Amped by Daniel H. Wilson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Oddly enough, I had this really weird impression that it was a YA novel from start to finish even though I know, objectively, that the MC is a school teacher. It's just the feel of it.

That being said, it wasn't bad. In fact, it kinda had the whole Little Brother vibe to it, at least when it came to the fear-mongering and the whole oppressive society bits mixed with high-tech to fight it.

The augmented humans, the Amped, the transhumans, are smarter, faster, more naturally capable, and they're also on the hate-train by everyone else, thanks to natural human fear. Non-citizens.

It's okay. I mean, we've seen this kind of thing a million times, especially in YA, so I should be forgiven for making that connection. :)

The whole plot is pretty standard with your normal situation-meets-new-abilities progression, but what I thought was most amusing was that the whole super-villain/super-hero thing was firmly planted in the red-neck okie vibe. :) I was like... woah. :)

Not surprised, really. Daniel Wilson was great with the Native Americans in his Robopocalypse novels and I was digging it there, too.

What really shines in this novel is the whole Amped technology and the progression and exploration of it. The politics around it was okay, but the fighting and developments were very cool. Maybe it's not enough to hang a whole novel on, and I really could have enjoyed this better with a more original plot, but I still had a good time and I'm glad I read it. :)

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