497 pages
English language
Published May 1, 2011 by Tor.
Visible in the night sky the Argus Station, its twin smelting plants like glowing eyes, looks down on nightmare Earth. From Argus, the Committee keep an oppressive control: citizens are watched by cams systems and political officers, it's a world inhabited by shepherds, reader guns, razor birds and the brutal Inspectorate with its white tiled cells and pain inducers. Soon the Committee will have the power to edit human minds, but not yet, twelve billion human being need to die before Earth can be stabilized, but by turning large portions of Earth into concentration camps this is achievable, especially when the Argus satellite laser network comes fully online.
Started out good, but went bad about halfway through. Not many places to go when the author turns the hero into a superman halfway through the book. The author also hammers the message that big government == bad too much.
Honestly, this is like a 1.5 star review. Characters feel millimeters thin and the government is so over the top evil while also being laughably incompetent, and the protagonist is an unstoppable superman with no room for self-doubt. His companion on his journey is a brilliant scientist who's primary role seems to marvel at him and serve as an external conscience. Many of their conversations seem to revolve around him explaining to her that her her concerns are irrational given the realities of the situation, which has a whole other connotation that I'm equally unhappy with.
On the whole, it's a simplistic plot driven novel with delusions of ethical introspection.
This series came so highly recommended to me that I started the second book as well to see if things get better, but I abandoned it within the first few chapters.
Fantastic book. There's no more to say, read it.
