I am really loving Laura Lam's dark sci-fi novels set in a future filled with drugs that can transport you to a fantasy world, corporations dabbling in twisted and illegal experiments, and encrypted messages hidden away in a person's cerebral cortex.

It's so creative and nasty. This book is set in the same world as False Hearts, but it is a completely separate story with new characters, so it can easily be read as a standalone.

Carina, the main character, is an ex-neuroscientist who is plagued by the desperate urge to kill people. She wasn't always like this. She used to be part of a team of scientists in a huge corporation called Sudice, but her increased desire to kill drove her to drugs, and the vivid dreams of death and destruction they gave her. But the question remains: what made Carina change into someone who craves murder?

When an old colleague dies, Carina receives a bizarre stream of messages from the deceased in her drug-fuelled dreams - messages that have been encrypted into her brain so that only she can access them. Using this information and a small team of allies, Carina sets out to expose and destroy the company that ruined her life - Sudice.

The narrative jumps between different characters and between the past and present of the story. It took a little while to get used to, but when I did, I found it really effective. The mysteries of the past unfolded alongside the action and drama in the present, ensuring that the novel remained tense. I also liked that we got to see the perspective of the main antagonist, offering a complexity to her character and making her more than a mindless villain.

Lam has created a world full of atmosphere. It's part science-heavy cyberpunk with mind-blowing futuristic technology and part fast-paced thrill ride. I love the setting and the fascinating cast of characters, from the drug and death-addicted Carina, to a transgender hacker called Dax, to the ambitious and manipulative Roz. I only hope there's more.

4.5 stars

Set in the same dark future as 'False Hearts', the newest offering from Laura Lam is a very different book. Whereas 'False Hearts' was a book of neon warmth and arching redwoods, 'Shattered Minds' is a story filled with clinical chrome and the buzz of electronic instruments. It is a harder, colder book, less forgiving, with characters that take a little bit longer to love. But love them you definitely do.

Centring around a hacking group that is attempting to bring down a large, corrupt corporation that seems to own most of the West Coast (now Pacifica), 'Shattered Minds' has a really classic cyberpunk feel that put me in mind of William Gibson's 'Neuromancer'. Members of society now have complex neural implants to allow functions such as the straight downloading of information from external systems. Such neural implants can also allow hacking via VR, a more natural interface than hard code, though also bringing the added risk of cybersecurity systems being able to 'fry' user implants remotely, and, with them, the user's own mind.

Carina, our protagonist, an ex neuroprogrammer, takes some time to warm to. She's blunt and difficult, though once you realise how much of that 'difficulty' is due to self loathing and trauma she's much easier to understand. She's a character who has been betrayed by everyone she ever thought to trust, from her father to Roz, the scientist who was supposed to take her pain away. 'Taking the pain' away in Carina's case turned out to be much more literal, with Roz re-engineering Carina's brain in a way that made it so she rarely felt strong emotion. It was only when that programming began to unravel and sudden strong compulsions to commit violence and murder began to develop that Carina realised what had happened to her. Terrified of hurting people, she retreats into the world of zeal, a drug that allows users to manipulate their own dreamscapes. Her body falling apart at the seams, Carina feels that at least she is less of a threat to those around her…it's heartbreaking on so many levels. The story raises the question on multiple occasions of just how much of Carina's personality is her own and how much is what the brain engineering made her. Even if they were to reverse that engineering, how much of what Carina is was caused by nature and how much is what was done to her?

Dax, an important secondary POV character and love interest, was my favourite. I try not to play favourites, but I just couldn’t help it. He is, in Laura's own words, the 'cinnamon roll', and I entirely agree with that assessment. The medic to our hacking collective, Dax originally was a surgeon specialising in body modification, common in the state of Pacifica. Always excellent at including LGBTQA+ characters and respectful rep in her stories, Laura's decision to write Dax as a trans man is such a positive thing. Dax's identity is not a plot point, it's not a twist, it simply is. More books need to include LGBTQA+ characters in a way that makes identity incidental and not somehow part of the plot. LGBTQA+ people exist and their story doesn't have to end there, let them have stories beyond that! Let them be heroes and villains and hackers and doctors, let them be whatever your stories need them to be, like any other character.

Also, you know, let them be cinnamon roll Native Doctors, because I love Dax so much.

Before I go on an excessively long ramble about how much I love one character, I'll direct you towards our villain, the ruthlessly driven Roz. It's been a while since I've disliked a villain quite as much as Roz. Cold, hard, indifferent to the feelings of others, she is probably my entire opposite, but I don't think it's even that which got under my skin so much. The most horrifying thing about Roz is how she doesn't view consent as something sacred. She doesn't care what you want, you're simply her experiment and she has no qualms whatsoever in knocking you out and making fundamental changes to your brain. Genuinely, she gives me the shudders.

