God Is A Gamer/ Book Review

God Is A Gamer 

Is revenge a crime?

 

Author: Ravi Subramanian

Published by: Penguin Publishers

Edition Language: English

ISBN: 978-0-143-42139-9

Pages: 309

God is a gamer, said to be the first bitcoin thriller, didn’t disappoint me. The story is fast paced, and exciting and it deals with virtual currency a.k.a bitcoins.

The story started with two corporate heads of Visa and MasterCard having a frenzied discussion about shunting the Russian method and was helped by Senator Gillian Tan of US. So when WikiLeaks leaked the top secrets of America and created a hailstorm, Visa and MasterCard took turns to protect the US, along with PayPal. There were too many big corporate industries at the beginning that it weigh down the pace of the story, a bit.

First chapter felt too heavy to read, with these big corporate industries and everything (I often wondered about copyright problems as I read along. Visa n MC won’t mind???). But as the story moved along and when Gillian Tan was assassinated using a cycle bomb when he was on his way to meet the president and when the investigators find a mystic message, it started to get interesting and then bitcoins came into play and from there, it was a series of big twists and bends and was sure a thrilling ride.

The story transports from Congress of Washington DC to New Delhi finance ministry, Goa to Mumbai, and each place was dealt with care to add weight to the plot. The author’s perspective of these places and his clear description, it made the readers to transport from one place to another, with the story’s pace. I liked the feeling of moving along with the characters as I read the story.

Ravi Subramanian have done a lot of research for writing this book and it showed in the story. Sometimes, these bits of information are enlightening and made the read interesting, but after a period of time, the story felt like Wikipedia, with too much explanation about things like The Misznay-Schardin effect, TOR etc. I personally felt that the information should have been avoided to make the story more effective, but I can also understand the author’s point of view – he wanted to make sure every reader understands the terms.

There were some plot holes, here and there. The phishing attack point seemed lacking. What happened to OTP etc. to verify accounts?

When the death after death happens, of Malvika, Gillian etc., in US and in India, I really wanted to know the relation between the murders. It made me skip couple pages to sneak a peek (Shameful!) on what’s going to happen next.

The story has right proportion of everything – love, life, betrayal, lies, human emotions, and of course, death and a whole lot of unexpected relations. It made the story a great read.

I, myself, am originally not a fan of thriller with too much scientific details and information, for I want to have an easy read. But this book surely did change my standpoint. Also, I loved the internal workings of the gaming industries and the character Aditya, for I am a game-addict.

Of course, the bitcoins seemed to have lost in the complicated plot.

What I loved about the book is its difficult plot, mysteries, short chapters and easy language flow.

What I disliked about the book – not much, but I hated the information dumping. It felt like a lecture to me, and me, I am not fond of lectures.

I will give a 3.8 out of 5 for God Is a Gamer for the great writing and the exhilarating plot.

This book is definitely not my cup of coffee, but is indeed a delicious mix. Good to taste for one time.

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