Ravi Subramanian’s new novel “God is a gamer” is a thriller woven with a banking
background ( as usual). I received this copy of the book signed by the author
from blogadda for review
When I picked up this book for review and reading, I thought
it is going to be a one another typical Ravi’s novel with overdose of NYIB
events. But to my surprise there wasn’t any overdose of banking power politics.
The story is although woven around the concept of “Virtual money”.
The narrative starts in the US with companies like Master
card, Visa doing some lobbying to protect their business. It also gets into how
the US government tries to kill wiki leaks et all. The official involved in all
of these activities gets killed and then the story moves on to India.
( Hats off to the author for using real life names in the book- Mastercard, Visa, wikileaks, Facebook, RBI, Farmville, etc except for “Citibank” and “E-serve”)
( Hats off to the author for using real life names in the book- Mastercard, Visa, wikileaks, Facebook, RBI, Farmville, etc except for “Citibank” and “E-serve”)
The story in India takes us back to the characters from Ravi’s
first book. Story moves on with
narratives of investigation in the US, Board room of a gaming company, Romance
in the beaches of Goa, The race for governor of RBI and Series of ATM crime in the US.
The story confluences at the end to reveal the plot. However,
I felt that the plot got a big dragged in mid-way. So, any reader can safely
skip a few chapters after pg 150 or so and then read the climax ( without
having really missed anything).
The real culprit is caught in the end. The story after the
epilogue actually reveals “the culprit” and the real culprit was trapped for
the misdoings of the past.
The author seems to have done some decent research on topics
covered including bitcoins, encryption, card skimming, etc. Atleast a
non-technical reader will find the facts stated to be convincing.
Some lines- which I liked from the reading.
“In those days India , I could have spund the ‘ India as an
investment destination’ story. A country of one billion people made global
bankers salivate and put in money year after year in the hope that profits
would come some day.People these days don’t have the appetite for that.There is
no room for dissent.Indian teams of
multinationals these days a expected to execute and NOT THINK”
“Career longevity is more important than career
enhancement.Jobs are few and many people are chasing them.Your first priority
should be to save your job.if you live, you get to fight your battle another
day”.
“ How Can I Expect you to remember how Socrates died 2500
years ago?” “Well, 2500 years pass and the means of killing remain the same”-
Hemlock seeds.
Overall, a good read if you have not attempted any of the
author’s previous book. Else you may be able to predict the events that unfold.
Should we expect anything from the author that doesn’t have any influence
of Citibank ..oh Sorry NYIB…Looking
forward for a fresher theme and thinking from Ravi.
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