A cool cyberpunk sci-fi with big ideas and plenty of ass-kicking action, taking place in a world where we have run out of fossil fuels and despots rule the few remaining cities.

Brendan Deneen's TRACER is... fine? It's an extremely quick read, but almost to a fault. The worldbuilding is close to non-existent. It's generic sci-fi/dystopia in many ways. A little Cyberpunk 2077, a little Mad Max. Political power structures are under explained and mostly illogical.

The supposed romance the description for the book mentions isn't much of anything. It starts late and never develops past a sort of high school crush level thing, which is fascinating for a book about a stone cold badass type character. Speaking of, the titular character is tough when she's fighting someone big and scary but somehow also nearly loses every fight, even one bizarre one later in the novel with a character we have been given no expectations of being competent with their fists. It's sort of a "what does this situation need to have a few extra action beats" thing, very fanfiction in its execution.

It's a pleasant enough weekend afternoon binge read, but you've experienced everything this has to offer a few down times before and generally within a setting that's a lot more fully realized.

It was an ok book!! Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this in exchange for an honest review!!!

Set in a futuristic world where plastic is the new currency, Trace is sent on a mission where she not only learns about herself but finds out just who the people in her life really are. She stands strong in the face of danger and always has an answer when times get tough. This book was a really quick and easy read. It was an enjoyable escape from reality.

Ok before I write this, I want to just acknowledge that I am very bad at critiquing things I like. Because of that, this review might be a bit abrupt, all over the place, and less detailed than something I maybe didn’t like as much.

Anyway, suffice it to say, I thought this was a bomb ass book and I loved every minute of it. What a ride, what excitement, and what satisfaction! Oh to be so spoiled in my waking life - we got strong female lead, #girlboss, we got post apocalyptic scifi, check, we got full-on dystopian immersion, check check, we got an emotionally supportive male character, werk… I mean this author gave us a female protagonist who was completely unrelatable yet still very likable from the getgo with a main story line that just moved forward so naturally. And she was just so over the top badass, it was amazing. You knew the big picture of what was going to happen but what a treat consuming every word that it took to get me there. And the thing is, the author also created a layered character who was just oozing with mystery and intrigue. I desperately wanted to know more about Tracer as much as I wanted to know more about the history of this new bleak futuristic world. So, yes, it was all great, wonderful. Now, on to what could have been better.

First, for anyone who is not a fan of violence, there’s quite a bit of it in the book, and implications of torture that perhaps warranted to a trigger warning, even though personally I won’t fault any book for that. Second, the development of Tracer and Ezra’s relationship did not feel natural at all and the whole time I was waiting for the other shoe to drop and it never did. In fact, there was quite a lot of unrealistic positivity in the story overall, what with it being very feelgood towards the end and everything being packaged very neatly. It felt a little too safe when you started to see the pattern that nothing too horrible really happened to the characters that mattered and it kind of undermined the overall suspense. It’s hard to hold your breath as the characters are raking risks if the risks never actually materialize. Once you know they’re all getting out of there alive, the story gets considerably less dark, which is not a bad thing but it did take away some of the edge that made the story so exciting. So a lot of what made the end great for me was just how nicely it all came together and less so that the story was super compelling, because it kind of wasn’t.

That said, I LOVED what happened with her brother and I thought the author made a very poignant observation about childhood trauma, adult manipulation, the human need for being nurtured and accepted, etc. We all thought it was going to go one way because that’s how any other book would have set it up and then something else happened. Wild.

But yeah, as for what else I would have asked for… more backstory, how did the President get to where she is? How did everything really fall apart? How did they get back up and running? How many other towns are in this world?? I’m not sure if that’s really a flaw, but it did feel like some unfinished ideas and I wanted that filled in a bit more. I would not have complained if the book was a little bit longer and I would have like to see more of the brother.

So, while I loved this book, I can recognize its flaws and say that they just didn’t bother me all that much.

Confidently, 3.5 ⭐️ rounded up.

3.5 stars.

This book had some really cool ideas that I wanted to explore - a future world where humanity is concentrated in cities built on garbage dumps, where plastic is highly sought after and the dregs of humanity scrounge for all they can find. Tracer is the enforcer, bodyguard, and right hand man of "President" Bell, leader of PH City. Sent to Apex city with pyrotech Brisby to help repair the city's power source, Tracer finds more adventure than she's bargained for.

Unfortunately, the villain falls a little flat. [ I feel like it was made abundantly clear that President Bell didn't care for anything or anyone except herself, but yet Tracer was surprised that she turned on her, sold Brisby, and attacked her in the end. Did anyone NOT see that coming? (hide spoiler)]

Additionally, the leaders of both PH City and Apex City are almost cartoonish in their portrayal of power and corruption. Gunner's "character growth" was basically just a switch being flipped. What could have been an exciting journey through a futuristic world felt a little like a let down. It just felt like it could have been more.

I did really enjoy the read - thanks to netgalley, publisher, and author for the opportunity. If Tracer ever gets out there again, hit me up.

I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest evaluation of its merits.

I have some mixed feelings about this book and my review will include some spoilers.

On the plus side, the idea of trash powering the cities of the future and the quest to get more "fuel" at the expense of those forced to collect the plastic is interesting.

There also is some well-paced action in the story and a love sub-plot that is light on the actual romance (it is definitely low on the spicy scale).

The challenges, I felt, were twofold: 1) the location of the capital is Puente Hills, California. Personally, I have spent my entire life a short drive from this location and it beggars belief that this would be the capital of the United States. Yes, a Wikipedia search will tell you it was the site of the largest landfill in the United States, but the details of the location's "history" seem practically nonexistent as if the only research for the site location was the aforementioned Wiki entry. Apex seems a little better, but maybe that's only because I don't leave nearby the Las Vegas suburb.

