The focus of my blog is to review book series and not individual novels. But writers are going to continue writing novels within a series even after I have done my review, so I plan on reviewing the individual novels as they come into circulation.  Eliot Peper has recently added book #3, Breach, to the Analog series.

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The scenario behind Eliot Peper’s Analog series is that the internet is directly connected to our brains. If you think that this is crazy, think again, as Elon Musk with his start-up company Neuralink, as well as others, are working on making that a reality. Personally, the thought of being on the internet 24/7 is absolutely horrifying, but I grew up in an era where the most exciting technology was color TV and Pong. Nowadays, young people have grown up with the internet and have grown very attached to their technology, so I can see many of them jumping on board to be the first to get their brains rewired. So no more worries about losing your phone, forgetting to charge it, or washing it with your laundry. All you have to do is think about it, so what could possibly go wrong? Plenty. We are now seeing some of the uglier sides of technology. Hacking, trolling, fake news, identity theft and privacy concerns are just a few of the problems that we are now dealing with as a result of the internet. So just imagine if it was hooked directly to you round-the-clock.  Eliot Peper’s series gives us a glimpse into what they may be like.

In this latest and last addition to the series, Breach, the focus is on Emily Kim who happened to be the scoundrel in the first book of the series, Bandwidth. Kim’s notoriety came about when she and a group of activist hacked into the ‘feed’, the brain-interface internet, to manipulate individuals and governments into establishing a carbon tax to tackle climate change. Kim’s most egregious act was the extreme manipulation of Dag Calhoun, a lobbyist for powerful technology and energy companies. But Kim’s world fell apart when Calhoun revealed Kim’s breach of the feed to the company that runs it known as Commonwealth. Even though Kim’s effort was to save the world from catastrophic climate change, her methodologies to obtain her goal were unjustifiable. After Calhoun’s revelation of Kim’s misdeeds, she goes into hiding and punishes herself through isolation and becoming a fighter in an infamous fight club on the isle of Camiguin. But a chance meeting with an old nemesis forces her to leave her isolation to save the people she most cares about and perhaps to gain their forgiveness that she feels she doesn’t deserve.

I have to admit this is my favorite in the series mostly because of Emily Kim’s Tasmanian devil alter ego, Pixie. Some of the fight scenes are very memorable. Though I felt that the finale was a bit anticlimactic, I still feel that Breach is a must read. Even though Breach could be read as a standalone, in order to truly appreciate it, it would be best to read Bandwidth beforehand.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Amazon Publishing for my copy of Breach.

To learn more about the series check out the Analog series.