If you end up in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 2089, you won't recognize the city (not that you will recognize any other major city...). Humanity had managed to screw up the atmosphere so much that the only way to actually survive is to populate everyone's bodies with biological nanotech which can control the climate locally - as long as there are enough of them. So Dhaka is in a really good shape - the old overpopulation problem had turned into its salvation when the world was taken over by corporations and then the global climate apocalypse wrecked havoc with everyone's lives. Add to that the jinns (who are very real indeed) and you just got your crash introduction to the world of this novel.

Add a gamer (a really good one) who is also a hacker and his friends. Add a few AIs. Add a guy who seems to be invincible and keeps cutting people's heads. Add the Russian mafia, hidden servers (collapsing small countries leave infrastructure behind), a missing space station (nope, nothing fancy - it is our well known space station) and a boy with a crush and things start getting interesting really quickly - even before things escalate into an almost war.

I suspect that some of parts of the book will resonate better with someone who plays video games - I found some of the passages describing the game play a bit boring. But even with that, the novel manages to be hilarious. And if you had read the author's earlier [The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday], you may even realize before it becomes clear in the text who one of the characters is. The book is also a continuation of [Djinn City] (which I had not read yet) - set decades later but still sharing a few characters (and possibly spoiling some of the earlier book). I plan to go chase that one now.

Hossain's mixing of jinns and technology sounds like a possible disaster but he manages to make it work marvelously. ( )

Well, that was a hell of a rush! Though you could make a drinking game out of spotting the influences in this novel, Hossain's malicious glee in following the misadventures of his characters in the post-apocalyptic nuthouse that is his milieu is infectious. One is reluctant to say too much, as that would give away the plot. However, these thoughts come to mind. One is that you should probably read Hossain's "Djinn City" first, as that introduces a lot of the supporting characters. Two, the critical comments by those folks who found this to mostly be a "boy's own" adventure have a point; though this is probably inevitable when the main character is fifteen years of age. Three, I was considering rating this book higher, but since Hossain has two interlocking series going in what is looking like a sprawling family saga I'm withholding judgement to a certain degree. However, I will be reading the follow-on books, will be trying to hunt down "Djinn City" sooner, rather than later (my reading schedule for the year is already filling up), and I will be a little surprised if this book doesn't do rather well on the nomination front. ( )