The half a star came off because I wasn't able to gel with the story quite as much as I would have liked. It has a complicated structure, moving backwards and forwards in time in a way that makes a lot of sense for the plot and for Carina's character, but sometimes left me a little confused. I've also mentioned before that Carina is maybe a little more difficult to love than your classic protagonist, but I think, once again, that that's a personal thing and I know from reading other reviews that other people have absolutely adored her.

One of my favourite parts of the world that Laura builds for her Pacifica novels is the culture and the cities. There are all these subtle hints at other stories happening behind the scenes, like the fan who tried to clone his idols and led to a fashion for covering all fingerprints and shaving off all hair, so that no DNA was accidentally left behind. There's also some overlap with 'False Hearts', in mentions of the cult that the protagonists were raised in, characters reappearing and further discussion of the some of the repercussions of events in the other book. Whilst you don't have to have read 'False Hearts' to enjoy this, I'd honest recommend picking up both books, because 'False Hearts' is one of my favourite books of all time, and the world that Laura has created is a joy to read.

So, if you're looking for a cerebral thriller (no pun intended), with diverse characters, genuine threat and much much neurohacking, this is definitely the book for you.

'Shattered Minds' is out on the 15th of June, and Laura has a pre order promotion going at the moment with 10K of extra Pacifica fiction available in return for proof of pre-order!

Many thanks to Tor Books for a copy in return for an honest review!

Shattered Minds by

Pros: diverse cast, interesting plot

Cons: minimal world-building

Carina is a zeal addict, living her life plugged into her dreams where she slowly kills virtual people. When a former co-worker uploads coded packets of information into her brain that will help take down her previous employer, she’s not sure she’s capable of sobering up and not becoming a monster in the real world.

This book is set in the same world as the author’s previous novel, False Hearts. While some characters overlap, Shattered Minds works perfectly on its own.

Carina’s a fascinating character. Having information tied to her memories was a clever idea, and allowed for some great development. I was surprised by how much I liked her considering she had very little emotion, had constant urges to kill, and spent the first part of the book heavily addicted. But then, I also enjoyed seeing the world from Roz’s point of view, and she’s a pretty terrible person. Her scenes didn’t make me relate to her at all, but sometime’s its nice to read about bad guys who are truly evil.

The cast is pretty diverse with one character a native american trans man, which isn’t something you read often. Dax was probably my favourite character, considerate, competent, cool under pressure.

I had mixed feelings about the romantic elements of the book. I liked the pairing, and the text makes it clear that the two find each other attractive. But given Carina’s inability to feel anything other than pleasure at the thought of killing, I didn’t really get the gut feeling that she was even capable of any kind of intimate relationship. I appreciated that things moved slowly, but there was one scene that felt like it happened too early and so didn’t give the emotional satisfaction that it should have. At this point they knew each other better but still didn’t have the emotional connection such a scene requires. Oddly enough, had the author waited a bit, there was a place where I think that would have fit better (see more on this in the spoiler section).

While I felt the author knew how this world worked, there were times when it would have helped to understand more of what makes Pacifica tick. Towards the end of the book there’s a throwaway comment about the potential consequences of taking down Sudice, of how society could unravel because the company’s tied into so many things. This would have been good to bring up earlier. In fact, the comment states that the group has discussed this issue, though the reader never sees any of these discussions. It’s a failure of world-building because as a readier I didn’t realize the full import of the company they want to bring down and that the Trust’s actions might not be as black and white as they’re being portrayed. Knowing what Sudice does, and how the world would be impacted would have added more depth and complexity to the characters, and the show how difficult the decision they’re making really is.

The book is paced well so there’s a good mix of action and down time. The mystery of what Roz is doing and how the Trust can take her down is quite entertaining, and there are a good number of twists to keep things interesting.

On the whole I enjoyed the book.

***SPOILERS***

I think Carina and Dax slept together too early. While you get scenes from his point of view, you never see him question the wisdom of starting a relationship with a woman who has urges to kill and how he (or they) would deal with this. The scene at the end I refer to in my review is after Carina has Roz at her mercy and chooses not to kill her. The two talk about where things are headed between them. Given that Dax now knows she can control her negative urges better, this felt like a more natural place for their first sexual encounter. As a reader, this is also where I felt they connected better on an emotional level.

Will come back two weeks before on sale date to post review as requested. Thank you.

