When a young hacker living in a highly policed state finds himself on the wrong side of the government and his lover’s fiancee, he flees his home armed only with a book of djinn tales, his childhood friend, and a backpack on his back. His quest to counter a corrupt system brings him through back alleys and mosques and the recesses of his own mind. Only to discover the world is hidden beneath his own and a conspiracy that could change his life forever...
Alif the Unseen is a gorgeous novel, grand in ambition, and execution. It expertly blends its concepts of magic with technology, a well-coded system of opposites that might not be so opposite after all. This book shouldn’t be able to work as well as it does. There are so many different elements, themes, and moral discussions that the author includes that it should feel cluttered and busy, and confusing. And yet the audience is easily able to follow the story and connect to the characters. Wilson creates a very real, living, breathing, colorful world in the form of the City and she moves the plot along quickly and efficiently while still giving her audience room to breathe. The subtext of religion, culture, society, and race is demonstrated and inserted excellently throughout the book. That said since there are so many different storylines, some things don’t wrap up as well as others, several themes are simply left hanging, other things are addressed however without any emotional weight since they don’t really change anything in the story. The romance was non-existent for the first half of the novel and then all of a sudden just appears and starts to progress very quickly. It gives the impression that Wilson didn’t really want a romance but wrote it in any way simply to check the box. Even so, once it got moving, it was hard not to root for it to succeed. I’d recommend this one to fans of middle-eastern and Asian-inspired fantasy and fans of sci-fi, it’s one of my new favorites of all time. All in all, it’s a fresh, unique world, with loveable characters, a tech-centered, clever story, and a sweet, if not sudden, love story.
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