A Better World (Brilliance Saga #2) by Marcus Sakey

First impression

This is the second installment on the Brilliance Saga. I really enjoyed the first one (you can find my review here) and so it was a no-brainer to get the second one. Sakey continues to tackle the subject of how society reacts to difference from the status quo, and since we were already introduce to the concept of brilliance, A Better World leans more towards the political part of the equation. How would science deal with a new phenomenon, how would the oppress minority counter react to such oppression, how would the government and the anti government institutions play their cards? All of these questions and more are discussed in this series and certainly with more depth in this second part. I can only hope there is a third one.

Final thoughts

First thing I have to commend from this book is how it tackles science. Sometimes books, particularly on science fiction, go into such an elaborated push of science or even worst, state things that are in no way possible; both situations are hard for me to digest, particularly when the deal with biology. I did not get that from this book. Every scientific explanation was well constructed and made sense in accordance with the world that was being built by the author, without being so overly complicated that would made me lose interest.

Another thing that I really enjoyed was the multiple layers of every character. Every time I think I am starting to know the character and will be able to know what he/she is going to do another facet appears and it changes the result beautifully. They are very...human characters if you want, they are not all bad not all good. Characters that you were rooting for in the first book, you might want to slap them in this one and the other way around.

And Sharon, she is a great character; she is a bad ass all the way through. The scenes of her commanding attacks, for example; she has an imposing, determined personality, but can also be very sweet and endearing at times.

The rhythm of the book is good and I would say fast enough for an action book, without omitting details, or passing through them in a blur. Once again, enough detail to make it interesting, without making it into a dissertation. At times I will admit that I could do with a less description of people's intents through Nick's eyes, but at the same time, these scenes go so fast that they don't necessarily bother me, and it gives the book a movie feeling; I feel this would be a great series to make into a TV series or even a movie, and if I am not mistaken there is already talk of it happening.

So with all this praise, why am I not giving it a full 5? There is still something missing but I haven't been able to pin point to what it is. At the end I get what I was expecting and it was very well delivered, but I can't say with certainty that I got more than that.

Brilliance by Marcus Sakey

First impressions

I remember hearing about this book through BookRiot, thinking, well it sounds like a fun concept. It remind me a bit of X-men sure, but I was still willing to give it a try. I was not disappointed.

Final thoughts

The premise of the book is that ever since the 80’s there has been more and more kids born called brilliants since they show particular heightened skills, in mathematics, pattern recognition and others. They are at first considered gifted, but as so happens often when something threatens a status quo, soon society starts fearing them and when a bloody attack by one of the brilliants activist, the fears seems to be well founded. Academies meant to educate brilliant kids only pop up all over and intend to form this kids to be “well behaved citizens” that will use their “gift” for their government…but they will be taken away from their families in the process, lose their original identities and learn to distrust other brilliants…all to protect our society as it is. The main character, Nick Cooper is a gifted agent, working for the government, trying to stop the bad guys. Until a particularly aggressive attack makes him go undercover to try to catch the most dangerous man alive.

This was a very good thriller. Yes it took me almost a month to listen to it, but mostly because other books came up that I had to finish first (don’t they always?). Anyway, first of all, kudos to Luke Daniels, I believe he has an amazing voice for this type of books. Great voicing of very different characters.

Now, the book itself was very entertaining. At first I was afraid that is was going to be a bit too much like X-Men and I think it is inevitable to have the stories compared if you are familiar with one another. However, Brilliance’s characters are mostly people who are good at reading a certain set of patterns that is already there. The way it was described made me think of people with Asperger Syndrome minus the social interaction difficulties (this mostly present with non-brilliants and due to rejection) or the nonverbal communication.

The book touches, unsurprisingly, political behaviours towards minorities as well as taking some big twists to show that no one is who you might be led to believe they are. My favorite character was Shannon, she was such a bad-ass, sassy, sarcastic…a very memorable and enjoyable character.

The pacing was fantastic, again, don’t be fooled by the fact that it took me so long to finish it; I don’t normally listen to audiobooks once I am at home with Alex, but the truth is that I just couldn’t not finish the book once it got to the last third, and so I spend hours on our bed, not talking to anyone, looking at the ceiling saying: oh wow, did not see that coming, ouch,…anyway. You get my point. I can’t wait to read the sequel.