ALPHA OMEGA

RELEASED 21 JULY 416 pages | Paperback/ebook Author Nicholas Bowling Publisher Titan Books

This book’s hampered by an oh-so-generic title, as well as a criminally slow start; it takes an age for the story to start simmering, let alone come to the boil. Luckily, however, once you get past these two handicaps you’re left with a chewy, thought-provoking, often grisly cyber-thriller which riffs on everything from Black Mirror to zombie movies. With almost all of the action set inside a school, there are shades of Buffy, too. To put it mildly, there’s a lot going on in this particular world.

A large cast of characters are assembled to confront a mysterious virus taking down schoolkids at an exclusive (and frankly rather horrible) educational institute. The adults – such as a demoralised schoolteacher and a random archaeologist – try to help the children; the kids, meanwhile, are either playing an allconsuming VR game named Alpha Omega, or doing icky things, such as obsessing over a skull stolen from a burial site.

It’s set in an unpleasant near-future world filled with all the trappings of rampant capitalism, and some characters and their actions might leave you feeling grubby, but author Nicholas Bowling’s ideas are also occasionally extremely funny. This is inventive, bonkers, playful writing – stick with it and you’ll be rewarded by an explosive finale that ties up all the story’s threads with a beautiful, pitch-black bow. Jayne Nelson