the day of the lottery and could have escaped being entered that year if she would have waited just one more day.

These things aside it's a fun, uncomplicated read. The ending feels a bit easy, but maybe that will be remedied in the next book.

Why should you read it:
It's a nice Dystopian read.


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