Moxyland - Lauren Beukes

There are four plots, following four characters in first person point of view. After a couple of rounds of the two plots we have seen several sides to each character, their own point of view and also what at least one of the other characters think of them. It's a perfect example of using first person perspective to its fullest. Also pleasing is that the characters aren't all sweetness and light, and often highly unsympathetic, adding to the realism: it's not all black and white.

The language is funky and cool, portraying South Africa vividly. There's a great sense of place including slick corporate apartments, street kids, subways and fringe parts of the city. These descriptions blend nicely with the great ideas in Moxyland, from the novel (and scary) use of mobile phones, to the fresh riffs on the cyberpunk staple of corporate lives, to the innovative use of bio-tech and marketing. Plenty of brain fodder.

The plot is slow to get going, winding the tension handle slowly and showing off the world and the characters. Despite the plot building slowly the novel doesn't feel slow because the characters are so intriguing. And eventually the plot explodes in a quite unexpected and nasty way, leaving us with a downbeat ending.

I thoroughly enjoyed Moxyland, the first proper cyberpunk that I've read in years, it's fresh and funky and spiky, containing plenty of ideas to linger in your thoughts afterwards.