ALT is a climate crisis future adventure novel, Young Adult adjacent (one of its lead characters is a teen), which does some decent world-building but appears to leap from set-up to wrap up with barely any middle. In many ways this is admirable, there really isn't much fat on this thing. But having been trained to expect picaresque adventures and complications along the way, it felt a little calorie-free to me.

Perhaps this is because of the time it takes over its set-up. It is mainly show not tell, as we join a future world where energy is running out, and renewables are not keeping up. There are enclaves of 1%-ers who have power, but everyone else gets by with rolling brown-out and the older generation moans that computers and the internet were on all the time when they were younger. Policing has been outsourced to private security firms, creating a different kind of corruption. At the heart of the story is Theo Smith's family - he is a data and computer expert tasked with trying to retroactively discover his father's energy breakthrough technology which die with him (yup - big oil up to their old tricks). He and his wife are kidnapped to work for a private firm, the son gets away. And so we follow the desperate attempts of the son to stay out of the clutches of the baddie, and watch a firm trying to coerce someone to work for them via torture.

Much of this doesn't really work objectively, the kidnap scheme is about a wholly different kind of technology, and the subplot about a global e-sport version of what is basically Civilization is clunky. The problem structurally comes in with the introduction of the operative who will rescue the whole Smith family, not only is he given a strange wannabe nuclear family subplot but he is far too competent. Both rescues basically happen without a hiccup, leading to an anticlimactic wrap-up. Yet at the same time, the book is propulsively written and is peppered with good world-building and attractive characters. I rarely want a book to be longer, but in this case, it felt like it could have done with a bit more sandwich filling. A decent if too quick read.

Pretty good story for an independently published novel. This has the elements of a good tale, and the writing is pretty good. I enjoyed this and stayed mostly engaged.

Thanks very much for the free review copy for review!!