God is a Gamer by Ravi Subramanian

Title-God is a Gamer

Author-Ravi Subramanian

Published by-Penguin India

Pages-320

Price-299 INR

Source-Blogadda Book Review Program 

               I am a big fan of Ravi Subramanian.(I think my love for anything written by him is well known among the regular readers of this blog).I have the copies of all his published works (till date) and it's not very long ago that we had reviewed his last work 'Bankerupt' here in RT.Touted as World's first bit-coin thriller,'God is a Gamer' is the master story teller's latest work and comes with a rather catchy tag line- 'Is revenge a Crime'?
               If you are a regular reader of Subramanian's thrillers,I'm quite confident that you are familiar with his template.There will be multiple,seemingly unrelated incidents/narratives(atleast one of them involving a murder),a wronged protagonist with his own share of flaws,frequent twists and turns and a couple of unexpected revelations in the fag end of the story.Well,the formula is almost the same here too.But what makes this new novel different from his previous works is it's setting and the concept of bit-coins.Besides,the book also touches upon the gaming industry,politician-underworld nexus,phishing and corporate fraud,to name a few.
               The story starts off with a Corporate fraud happening in the U.S which culminates in the murder of a powerful politician.Enter Adrian Scott,the officer in charge of the investigation.Meanwhile there is a phishing scam happening in the Newyork International Bank and no one has any clue about who is actually behind it.There is another track involving Varun-Tanya duo.Everything is not as they seem to be and by the end of the story,we get to know that all are inter-related.
              For the majority of us who are quite new to the concept of bit-coins,'God is a Gamer' will come across as an informative book.It not only describes the business of them but also explains the transaction process in a simple and lucid manner.This is a slightly lengthier work ,but the good thing is that Subramanian has managed to maintain a fairly decent pace throughout.The reader will never get bored and with twists and turns happening at regular intervals,the book is definitely an engaging read,to a certain extend.It seems he has taken a lesser or two from the James Patterson syndicate for the chapters are really short and hardly more than a couple of pages(there are a total of 89 chapters in this 300 odd page novel!).It's obvious that he has done his homework well and the end product is a well researched,no-nonsense inter-continental thriller.
               The book isn't entirely flawless though.In the initial chapters,there are multiple characters getting introduced to the reader in quick succession.Though the author can't be blamed for adopting such a writing style,I'm not sure how well it will go down with the 'average,casual' reader.There are twists galore but I must say that atleast on a couple of occassions they are forced and totally unconvincing.There are too many things happening in the plot and the reader can't be blamed for losing track of the proceedings mid-way.The middle portions of the novel drags big time and one gets the feeling that editor could have done a better job by trimming these over-long portions.   

Verdict: On the whole,'God is a Gamer' is a fairly engaging thriller and makes for a decent one time read.My rating-3/5

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-nikhimenon