Dagmar Shaw is one of the world's hottest designers of alternate reality games. She is the Puppetmaster and thousands of gamers are dancing on her strings. But when the campaign she is running in Turkey comes into conflict with the new, brutal regime, she realises that games can have very real consequences. When an old friend approaches Dagmar with a project so insane, so ambitious, she can't possibly say no, she is plunged into a world of spies and soldiers. A nation hangs in the balance and in a world of intrigue and betrayal, the master player must face the possibility that she has, herself, been played. Dagmar is the Puppetmaster, but when the bullets are real and her 'puppets' start dying, is any cause worth it?
Deep State
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Powerful ideas, brilliantly executed . . . you should take this as a recommendation (Charles Stross, award-winning author of HALTING STATE )
With admirable topicality, DEEP STATE concerns the fomenting of revolution against an repressive regime using modern networked communications (TELEGRAPH )
A neatly plausible scenario that riffs off recent events in Iran to fine effect as Williams brings an SF sensibility to what's essentially a spy thriller. Recommended. (BBC FOCUS )
With admirable topicality, DEEP STATE concerns the fomenting of revolution against an repressive regime using modern networked communications (TELEGRAPH )
A neatly plausible scenario that riffs off recent events in Iran to fine effect as Williams brings an SF sensibility to what's essentially a spy thriller. Recommended. (BBC FOCUS )
Book Description
The boundaries between game and reality are breached in this compelling near-future geopolitical thriller by award-winning author, Walter Jon Williams.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
It's spooky how timely this book seems.
A follow up to Williams' This is Not a Game: You Don't Get a Second Life, this near future story features the same protagomist, Dagmar Shaw, designer/ producer/ promoter of ARGs - hybrid online-live role playing games. In the earlier book, Shaw was caught up in revolution in Indonesia. Most of her friends were then murdered as she stumbled on the truth behind that revolution, a truth also being sought by the Russian Mafia. She fought her way out of the situation by enlisting her online game players as a massive problem solving team - and so came to the attention on Lincoln, a shadowy Government agent.
"Deep State" picks up the story a couple of years on. Dagmar is still running Great Big Idea, and her lastest project involves promoting a new James Bond film set in Turkey - where there has recently been a military coup. Lincoln has come out of the shadows to sponsor the project - what does he really want? Can a democratic revolution be orchestrated in the same way one of Dagmar's ARGs?
I was struck reading this by the tenuous nature of "near future" fiction - what is meant here to be safely in the future seems to have been taken over by reality even as the book was published, with events in North Africa, Eygpt, Syria and the Gulf coming straight out of this book as revolutionaries makes their plans over Twitter and use mobile phones to bypass Government censorship. There is even useful advice for would be revolutionaries when the Government cuts off your Internet access: build a network using computers running MS-DOS with old style dialup modems.... Read more ›
A follow up to Williams' This is Not a Game: You Don't Get a Second Life, this near future story features the same protagomist, Dagmar Shaw, designer/ producer/ promoter of ARGs - hybrid online-live role playing games. In the earlier book, Shaw was caught up in revolution in Indonesia. Most of her friends were then murdered as she stumbled on the truth behind that revolution, a truth also being sought by the Russian Mafia. She fought her way out of the situation by enlisting her online game players as a massive problem solving team - and so came to the attention on Lincoln, a shadowy Government agent.
"Deep State" picks up the story a couple of years on. Dagmar is still running Great Big Idea, and her lastest project involves promoting a new James Bond film set in Turkey - where there has recently been a military coup. Lincoln has come out of the shadows to sponsor the project - what does he really want? Can a democratic revolution be orchestrated in the same way one of Dagmar's ARGs?
I was struck reading this by the tenuous nature of "near future" fiction - what is meant here to be safely in the future seems to have been taken over by reality even as the book was published, with events in North Africa, Eygpt, Syria and the Gulf coming straight out of this book as revolutionaries makes their plans over Twitter and use mobile phones to bypass Government censorship. There is even useful advice for would be revolutionaries when the Government cuts off your Internet access: build a network using computers running MS-DOS with old style dialup modems.... Read more ›
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
As with TINAG, Walter Jon Williams pulls you into a world that you cannot let go of until you have read the last word.
