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In Insignia, Tom Raines is offered a position in the military in a world in which wars are now fought virtually.
The beginning gave me this ’80s vibe because of all the virtual-reality games that Tom plays. The setup is very similar to Ender’s Game, but the rest of the story was different enough that it didn’t feel like a copycat. There’s a lot of technical stuff and details at the beginning that made it hard to get into at first. The pace feels a little slow because there are some long historical passages about the world. I didn’t see how all these details could be relevant at first, but Kincaid utilizes all the details you know about the world to create some really cool conflicts. About halfway through, the pace picked up and the author’s attention to detail spilled over into the interesting, funny and sarcastic characters and their complex relationships. I flew through the last half of the book. The author surprised me more than once with some awesome plot twists. She did something with computers that I haven’t seen done before and then made it so funny. If you’re a fan of science fiction or video games (like I am), go grab this book.
Rating: Moderate, for several violent scenes.
