Do you like the idea of a conspiracy corporation theory in a SF world? Then you have to read Mindwalker. It’s been a bit of time since I read my last YA SF and Mindwalker completely transported me. Keep reading this book review for my full thoughts.
Summary
Eighteen-year-old Sil Sarrah is determined to die a legend. In the ten years she’s been rescuing imperilled field agents for the Syntex Corporation—by commandeering their minds from afar and leading them to safety—Sil hasn’t lost a single life. And she’s not about to start now.
She’s got twelve months left on the clock before the supercomputer grafted to her brain kills her, and she’s hell-bent on using that time to cement her legacy. Sil’s going to be the only Mindwalker to ever pitch a perfect game—even despite the debilitating glitches she’s experiencing. But when a critical mission goes south, Sil is forced to flee the very company she once called home.
Desperate to prove she’s no traitor, Sil infiltrates the Analog Army, an activist faction working to bring Syntex down. Her plan is to win back her employer’s trust by destroying the group from within. Instead, she and the Army’s reckless leader, Ryder, uncover a horrifying truth that threatens to undo all the good Sil’s ever done.
With her tech rapidly degrading and her new ally keeping dangerous secrets of his own, Sil must find a way to stop Syntex in order to save her friends, her reputation—and maybe even herself.
Review
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
TW: suicide
Every update I saw about Mindwalker I became even more excited. The premise, the cover, the blurbs – everything! And Dylan immediately plunges you into the action. From a SF world perspective, I loved the ways in which it begins with the ethics of technology in these teens. The ways their bodies are weaponized, treated as assets, necessary sacrifices with a countdown. Even days after finishing Mindwalker, I cannot get over how much I am in love with the premise. The ramifications of mind control and the ethics.
A world where our bodies are just technology and assets. What I loved even more is that Dylan fully explores the ways in which corporations and power functions. How they come into a system of poverty and desperation and know just what to say to exploit it for their benefit. To disguise control as protection. A world in which we cannot trust that we aren’t pawns. Even if we have a modicum of power, someone always has more. And where Mindwalker gets even better, is that Dylan forces Sil to question.
(Disclaimer: Some of the links below are affiliate links. For more information you can look at the Policy page. If you’re uncomfortable with that, know you can look up the book on any of the sites below to avoid the link)
To wonder what would happen if she was betrayed by the only thing we know. All to ask herself why that’s the only thing she knows and holds up. Throughout Mindwalker, Sil is driven by her heart, by her belief in the good she’s doing and what she’s been told. Her only model of family after she left her own. If you love those books about characters who might have to question everything, of worlds where technology is alluring and corruptible, and where we have to wonder if there’s a desire to not just survive, but to live, then you have to read Mindwalker.
Find Mindwalker on Goodreads, Amazon, Indiebound & The Book Depository.