Review: 7.5/10
Synopsis
What happens in the game, stays in the game…
Rabbits is a secret, dangerous and sometimes fatal underground game. The rewards for winning are unclear, but there are rumours of money, CIA recruitment or even immortality. Or it might unlock the universe’s greatest secrets. But everyone knows that the deeper you get, the more deadly the game becomes – and the body count is rising. Since the game first started, ten iterations have taken place… and the eleventh round is about to begin.
K can’t get enough of the game and has been trying to find a way in for years. Then Alan Scarpio, reclusive billionaire and alleged Rabbits winner, shows up out of nowhere. And he charges K with a desperate mission. Something has gone badly wrong with the game and K needs to fix it – before Eleven starts – or the world will pay the price.
Five days later, Scarpio is declared missing.
Two weeks after that Eleven begins, so K blows the deadline.
And suddenly, the fate of the entire universe is at stake.
Review
“The Door is Open.”
First, I’d like to thank Black Crow PR and UK Tor for sending me the ARC, I was intrigued right from the teaser copy, and the cover only added to a mystery that remained so right until the end.
Rabbits is a strange, absorbing – and at times, disturbing – SciFi mystery that holds its cards right until the end, scattering a trail of page-turning breadcrumbs that confuse and intrigue. It’s conspiracy, philosophy and the unknown stitched together into a vivid tapestry that leaves K, the main character, at a loss and in dire straits.
“R U PLAYING?”
The plot, which I’ll really try to skim over, sees K, a Rabbits know-it-all and fanatic, embroiled in an iteration of the game – a worldwide mystery and underground game that’s as deadly as it is hard to play. Only, a famous player contacts him and tells him this round has gone awry and he needs to fix it before he too becomes part of the mystery and disappears. It kept me on the edge of my seat throughout and kept me guessing at what would come next … as Rabbits really is a game you can’t predict. It sets a fast pace from the beginning but felt like it does sag a little through to the ending, which then takes off again. Because the game itself is so bizarre, at no point did I really feel like I had a hold on what it was or how they played it; this created a real sense of intelligence in the main character at the same time as keeping the reader utterly in the dark. Although the game itself was difficult to interpret, the idea that propelled the mystery part of it was something to grab on, and I did find myself pulled along by my own guesses – I, too, felt part of K’s iteration of the game.
From Eidetic memory to deepfakes, from the Berenstain Bears and confirmation bias, this book had me googling conspiracy theories, quantum theory, philosophy, and other weird and wonderful things; it had me playing along almost, learning about new theories and delving back into old theories that I’d read thoroughly about before. I’m well read on the side of conspiracy theories as I find them intriguing if not believable, so it really did pique my interest when a lot of the big real-world ones were woven into the plot. There’s also some things I didn’t know about, like the proper term for photographic memory and how this works, so I found myself doing a bit of extra-curricular reading (haha). So, if you’re into that kind of thing – or even intrigued by it – and ready to fill the gaps in your knowledge, there’s a lot you can get out of Rabbits and it’s great fun in my opinion.
Overall, if you like mysteries that are set in a world of quantum computing and conspiracy, I’d recommend you give this blend of science fiction a go.
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