The Uploaded by Ferrett Steinmetz
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It is my very great pleasure to have read this!

In fact, because I've been ravenously hungry for everything that Ferrett has written ever since Flux, I practically fell out of my chair after I got accepted by Netgalley to get an Advance Reader Copy. Woo!

That being said, let's get down to the nitty-gritty without spoiling anything, shall we?

The concept is awesome:

Uploaded minds in a VR RPG Heaven, with the dead now far outnumbering the living in this future Earth. Guess who's in charge? It's all about the bare minimum upkeep of the Earth while the servers and the cameras and the game-reward system of social control dominate the world.

Totally cool, right?

Well, we've got a bit of everything in here, but it's the main characters that make this shine. It reminds me a lot of Doctorow's *Little Brother* with the sneaky and funny counterculture bits and the fact that sometimes even the living can program and spoof the dead. Hackers Unite, right? And then it's light enough and serious enough to put most YA novels to shame... while being entirely engaging to me on any level. There's also some very serious romance and even more serious themes going on here, too, but at this novel's core, it's all about the revolution, baby.

From the first page to the last, my attention never wavered. This is the joy of reading Ferrett's work.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: this guy should be a super-bestseller. There's no good excuse why he isn't. I'm a total fanboy because he's just got the writing chops to pull just about anything off.

This one's a winner and a half! Total SF with YA protags and some pretty epic scope that is full of some really great fun and funny stuff.

So, what do Neo-Christians and Lifeguards have in common?

Sounds like a great joke, right? Read it and find out! :)

WOOOOOOO! Great stuff! (insert fanboy squee)


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