Run_program>Insignia_review.exe

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Sean McLaughlin

Insignia

By S.J. Kincaid

What if part of your brain was replaced with a computer? Part of your mind being replaced with a cold, unfeeling machine, thoughts being replaced by ones and zeroes. You would have any information you wanted at any time but at what cost? These are the some of the questions that Thomas Raines asks himself in Insignia by S.J. Kincaid.

Tom is a teenage boy that lives in a dystopian future of Earth where corporations have copyrighted everything, even the all of the world’s water and food supply are trademarked by two separate companies. World War three has erupted but is fought on Saturn’s moons with drones that are remotely piloted by people. Tom lives with his gambler of a father, Neil, and bounces around from different casinos gambling away all of his money. Tom often has to make bets playing games with people at the casino to get him and his dad a place to stay for the night. Tom hasn’t logged onto his virtual school in two months and is in danger of being taken away from his father. That is until he passes a virtual test in the form of a video game made by an army recruiter and is given the choice of joining the military at the Pentagonal Spire. To be able to pilot the drones in space someday, he must have a neural processor installed in his head which gives him a large dilemma. Does he give up some of his humanity for the chance to be somebody someday or does he go back to his dad and to being a nobody?

This book is definitely a fun time if you enjoy science fiction as it deals with lots of interesting things like virtual reality simulations and futuristic weaponry. You will probably like this book if you are in the mood for some intense moral questions such as asking if it is okay to forcefully scan through people’s memories or to hack their brains directly and give them viruses. Insignia  also has some of the most believable teenage characters that I have seen in a long time. They talk much like how I would to my friends and react genuinely to the strange situations that they get put in (like gym class being a simulation but the main group of kids quickly figure out that if they die in the simulation they get to not do gym). What most surprised me about this book were the rather adult themes that are present such as ethical and moral questions and even bringing up the genocide of an entire city from a corporation. The book has some rather large anti establishment themes, Tom’s dad embodies these very well like the reason why he doesn’t have a job is that “You mean why haven’t I jammed my neck in the yoke of corporate servitude?” The anti establishment themes bring up questions about real life as what if in the future a company really does manage to copyright all of the water on the planet? How the war is fought is also an interesting topic, one of the characters describes the benefits as being “we avoid most of the consequences such as debilitating injuries, human deaths, disruption of infrastructure, and environmental contamination.” The book is set far enough in the future that it is interesting to see how things work, but is close enough to today that the themes still apply.

I would recommend this book to people that enjoyed any of the Percy Jackson books as the premise of Insignia is pretty similar. It revolves around a group of teenagers that are put in a strange situation but Insignia is more science fiction with a bit of history thrown in there. I would also recommend this book to people that like science fiction in general and are fans of dystopian futures. This book is also filled with very human characters with distinct and memorable personalities and flaws and if you are looking for that with a bit of a sci-fi flare to it, Insignia is a good book for you. Also if you enjoy video games to a good degree I would give this one a look, as its most comparable to Ready Player One but without all the gushing about how great the 80’s were. If none of these things sounded interesting I would advise you to avoid this book.