The Chimera Code by Wayne Santos Book Tour
Title: The Chimera Code
Author: Wayne Santos
Publisher: Solaris
Genre: Adult, Science Fiction, Thriller
Publication date: 23 July 2020
Book Links: Goodreads, Bookshop, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Book Depository, Indigo, IndieBound
Book Synopsis
"Everything’s for hire – even magic.
If you need something done, they’re the best: a tough, resourceful mage, a lab-created genderless hacker and a cyborg with a big gun.
But when they’re hired by a virtual construct to destroy the other copies of himself, and the down payment is a new magical skill, Cloke knows this job is going to be a league harder than anything they’ve ever done."
My Thoughts
Welcome to my stop on the book tour of The Chimera Code by Caffeine Book Tours! The full tour schedule can be found HERE.
This book was a really fun read and such an intriguing concept. In this future, magic and computers will be used side by side in the world. This book follows a Chimera team that has three members: a witch, the muscle and a hacker. Each member working together for whatever the highest bidder has hired them to do.
The world-building was organic and it avoided a bunch of info-dumping which I always appreciate. The history of this world was very believable, which was amazing and also terrifying. There are even subtle mentions of COVID having taken a part in things. And that was just part of the amazing world-building in this one. Everything seemed like a natural flow from the current state of our world to the world in this book. Also, Santos gives the first compelling explanation of how keyboards that are projected into the air would actually work, that I’ve ever read. It’s a small detail but I appreciate it, and I think that gives you a clear idea of what an intricate world this one has. If have any negative about this one, it's that there's just so much detail. To a ridiculous level. Sometimes it felt like it slowed the story at moments.
I thought the characters were very well done. They felt like real characters who had been through real trauma which is not always easy to do. There were details to their lives that I thought really brought them to life and further added to the intricate world of this book. Some other really amazing details that I thought were fantastic: references to AI having a "Turing designation", witches reversing climate change, and descriptions of how powerful people with computers are.
This was a really amazing cyberpunk fantasy and I definitely recommend checking it out!
I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher Solaris, Caffeine Book Tours, and the author as part of my participation in their tour.
Representation: non-binary, Filipino-American
Content Warnings: violence, murder, rape (mentioned), guns, non-consensual medical experimentation, abuse
About the Author
Wayne Santos has been an ad copywriter, a TV scriptwriter, a magazine contributor, an editor, and a freelance writer for too many things on the Internet to count. He grew up in Alberta, lived in Singapore, and settled down in Ontario with his wife and an ongoing rotation of two household cats. He is a multi-disciplinary geek with a double major in science-fiction and fantasy, specializations in novels, comics, anime, TV and film, and a minor in video games. Under no circumstances should he be approached to discuss 80s pop culture unless you are fully aware of the toll this will expend on your remaining lifespan.