The Bit Dance - Tilmer Wright Jr. - ★★★.¼

AUTHOR: Tilmer Wright Jr.

GENRE: Contemporary Science Fiction

PUBLICATION DATE: March 1, 2023

RATING: 3.25 stars.

In a Nutshell: An imaginative techno-fantasy. Intricate plot and interesting characters. But much overwritten. A strict round of editing will help the book deliver even better. If you aren’t particular about telling vs. showing and enjoy technological sci-fi, this is a great indie option for your reading list.

Plot Preview:

Kayla Henry is a fourteen-year-old tech genius. But no matter how impressive her achievements, her father Alan always expects more from her. Her mom Marie tries to be the voice of reason, but Kayla only wants to make her perfectionist father happy.

Alan is working on a ground-breaking robot toy for kids, and his company expects him to have the product ready for a Christmas launch. When he is stuck at one point, Kayla, unknown to him, decides to “help out.” This action leads to an unanticipated situation, and an ex-KGB officer named Kozlov further adds to the chaos of this tangles mess. Soon, it is a battle of human vs. technology.

The story comes to us mostly in the third person perspective of various characters.

Bookish Yays:

🍯 Love the cover of my edition! It is perfect for the book.

🍯 There are five key characters in the book: the four members of the Henry family and the Russian agent. All their personalities are established clearly at the start, so we know why they behave the way they do.

🍯 Seth (Kayla’s elder brother who is berated by Alan for being weak in studies) and Marie are the most likeable characters in the book as they are genuine and relatable, even with their flaws. Marie also seems to be the only reasonable person in the book.

🍯 Love the focus on the idea of individuality in children and the damaging effects of a perfectionist parent on even talented kids.

🍯 The second half of the book functions much better than the first half. It gets really creepy at times, thereby amping up the overall experience.

🍯 In a world where AI seems to have become the buzzword, it is interesting to read a story depicting a much darker potential of AI. Not that it is a unique plot point, but the execution is very interesting, especially in how it derives its fundamentals from a creature of mother nature. The idea of ‘evolution’ in AI comes out really well.

🍯 Loved the ending! Not saying more about it.

Bookish Mixed Bags:

🐝 The book suffers from a minor identity crisis, in that its exact target audience is tough to figure out. In genre, it is very clear: it is a techno fantasy. But Kayla, one of the main protagonists, is just fourteen, giving the book a YA feel, especially as Seth and she also tackle plenty of school-related problems. However, Alan and Kozlov are obviously adults, and equally key to the plot. Alan’s arc has a lot of technical details thanks to his work profile, and Kozlov’s arc is full of USSR/Russian references that younger readers definitely won’t understand. Given the complexity of the content, the book serves adults better, though I doubt many adults want to read extended school-related struggles.

🐝 Kayla and Alan have major roles in the plot, and thus, their characters are complicated. But they aren’t likeable for most of the way. If you prefer having goody-goody protagonists in your novels, this isn’t your book. I did like the shades of grey in their behaviour, but at times, the grey went a tad too far.

🐝 The book is infused with loads of details connected to the world of IT. The comp nerd in me geeked out at many of the technical intricacies, but I doubt a lay reader from a non-techie background would be happy with so much talk about programming and databases and keys and cross-referencing and integrity rules and what not.

🐝 The storyline is quite farfetched, not in the technological aspects but in the number of coincidences and instant solutions/resolutions. That said, most thrillers today are larger than life, so I guess this isn’t that big an issue. (Though it is the reason I don’t read many thrillers these days.)

Bookish Nays:

💥 The book is highly over-written. There is a lot of telling and hardly any showing. As a reader, I like to do my own thinking, so it was somewhat annoying to see every thought and word and action being interpreted and explained in detail. At times, these elucidations also involved tangential backstories that had nothing to do with the present scenario. The pacing of the book was also affected by the needless repetition. All this might not bother many readers, especially those who prefer getting all details, but it was a major issue for me, and brought down my overall satisfaction with the storyline.

💥 This is more of a ME problem than a BOOK problem. I don’t like the trope where every Russian is a villain out to push the capitalist USA down on its knees. It seems very generalised and lopsided, though I understand how some of this is based in reality and why Americans might enjoy such stories better.

All in all, the repetitious writing bogged me down a little. Though the concept is imaginative, there is nothing left to the imagination. That said, I still liked the story, especially in the second half. If this indie novel goes through a round of strict editing to whittle down the redundancies and convert the writing to a more “show rather than tell’ kind of style, it will deliver a bigger impact. The plot has all the elements required to make an entertaining commercial thriller.

Recommended to SFF readers looking for a twisty techno story with a strong family dynamic and who aren’t finicky about telling vs. showing.

3.25 stars. (Would have been 0.5 stars higher had the writing style worked better for me.)

The digital version of this book is currently available free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers.

My thanks to author Tilmer Wright Jr. for providing me with a complimentary copy of “The Bit Dance”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.