Review: ‘Entropy’, by Bryn Lucas

Bryn contacted me earlier in the year to ask if I’d review his book Entropy. I liked the premise, so here we go:

Published By: CreateSpace

Publication Date: 17th July 2017

I.S.B.N.: 9781548895938

Format: ebook and paperback available

Price: £0.99 (ebook), £12.00 (paperback)

Blurb

Entropy is a speculative thriller set in the London of the very near future where the accepted political wisdoms of today have presaged the catastrophes of tomorrow.

Dylan Sharkey, a civil service desk jockey, is sucked into a revolutionary plot to bring justice to the dispossessed. His mission uncovers a foreign mole at the highest level of the British Government. Continuing his quest may cost him his life. Abandoning it would lose him his humanity.

My Review

It’s 2048, Britain is an isolated island surrounded by a barbed wire fence. The elderly and disabled are outcast ‘feebs’, living in tarpaulin camps and barely surviving. Other people keep their heads down, keep out of trouble with the government, and survive on processed food. Dylan is recruited to help bring down the government, using his position as a civil servant and his girlfriend’s connections to get into the government computer system.

The premise is promising, and the characters interesting. Dylan is a fairly ordinary man, his superiors at work are ignorant and dominating, his friend and co-conspirator Higgins, is obnoxious, and pretentious. Higgins is really flaming irritating, but he’s meant to be. Katy is an enigma, the daughter of a high-up in the government but prepared to help bring down the government. She doesn’t really appear much, except to provide equipment useful to their cause.

I enjoyed the first half of the book, but struggled to maintain my interest through the rest of the novel. It might not be the book so much as me being distracted by other things. I did like the characters and the premise of the dystopian world, the plot was good, and descriptions evocative.

Definitely one for the dystopia fans

3/5