Here's where I have to admit something: I didn't love the first book in this series (False Hearts). I liked it a lot, but I didn't love it. I found the world fascinating, but for some reason, I found the characters hard to connect with. I suspect very strongly that this has nothing at all to do with the book itself, but rather my own reader brain and the headspace that I was in when I read it.

Obviously, I was intrigued enough by the world in general in the books to pick up Shattered Minds. And I do not regret it one little bit, because I adored this book. I loved all of the characters, but especially the complex, fascinating (and sometimes slightly horrifying to read) Carina. I fell more in love with the worldbuilding and the technology that Lam imagines. This one hooked me on the first page, and kept me hooked for the whole length of the book.

Shattered Minds will immerse you in to a futuristic world you could only imagine in your nightmares. Here, you will find immense government control, mind warping drugs, and robots and machines from a sci-fi movie. Here, the feeling of safety is only an illusion.

The Plot: Carina Kearney is a neuroscientist turned drug addict. Having worked for one of the biggest corporations in Pacifica, Sudice, Carina had seen, and performed, enough "illegal" human experiments to be drawn to the dreamscape inducing drug, Zeal. Though, her desire to murder may have had something to do with her addiction. In the Zealscape, Carina is able to conjure up imaginary victims to murder any way she chooses, without acting theses desires out in real life. During one of her murderous fantasies, Carina is sent an image, via the brain implant that every human in this world possesses, by someone she thought she had left behind when she quit working for Sudice. Mark tells Carina that he has encoded a massive amount of information, that could bring the end to Sudice and their illegal experiments, in to her brain implant and attached them to 5 separate memories to be unlocked in order. Carina must figure out which memories hold the keys to the files, and seek out the help of a clandestine group of hackers to share this information with before its too late. Will Carina choose to unlock this information, take down Sudice, and help Mark and the hackers? Or will she succumb to her murderous desires and Zeal addiction?

Shattered Minds was definitely different than what I am used to reading. I loved the science fiction aspect of the story. In the world of Pacifica, each person has a brain implant that allows them to access code, information, and memories. There are places called Flesh Parlors where you can change everything from your hair color to your gender, and codes can be written in to your brain implants to change personality traits. The brain implant aspect of the story was terrifying to me! People also had things called VeriChips implanted in their wrists, which made them, and all of their identifying information, traceable. Very terrifying indeed!

The world of Pacifica also involved the use of a drug called Zeal. For most people, Zeal was not addictive. Zeal helped a person create a dream world where they could act out things they could not do in real life, but, for those who were destined to become criminals, Zeal became addictive. Carina, since the age of 16, had begun to have desires and fantasies of murder. Losing her mother at a young age, and not receiving the treatment needed from her therapist, Carina was offered to Roz Elliot, a scientist with Sudice. Roz performed experiments on Carina, and ultimately, took her under her wing as a co-worker with Sudice. It was during her time here, and performing experiments on criminals, testing out ways to record brain activity and memories, that she started heavily using Zeal to overcome her desire to kill.

Carina, and her addiction, are my main dislikes in this book. I loved the world building and the creativity involved in the sci-fi details, but I honestly hated Carina's character and her drug addiction. I found it so unbelievable and disgusting, first of all, that she felt like she couldn't control her urge to kill people. Second of all, the fact that she fed her Zeal addiction so she could continuously enter the Zealscape to live out those murderous fantasies, was a major turn off for having to deal with her being the main point-of-view character. But, this is also a positive point for this book because I have never read a story quite like this. I have yet to encounter a character like Carina.

Roz's character was quite intriguing. She made for an interesting, devious villain. With everything she accomplished with Sudice, there could be a separate novella just on her character. Roz Elliot was the evil, "mad scientist" of Sudice and Pacifica.

The rest of the characters felt like they fit fairly well in the story as supportive characters. I had just enough background on each to find them relatable. Dax, however, felt odd to me toward the end of the book. He had a great story line and I liked how he used his medical background to help the group, but as he grows closer to Carina (one MAJOR scene in particular, won't give spoilers) I find myself disgusted that he can be attracted to someone who is an OBVIOUS drug addict and a known psychopath. The entire group knows of her murderous desires and tendencies, and he still allows himself to get close to her. Very off-putting and a little unbelievable for me.

I would rate this book 4 stars. I enjoyed it, and it was a major page turner. I was drawn in to the sci-fi world and wanted to find out if the group could take down this huge corporation that practically ran the world. I had the negative views on Carina, her fantasies of murder, and her addiction, but also found her character intriguing and innovative.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with this ARC in exchange for my honest review.