"Netopia" by Y.G. Levimor

Okay, so this is another book that I had to give up on before I even reached the halfway point. I really wanted to like it since the concept of the story was very interesting, but the more I read, the less I wanted to keep reading. Eventually I just reached a point where I decided that I just couldn’t take it any longer and had to quit.

This book seemed to be set in a futuristic world where you could connect to one person or to many through a sort of mental internet. (Sounds interesting so far, doesn’t it?) Everything about your living space can look however you want it to look, from your furniture, to the view from your living space, and even to your clothing. Since you rarely have to leave your living space, it doesn’t even matter if you wander around all day in your underwear or in nothing at all. Anyone you connect with through “Minds” will see you however you want to be viewed.

Even physical relationships can take place in this virtual world, and your avatars can look like whatever you desire. You can also genetically design your own children. Though it would appear that sometimes the computer program helping you to design your child might not catch a “bug” in the programming that causes unintentional and unfortunate results. These “accidents” don’t usually appear until the child is several years old; clearly far too late to correct the problem. (That program was quickly shut down and children went back to being conceived and born the natural and old-fashioned way.) One of the more disturbing parts here involved the creator of the child design software secretly wishing he could collect all the unfortunate results of his program and kill them all off.

What really lost my interest in this book was when it often seemed to degenerate into gratuitous, graphic sex. I don’t mind when sex scenes fit with the story, but here they were just starting to devolve into random encounters that the author would throw in when it appeared that he felt he needed one. Since the two participants didn’t even need to be in a room together, they often were set as fantasy encounters designed by the participants to amuse themselves. This is definitely not a book for younger readers. A few of these encounters were more than enough for me.

I’m sure there are those out there who might enjoy this book, I just don’t happen to be one of them. My apologies for another incomplete review, but I just couldn’t bring myself to finish this book. I tried, but I kept finding myself getting distracted and wandering off to do other things with little desire to return to reading it. Eventually I just had to admit that I really wasn’t enjoying it and didn’t want to continue. My apologies for anyone who may have been looking forward to a full review of this book.

Please feel free to leave me any comments on any of my reviews. So far, while I’m sure that at least some of you are coming back and reading my opinions, no one has given me any feedback. Hopefully you’re enjoying what I’m saying about the books I’ve read and reviewed. And with a little luck, maybe some of my reviews are helping you find something to read that you might not have picked up otherwise.

Happy reading!
Mom Kat