Cydonia

Cydonia is the second volume in the Web series of young adult fiction, written by Ken Mcleod.

Some where out there there's a link to this page saying that I've reviewed everything MacLeod has published, which can't be true all the time, but I can do my best and review as much as I can find. Even if it means reading kids or young-adult books. Cydonia is a book in as series for kids called The Web (the series include books by authors like Peter F. Hamilton and Stephen Baxter – all centred on the web and taking place in the years 2027 and 2028). I'm a bit unsure as to what age group this books is intended for and it doesn't say on the cover, but I wound guess somewhere around fifth or sixths grade, maybe older. But then again I don't have much experience with kids (except I once was one) or children's books (except I once read them).

As I said, Cydonia takes place in the year 2028, in a world where the web has gone virtual reality, but besides that everything is quite normal (I guess to keep things simple). The main character Link gets wind of a possible conspiracy while visiting a virtual cafe called Cydonia, and soon there are black helicopters (both virtual and real), Men in Black and web-cops hot at his heels. The most amazing thing about this book is that MacLeod manages to comment and tell about the Northern Ireland problem (as of today) and make it central to his story in the future. And there in lays the biggest surprise of this book, MacLeod is every bit as political as he is in his adult books. I'm not sure how this will work on an eight or nine year old, but I love it.

At a bit over a hundred pages Cydonia is nothing but a small snack for your average hardcore MacLeod fan, but it's a nice snack and hopefully it can hook some young and innocent book reader to the joys of MacLeod. Recommended to any kid at a fitting reading level, with an interest in the web and/or conspiracy theories.