This was such an interesting read. We are thrown right into the story about a man being cast out of his village and our protagonist inadvertently getting the same “punishment”.

We follow Handry’s tale from his point of view and how he recalls it all happening. Immediately I could tell we were dealing with a settlement that was dealing with an advanced AI system that they unfortunately really knew absolutely nothing about. Each of these villages just mindlessly followed the voices of the Ghosts and never thought to think outside of it or for themselves. It immediately gave me mind control vibes but as the story progressed I started to realize it was more than that.

The story really takes a turn for the dark when you meet Sharskin, dude was the embodiment of a crazy, occult, religious man. At first, I was like “hey this dude seems cool” then the situation made a 180 so fast that I just knew things were only going to go downhill from there. Sharskin was a frightening man, and his actions were so violent and the crazy part was that everyone he managed to brainwash with his speeches never thought anything more of it. But that goes to show that power and violence against the already weak and worn down are the perfect combination for a crazy power hungry man to take control. This man had one goal in mind and he was going to reach it in any manner he could.

The whole idea of a world full of humans that are completely controlled by one entity or another is fascinating. There was a lot of brainwashing and preaching and ideologies thrown around in this short story but It was captivating. I also appreciated that it didn’t necessarily go the route of a bad AI system, but i wouldn’t necessarily say it was good, definitely flawed.

For the most part one can say the story was predictable, there were elements that I was able to tell were going to go a certain way, and then there were elements that came as a shock. But the story kept me on edge with a need to know what was going on, how this world came to be, how Handry is able to tell me this story, that is something that I love from a first person point of view, it always makes me wonder how they got themselves to the point of being able to tell me what happened, and with some of these events in this story I really was curious.

The cast of characters is small, and that worked perfectly for the story, Handry was a great protagonist and I really enjoyed the way he told his tale. He kept you interested and on edge, waiting for the next bit of information, he even a few times stated that he knew you the reader had already guessed were parts of his story were going, which was a fun little twist I enjoyed.

It’s a quick and easy read, maybe a bit slow on some parts and at times a little confusing with the technology speech but that’s more a personal understanding but then anything on my part. All around though a very fascinating tale.