2) President Bell talks like Joe Pesci in Goodfellas, with an F-bomb every other sentence. It was, for my taste, overdone to the point it lost its efficacy. The reveal that she actually hates the protagonist and is using her may be surprising to Tracer, but not really the rest of us.

In short, the story is OK, but not as strong as I had hoped it would be.

Anti-Romantic and Anti-Scientific Pop Fiction
Brendan Deneen, Tracer (Ashland: Black Stone Publishing, September 2, 2025). Hardcover: $25.20. 280pp. ISBN: 979-8-200965-02-1.
**
“…Sci-fi romance adventure that sends one mercenary on a dangerous mission across a postapocalyptic landscape.” It’s basically Earth now: with drug addicts, debt-collectors, garbage, and the like. Many novels make this mistake of just describing the problems we are currently having, and pretending they are futuristic by stressing how dire they are. “In the near future—after a virus has swept the globe and the oil has run dry—what’s left of humanity has created a new technology, one that turns plastic back into oil. A mad scramble for resources ensues, with new cities being built on the seven largest landfills in the world. Plastic is the new gold. Tracer is the adopted daughter and hired gun for the president of PH City—built outside of what used to be Los Angeles, atop the Puente Hills landfill. When a distress call comes from the landfill city outside of Las Vegas, the president of PH sends Tracer to answer it. But Trace soon discovers this mission is more than she bargained for, and that a dangerous deal has been struck without her knowledge, sending her further down a complex and violent path…”
This novel starts with a detailed description of a kicking and punching fight over a failure to collect on an outstanding debt by a muscle for a debt-collector. There is a lack of details about where the characters are, or why this is the future. Later in the novel, there are scattered mentions of “mountains of garbage”, and “plastic… brokers”. Instead of explaining these strange references, the author focuses on a character looking at parents “and feeling safe, like nothing could ever hurt her”. This is a cliché phrase that is basically a non-saying that does not explain anything.
The novel ends with a general hugging scene, while characters are chatting about nothing in particular, and deciding on some random place to drive to next. There are absolutely no details, of a futuristic type, or otherwise: events can be taking place in any “desert” on Earth at any time.
There is some kissing and cuddling at the end, when the narrator notes he is finally “falling in love”. If he was not in love before, how can this be a “romance”? The first mention of a kiss occurs in the second half of the book (page 170-1): “Trace kissed him, and though she had seen people do it, had heard people talk about it, the sensation was unlike anything…” This girl is apparently so happy with this strange new experience that “she grabbed him” to do it again. No details are given to explain just what was so special about this experience of swapping saliva, or a description of how they did this, other than she wrapped “her arms around his body”. Such make-out scenes seem to always be written by dudes, as they express an extreme level of excitement and stimulation from a simple kiss, where the female actors are likely to be far less excited than the men who might be sufficiently aroused by this contact. Since this is the first mention of kissing in this novel, this means there was no earlier explanation about why these dystopian people lack sexual education classes that would have taught them about kissing. The first mention of “homeschooling” appears on page 53, in a description of a character “making” their daughter “finish her lessons at night when I get home in time. Jenna is too tired to enforce the rules after homeschooling her all day”. This does not explain why homeschooling lacks sex-ed.
There is even no mention of a “virus” or “viral” across this novel, despite the blurb stating this is the trigger for the central dystopia. The first mention of “oil” appears on page 15: “the giant pyrolysis machines chugged and belched, turning plastic back into oil, the lifeblood of Puente Hills”. The blurb had set up that oil had run out, and that now people have come up with strategies of recycling to make more oil despite nature showing it was outmoded by ending its sources in the ground. This is indeed a dystopic or depressing vision of people continuing to pollute the planet even after the easy or cheap access to oil in the ground runs out. This mention of garbage-cities is also too unclear in the text itself, as the explanation is clearer in the blurb. The dialogue and actions within the novel are too vague for these oil-processing plants to be of clear relevance to the plot.
Readers who chose this novel because they are interested in epidemiology would be disappointed, and frustrated at not having their curiosity repaid. This blurb also promises to describe a dystopia where “oil” has run out in the ground, so people build cities on garbage-dumps to recycle plastic back into oil: “the giant pyrolysis machines chugged and belched, turning plastic back into oil, the lifeblood of Puente Hills” (15). There are a few later mentions of “oil”, but typically with almost no specifics about the “machine” making it, but rather with insult-laden empty dialogue around these references that avoid any scientific research (28-9).
This is a poorly-written novel that is mislabeled as “science fiction”, when it is a lightly-structured romance with spicy insults that make it rather anti-romantic.
Pennsylvania Literary Journal: Spring 2025 issue: https://anaphoraliterary.com/journals/plj/plj-excerpts/book-reviews-spring-2025

Tracer had an incredibly promising premise—a post-collapse world where society runs on scavenged plastic and high-stakes missions determine survival. Unfortunately, the execution didn’t live up to the concept.

The worldbuilding was where this book could’ve shined, but instead it felt shallow. There were fascinating ideas introduced, like pyrolysis machines and power dynamics between crumbling cities, but they were never explored in satisfying depth. I found myself constantly wishing for more backstory, more explanation, and more immersion in how this world came to be.

The pacing dragged for much of the story, and emotional connections between characters felt rushed and underdeveloped. There are moments of strong female empowerment and glimpses of a wider, complex world, but they’re brief and not fully realized.

While the book sets up an exciting framework, it never delivers the weight or momentum the concept deserved. If you’re a reader who needs deep worldbuilding and well-earned character arcs, this might leave you wanting more.