This is the second Ecko book and I’ve been waiting to read it for a while. This is a strange book to classify as in the main it is a fantasy novel with a single cyberpunk character, but then it switches and is about a single fantasy character in a cyberpunk London. This is done in a fresh and fascinating way. I am still not sure which is the real world and which is the construct. It could even be that they are overlapping layers of a program designed to test the psychology of a patient. My personal theory is that the whole thing is a construct to hack the brain of Ecko. You can probably tell I’ve thought about this a bit.
I have to talk about Ecko. I love him as a main character. A big part of that is his dialogue. His speech patterns and his sarcasm really resonate with me. It wasn’t until about a quarter of the way through the second book that I realised that Ecko reminded me of Rorschach from Watchmen. The protective shield of being a sociopath that somehow never gets in the way of helping people. OK so Rorschach is very different in some ways but for me there is something there.
Parts of this book feel like an epic fantasy and others like a near future cyberpunk story. Not just in the content. There is a different feel and pace to the writing as the world changes. I really enjoyed this.
I was drawn in and swept along with this story. I enjoyed it from start to finish and will definitely be buying the third one. Unusually for me these days I bought these in paperback rather than as an ebook. I have two reasons for this. Firstly that I wanted signed copies and secondly that I want to lend these to a couple of friends that I think I can convince to appreciate these stories.
Tony's Thoughts 