Book Review: God Is A Gamer

Book Title: God Is a Gamer

Author: Ravi Subramanian

Published by Penguin Books India 2014
Reviewed for: BlogAdda

Power corrupts and absolute power has a dark side. Multiple characters, interweaving stories and mysteries untangling themselves beautifully towards the one end is something I loved about the book.

The Premise: "God Is a Gamer is a world where money means nothing, martyrs are villains, predators are prey, assassination is taught by ancient Greeks, and nothing is as it seems".

Intelligence agencies are tracking the murderer of Gillian Tan, a senator with close relations to the White House. Meanwhile in India, a phishing scam in a reputed international bank causes lots of turmoil at high level management. A gaming company launches a Facebook based gaming app but gets involved in illegal bots to bring up on no.1 downloads list. Former CEO of the bank, a very powerful women, who is said to have liaisons with the finance minister, is found dead. Is her death just an accident, a suicide or a well-planned murder?

In the mean while an ATM heist takes place which loots people with millions of money. Who is involved in the scam? Does he have any relation with Cotton Trail, a website with dark intensions, where anything can be bought from drugs to prostitution, using virtual currency bitcoins and that too anonymously.

Somewhere else in the world Laptops are heating up and blowing when in sleep mode. Does it have any connection to any event sabove?

Is there one mastermind behind all this or many?

All these questions unfurl as we read page by page of this awesome novel.

My Review: Awesome is the word for Ravi Subramanian. God Is A Gamer is the thriller revolving around bitcoins, the virtual currency, while running around multiple dimensions of banking, money laundering, gaming industry, internet trade, political lobbying and so much. It is fast paced and surely a page turner. The illustrations are good and it does seem that the author has put in a lot of meticulous effort in interweaving stories of different characters in Mumbai, Washington, Goa in multiple small chapters. The character background is not that elaborate but they are well crafted. From page 1 itself the story grips you and it is unlikely to leave the book midway once you start it. I started reading casually one night, and I couldn’t keep it down until I had finished it by morning. The first half of the book keeps you guessing as new surprises turn up every now and then, but I had somehow guessed the eventual culprit in the second half so climax did not come as a surprise to me.

I do not normally enjoy reading thrillers, don't have many on my bookshelf, but I am thankful that I got a chance to read this one. It opens up a whole lot of revelations about virtual money, fraudulent practices and virtual world. It’s a dark world out there and I had never imagined the way banks could be involved in money laundering, gaming apps using bots to increase popularity, TOR networks for anonymous dealings, whistle blowers dying anonymously, charades of powerful faces... lots of new stuff for people like me who live in their own world.

Lots of new jargons, but explained seamlessly in layman terms.

Awesome Fabulous Fantastic. Keep writing and good luck.
My Rating: 4.5/5 stars
 



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