"A twisting Australian dystopian technothriller."
A motley team consisting of a former spy, Bio-robotics engineers, SAS soldiers and biorobotic animals work together to find an antidote to technology that the People’s Global Republic have turned into a mind control weapon. But will they be able to find answers and will their actions cause any ripples of change.
I found the technology aspects of The Watchers really interesting. It was an innovative concept that the oppressive PGR took technology designed initially to help people and turned it into a means of mind control and suppression. This helped to create an authentic feeling dystopia, that the narrative and the character choices flowed from naturally. The writing style wasn’t my favourite, I did feel at times that there were moments of repetition in the descriptions as the character perspective shifted which were unnecessary (one character mentioning that Ame had her Katana camouflaged at the hospital, then it going to Ame’s perspective and being told the same thing again). I did also feel like I was being told, not shown in a few instances that made the story a bit less immersive. I loved that the author shared Aboriginal and Japanese cultures in the story. This helped to round out the characters while also subtly highlighting the characters' separation from the PGR with their connection to their own history and beliefs that are presumably being erased under the new regime.
While not necessarily a book for arachnophobes (although for a thriller set in Australia, I personally thought giant deadly spider-bots characters was an apt choice) this is an interesting dystopian thriller with lots of character focus.
| Primary Genre | Dystopian and utopian fiction |
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