Week 33 Review: Battle of the Linguist Mages

From Goodreads:

In modern day Los Angeles, a shadowy faction led by the Governor of California develops the arcane art of combat linguistics, planting the seeds of a future totalitarian empire.

Isobel is the Queen of the medieval rave-themed VR game Sparkle Dungeon. Her prowess in the game makes her an ideal candidate to learn the secrets of "power morphemes"—unnaturally dense units of meaning that warp perception when skillfully pronounced.

But Isobel's reputation makes her the target of a strange resistance movement led by spellcasting anarchists, who may be the only thing stopping the cabal from toppling California over the edge of a terrible transformation, with forty million lives at stake.

Time is short for Isobel to level up and choose a side—because the cabal has attracted much bigger and weirder enemies than the anarchist resistance, emerging from dark and vicious dimensions of reality and heading straight for planet Earth!

My Review:
I enjoyed this book! It was so weird though, and oh, was it dense, which made sense given what was going on, with the power morphemes. So much happened in this book, there were so many game changing elements-and then it add another one on top of it all. It was wild! And with everything going on, there was still time for various social commentary, like government and rebellions, which was awesome.

Isobel is a kick ass Queen in the video game, but in real life, she's lacking a purpose. And then she gets this job, starts learning about the power morphemes. It really gave her a chance to grow confidence in herself, with how she dealt with everything. 

With every part, the world and the scope got bigger, more intense, and mind-boggling. Starting with the power morphemes, and what they can do, to the different dimensions of reality, and it just kept going! There were several moments where my main reaction was "what the" and I just had to go along for the ride.

The ending was really great, I loved how she used her skills for a plan that worked in some regards. And that final face off, loved how that worked out. I would've liked a little bit more of a conclusion, because there was so much still left to resolve, like Violet and Alexander. Oh, well! 

I enjoyed this book, and I can't wait to see what Scotto Moore writes next! 

Author: Scotto Moore
Read: August 18th, 2022
Source: NetGalley 
Reason Why: Sounded really great, and it's a SAC 2022 Book! 
Publisher: Tordotcom
Published: January 11th 2022

5/5 Hearts

4/5 Books

4/5 Stars