{"id":86604,"date":"2016-05-19T01:00:27","date_gmt":"2016-05-19T00:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/?p=86604"},"modified":"2016-04-21T20:13:18","modified_gmt":"2016-04-21T19:13:18","slug":"sockpuppet-by-matthew-blakstad-book-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/reviews\/sockpuppet-by-matthew-blakstad-book-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Sockpuppet by Matthew Blakstad book review"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The people of<\/span><span class=\"s2\"> Britain are about to become Digital Citizens. The Minister of Information, Bethany Lehrer, is poised to launch a UK-wide online ID scheme that\u2019ll put the data of millions in the hands of a tech giant called Mondan.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">But the group\u2019s data is hacked, and an account on Twitter-stand-in \u2018Parley\u2019 starts to post Lehrer and Mondan\u2019s secrets and lies online. But \u2018sic_girl\u2019 is supposed to be just an algorithm \u2013 where is she getting her info? <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\"><em><strong>Sockpuppet<\/strong><\/em>\u2019s quite the genre-straddling piece of fiction: not quite futuristic or fantasy, and its themes about online harassment and shady corporate deals hit close to home, but it\u2019s not a traditional thriller either. It thrives on the tension between private, public and corporate interests, but just like the aggregated personas that populate Parley, the characters feel a little thin. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">The story flits mainly between the embattled Minister and sic_girl\u2019s creator, coder Dani Farr. Blakstad drops social media blurbs into his prose, weaving his characters\u2019 thoughts into this online world. It starts off gimmicky, but begins to feel authentic. Tonally, it\u2019s hard not to be reminded of darkly on-point dramas like <em><strong>Black Mirror<\/strong><\/em>. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">Some elements come off as a little on the nose, and yet the author touches a raw nerve when he confronts the anxiety around information used to harass. These don\u2019t feel like such far removed fears anymore, so it\u2019s interesting to see a writer tackle them. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">One of the most relatable themes of Sockpuppet is the idea of freedom off the grid, or slipping into anonymity. Blakstad seems to understand the nature of online life and the virtue of getting out of there when you need to. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Britain is heading for a digital dystopia in Matthew Blakstad&#8217;s Sockpuppet<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":86605,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"MSN_Categories":"Uncategorized","MSN_Publish_Option":false,"MSN_Is_Local_News":false,"MSN_Is_AIAC_Included":"Empty","MSN_Location":"[]","MSN_Add_Feature_Img_On_Top_Of_Post":false,"MSN_Has_Custom_Author":false,"MSN_Custom_Author":"","MSN_Has_Custom_Canonical_Url":false,"MSN_Custom_Canonical_Url":""},"categories":[1624,8],"tags":[5093,5092],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Sockpuppet-Matthew-Blakstad.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86604"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}