Alif the Unseen in The Sword and Laser

Jan 06, 2012 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: ebooks, sci-fi-fantasy, read2012, netgalley

Alif is the handle for a teenage hacker living in an unnamed Middle Eastern country, one where the flow of information is controlled and monitored by the state. He has made a name for himself (not his actual name, obviously) by helping various groups subvert the system at various times. He becomes an unknowing rival to someone known as The Hand, and as he tries to escape he ends up in a world where jinns exist.

This novel is an entertaining read combining hackers with partially unseen beings, le ...more

12 likes · Like · see review

Jul 02, 2012 Otis Chandler rated it liked it

Shelves: fantasy, adventure, middle-east, thriller, adventure, hackers, magical-realism

This book has a great premise, and is full of some beautifully written prose. It's about a hacker during the Arab Spring, helping people get around the firewalls that the State erected to control its population. Alif falls in love, finds an ancient book, gets into trouble with State, enlists the help of an unseen, magical world full of creatures call Jinn, and combats evil. The story flowed well, and was a fast, fun read.

I would have given it a higher rating, but I'm a computer programmer, and f ...more

10 likes · Like · see review

Oct 11, 2013 Eric rated it it was amazing

Shelves: urban-fantasy, cyber-punk, book-club

This fantastical novel centers around a young Middle Eastern hacker who goes by a singular name -- Alif. He has just had his heart broken by a girl of higher station than he, but he has a larger and more immediate problem in that the final present she gave him, an ancient book, may make him a target of the unnamed Middle Eastern security state he lives in.

His flight from his home and pursuit of the truth -- while trying to reconcile with his former lover, who is now betrothed to the head of the ...more

7 likes · Like · see review

Sep 26, 2014 Jlawrence rated it it was amazing

Shelves: sword-and-laser

Delightful mix of modern-day techno-thriller and Islamic mythology. Teenage hacker Alif offers cyber-anonymity to anyone struggling against the State, be they Islamist or communist (the Middle Eastern location is unnamed but is supposedly modeled on Dubai).

When he gets tangled up with a book claimed to be the human translation of tales meant only for djinni, he starts encountering actual djinns and their parallel world that co-exists with the corrupt modern world, and must unravel the mystery o ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Jan 04, 2013 travelgirlut rated it liked it

Shelves: computers

This book was not what I expected. I was thinking this was a book about hackers in the Middle East bringing down government censorship of the internet or something like that. Granted there was a hacker in the book, and the government may have had some trouble with him, but really the book was about Middle East customs and religions and myths and lifestyles, etc.

The main character, Alif, is a bit one sided or maybe shallow. He's an amazing hacker that can write all sorts of ingenious code, but h ...more

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Sep 30, 2014 kvon rated it really liked it

Mixing cyberpunk, populist uprisings, and a hidden world of magical jinn. A boy is torn between ideal of beauty and girl next door. ('Why she's almost as smart as me.' No doofus, she's much smarter) Setting is unnamed generic oil-rich Arab country with Islamists of various stripes of devoutness. Much of the computer talk went over my head, I'm not sure how much hand-waving was going on--it will be interesting to compare to Neuromancer. The secondary world was magical but with modern fixings and ...more

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