Swarm: Replugged Book Review by James Flynn

Title: Swarm: Replugged

Author: James Flynn

Genre: Science Fiction

Published Originally 2/1/2021 by the author, now with an new revised edition.

Thank you to the author for providing a copy for review.

In the second edition of Swarm, the city of Rachton is riddled with crime. A victim of crime, Eric Trammel, has turned to a life in the GLC to help fight against the criminals ruining his city. The answer the GLC comes up with is a new prison where prisoners can by connected to a hive mind to harvest their consciences to create answers to their hardest questions.

Swarm: Replugged is a great science fiction thought experiment of the possibilities of the human mind as well as the consequences of harvesting it. I read both editions of this book at the same time to compare. There are a lot of revisions that make the prose tighter though I really enjoyed both versions. Eric Trammel is a great sympathetic character to follow the story of best intentions gone wrong. I really enjoyed the ethical questions raised in this situation in the prison as well as the way it escalates so quickly off the rails. I would recommend this novella to fans of science fiction.

Comments

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