An Eighty Percent Solution by Thomas Gondolfi
Published by Tanstaafl Press
Review by Dani Hoots
Synopsis, taken from Tanstaafl Press page:
In a world where corporations suborn governments as a part of good business practice and unregistered humans can be killed without penalty, Tony Sammis, a mid level corporate functionary, finds himself unwittingly in the middle of a guerrilla war between a powerful cabal of business leaders and an elusive underground movement. Tony’s solution to the biological terror unleashed mirrors his own twisted sense of justice.
An Eighty Percent Sollution by Thomas Gondolfi takes plane in a futuristic dystopian world where billions of people live in the cities, there isn’t much food or work, laws are put in place so others can barely do anything without getting sued or losing there job, and life, to what I imagine, must suck. The story starts out with Tony performing CPR on a woman and losing his job because he did not have a medical license to do so. He ends up joining Sonya GAM to help bring back the old peaceful world that once existed. Meanwhile, a CEO of Nanogate is trying to control everything on Earth and take over police, governments, and anything in their path to gain both money and power.
The world is very detailed, the author went into great detail creating it, although I never could see it happening, that is why it is called fiction. The world reminded me a bit of Blade Runner with the crowded streets, tall buildings, and just the overall atmosphere with evil police and no one wanting to get involved.
I didn’t particularly like the main character as I didn’t really feel anything for him. He just felt like a typical sci-fi male character to me with no depth. I did enjoy Sonya as she was interesting in some areas of her life, but in the end I still didn’t feel a connection with her either.
The prose itself felt very technically and didn’t flow the way I like in a novel. One part of that problem could be that is told in third person and I never got a connection to the character. There were also some errors in the book, though not that distracting, and the use of adjectives got excessive at times. The amount of detail that goes to the scenery could be mimicked for detail within the characters mind, giving more depth, and I think it would be a lot more interesting to me.
All in all it was an interesting book and if you like hard science fiction and world building, then you should check out this book. But if you are more character centered and want to connect to the character, I wouldn’t recommend it. I give it a 3/5 because the characters could be developed some more, but the world building is well done and consistant.
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