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
I enjoyed the first book in the series, and this is just as much fun, its 6 am and I have just finished it!
Format:Paperback
One can only imagine how the Arab spring must have come as both shock and vindication to Walter J Williams as his book went on sale. A near perfect prediction of the rise of public power versus state power. The way that technology and social media will become part of revolution and politics, it almost seems like he had a newspaper for the future around which to write his story! Now add to that the tales of the super virus that has targeted Iranian nuclear centrefuges and you begin to wonder how long before the black hats start asking WJW about his sources!!
As a novel it works. Maybe not perfectly, but enjoyably. As a piece of imagination it is clearly the result of understanding people and tech and how they will align.
Can't wait for more :-)
As a novel it works. Maybe not perfectly, but enjoyably. As a piece of imagination it is clearly the result of understanding people and tech and how they will align.
Can't wait for more :-)
Format:Paperback
This is a disappointing book. It follows on from 'This is not a game' which contrasted the experience of a break down of the 'rules' of real life, when gaming maven Dagmar Shaw gets stuck in a real-life crisis in Jakarta, while at home long-time gamers play 'real' games for deadly stakes.
There is some alternate reality gaming in this book as Dagmar's company has been hired by an ex-US secret service spook to use a game to build popular unrest against a new military-run regime in Turkey. The cover is a 'real' game promoting the latest Bond film which is being made in Turkey. However, after initial successes, the Turkish generals have an 'ace' up their sleeve, stolen technology that in the past has caused Syrian air defences to inexplicably fail against an Israeli air raid. It is used against Dagmar's team and they have to rebuild their network from some unusual components to get back 'in the game'.
But there are problems. First, the gaming content is minimal and confined to running street demonstrations. The possibilities of novel interactions between real-world politics and gaming are not explored. Second, techies will think some of the technology used is daft, conversely non-techies will probably blank out on it. Finally, the story itself is not particularly deeply plotted, sometimes crawls, and has some totally daft elements, e.g. the involvement of a wacky Scottish rock star as the figurehead of the attempted gamed coup.
While 'This is not a game' had a 'big idea', this novel hops about all over the place, never really achieving any 'deep state'.
There is some alternate reality gaming in this book as Dagmar's company has been hired by an ex-US secret service spook to use a game to build popular unrest against a new military-run regime in Turkey. The cover is a 'real' game promoting the latest Bond film which is being made in Turkey. However, after initial successes, the Turkish generals have an 'ace' up their sleeve, stolen technology that in the past has caused Syrian air defences to inexplicably fail against an Israeli air raid. It is used against Dagmar's team and they have to rebuild their network from some unusual components to get back 'in the game'.
But there are problems. First, the gaming content is minimal and confined to running street demonstrations. The possibilities of novel interactions between real-world politics and gaming are not explored. Second, techies will think some of the technology used is daft, conversely non-techies will probably blank out on it. Finally, the story itself is not particularly deeply plotted, sometimes crawls, and has some totally daft elements, e.g. the involvement of a wacky Scottish rock star as the figurehead of the attempted gamed coup.
While 'This is not a game' had a 'big idea', this novel hops about all over the place, never really achieving any 'deep state'.
Format:Paperback
Whilst the original novel was not only fascinating but one to keep you glued to the last page, this one was more of a miss than a hit as it felt that it was more of a novella rather than a full length title. It was overdrawn, the characters nowhere near as fresh as the original title (This is Not a Game) and when looked at overall felt rather like a damp squib from Walter rather than his usual roaring lion.
All in, throughout this novel I kept hoping that the author would do something to save this title rather than just leave it to drag out for page after page, leaving me sadly disappointed by the final pages turning. Whilst I wouldn't call it the authors best work, it is acceptable and will do what the blurb leads you to believe but if you want something hard hitting or even in the same league as the original then you'll be sadly disappointed.
All in, throughout this novel I kept hoping that the author would do something to save this title rather than just leave it to drag out for page after page, leaving me sadly disappointed by the final pages turning. Whilst I wouldn't call it the authors best work, it is acceptable and will do what the blurb leads you to believe but if you want something hard hitting or even in the same league as the original then you'll be sadly disappointed.
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