Review: Rusted Synapse by Elwood Stevens
Blurb:
Viviana Rodriguez is dying. The end couldn’t come fast enough…
Alone. Only her cigarettes and four crumbling walls for company while she awaits her final breath. Everyone she ever loved driven away, leaving her to rust in a VA junkyard unfit for human habitation. A fitting place really. After all, it’d been a while since anyone considered Vivi human.
How long ago was it she put her name to the contract? How many years had passed since the Army shoehorned her brain into this walking coffin? Four? Five? They forgot to mention the military-grade prosthetic she signed her name to came with a laundry list of psychoses atop a sizable debt.
A debt that left her desperate. Desperate enough to steal product from the Herrera Cartel one time too many. Her last mistake. Not that it mattered anymore. She counted down her remaining cigarettes till the end without hope of ever seeing her family again… that is, until a stranger approached with an offer.
Abduct a valuable prisoner from the closed state of China in exchange for her greatest desire:enough money to become human again. Enough money to go home.
What could go wrong? It’s not like she had anything left to lose…
Ocean's Eleven meets Ghost in the Shell with a pinch of Blade Runner. Fans of cyberpunk will love this subversive take on the genre that eschews the typical rain-slick streets and neo-noir nights to offer an emotional journey of one woman fighting for her humanity against a world that took it away.
Review:
Lately, I have been playing a lot of Cyberpunk 2077 and fortunately for my reading, there is only one gaming PC in my house. Because of this, it made me interested in picking up more books in the Cyberpunk subgenre, especially on the days I couldn’t play. As I was scrolling on Kindle Unlimited, the cover of this book caught my eye. I wanted to know more about this woman with the mangled cybernetic legs and the missing arm. What happened and why is she hooked up to a car battery? I had no expectations for this novel, so it blew me away with how Stevens explores the human condition all while disguising it through an action-packed heist. This was truly an unexpected fun ride filled with snark, twists, and memorable characters.
When we first meet our main character, Vivi, it's 2140 and she is sitting in a shabby Veteran Affairs hospital with nothing but the tiles to keep her company. She is in bad shape and the only thing keeping her alive is a plug and wall outlet. One day, as she awaits her incredibly dull inevitable death, a mysterious stranger appears and offers her a lucrative and life-changing opportunity. It's important to note Vivi is a cyborg and the one thing she desires is to be human again. If she agrees to participate in the heist, then she will have enough funds to live as a human through a clone. Until she fulfills the requirements on her end, a mechanic will fix up her body so she can participate. I won’t say any more about the plot since it takes you on an unexpected journey through several countries.
Even with an action-packed plot, this is a character-driven story. I instantly sympathized with Vivi. I could tell she was lonely and didn’t have anyone. Learning more about her as you progress in this book is like peeling back an onion. Be warned that you may also get teary-eyed as you learn more! Anyway, Vivi is a fun character to follow from her snarky attitude to her fierce combat abilities. You will want to root for her and hope she gets a happy ending.
The other members of the heist were a great addition to this story. There is a little bit of a found family where things start rocky at first but trust is slowly built. The banter they had with each other had me smiling and laughing. As they develop their trust for one another you see how the relationships Vivi builds with them change her as a person. By the time we reach the end, we see how her tactics and worldview have made her a completely different woman than when we first meet her. Also, each side character has a unique voice. I won’t give away my favorite side character, since it would be a major spoiler but I audibly gasped at her interactions since I found her incredibly adorable.
After finishing this, I immediately re-read the beginning. I was impressed with the foreshadowing Stevens used to show there was something off with this heist. Reading it the first time, I instantly felt like Vivi’s employer was strange, and so did she. On a second read-through, it was fun to go back and see the warning signs now that I had a full picture of the plot. Because of this, I would consider a full re-read of this.
I would highly recommend this to others looking for a Cyberpunk action-thriller. This would be perfect for fans of Ocean 11 and Ghost in a Shell. Even if you are not familiar with those things then you will come for the action but stay because of the characters. It's easy to care for them. The characters are realistically flawed yet still likable. I am also a sucker for enemies to allies. All the characters distrust one another yet the forced proximity leads to trust being built. Speaking with the author, this book is part of a duology. Book 2, Rusted Synapse: Apocalypse Engine is available now. After the way Book 1 has ended, I know I will be reading the sequel soon.
