Book Review: Influx by Daniel Suarez

Genre: Science Fiction, Thriller

Series: Stand Alone

Publisher: Dutton (February 20, 2014)

Author Information: Website

Mogsy’s Rating: 2.5 of 5 stars

Daniel Suarez has made a name for himself when it comes to techno-thrillers, and his talent for combining science with action has garnered him much praise and comparisons to the late Michael Crichton. And also, let’s not forget how much I enjoyed Suarez’s Daemon duology. All of this made me pretty excited for Influx, so now that I’m done I still find myself stunned to admit I was disappointed.

Many theories for generating artificial gravity have been proposed for decades, and even more have been presented by science fiction writers using all manner of methods and inventions. Jon Grady, particle physicist and the protagonist of Influx has achieved a breakthrough in the manipulation of gravity that would change the world. But instead of being showered with awards and lauded by the scientific community, his lab is shut down by a rogue government organization called the Bureau of Technology Control, his research deemed too dangerous to be unleashed on the unknowing public.

Grady himself is locked away in a secret prison when he refuses to cooperate, after BTC fakes his death and steals his gravity reflection technology. He’s not the only one who has had his life taken away like this. It turns out that the world is more technologically advanced than we think, but the BTC has been monitoring science and technology for a long time, covering up and commandeering numerous revolutionizing discoveries and disappearing their creators to prevent social upheaval at all costs. In his nightmarish prison, Grady meets other great minds who have been held captive and they begin to formulate a plan of escape and to bring down the BTC.

With a snappy plot like that, I shouldn’t have felt put off, but I did. Frustration is perhaps the best way to describe my experience, especially with the earlier and later parts of this novel. The author clearly loves technology and enjoys talking up the features of both the real and fictitious aspects of it, which would have been fine — except often I felt like it was done to the detriment of his story. He places a lot of emphasis on the science and tech, an example being the pages upon pages towards the end of the novel dedicated to describing the use of a device, which coupled with Grady’s gravity reflection research would allow a person to “fly”. Instances like these do more than disrupt the pacing of the plot, because I think it also takes away from his characters and make them feel less compelling.

It’s a shame, because the book is at its best when the focus in on the characters, reminding me what I loved so much about Suarez’s Daemon and Freedom™. I was initially drawn to the series because of my inability to resist anything sci-fi and video game related, but came away happy to find the author is capable of doing great things with storytelling and character development as well. I wasn’t quite as drawn to Jon Grady or the other characters in Influx (so that even when certain characters died unexpectedly, I was not affected much by their demise) but I did enjoy the story itself. Suarez goes heavy on the technological aspects but he definitely knows how to keep up the action and thrills too. I had a lot of fun with the book when the flow was smooth, or when the story wasn’t interrupted by info dumps.

All in all, Influx was an okay book. It could have been great, but some of its flaws prevented me from jumping completely on board. I can definitely understand the comparisons of Suarez to Crichton, though I think the latter had a better knack for driving a story. Still, if you love techno-thrillers, I would recommend this — especially if you have an inclination towards the “techno” part. If that’s the case, I think you’d be well-pleased.