1.4 Mike Lancaster

*As this is the 2nd in a series there may be spoilers*

It's a brave new world. In the far future, people no longer know what to believe...Did Kyle Straker ever exist? 


Or were his prophecies of human upgrades nothing more than a hoax? Peter Vincent is nearly 16, and has never thought about the things that Strakerites believe.


 His father - David Vincent, creator of the artificial bees that saved the world's crops - made sure of that. When the Strakerites pronounce that another upgrade is imminent, Peter starts to uncover a conspiracy amongst the leaders of the establishment, a conspiracy that puts him into direct conflict with his father. But it's not a good idea to pick a fight with someone who controls all the artificial bees in the world.

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As you may or may not be aware, I absolutely adored 0.4...like I couldn't believe there was no hype and people weren't utterly mad about this book. It had so many twists and turns it kept me guessing the entire way through.

1.4 was more of the same, set 1000 years in the future. so it wasn't about the original characters, but more about the world once the "Straker tapes" had come into existence (The tapes that were written about in the first novel) and Mike Lancaster has created an entire world following on from this movement and revolution. With 1.4 instead of tapes you had Peter's LinkDiary, which was in a sense his diary or laptop stored in his head where he could record everything occurring in life, however not always reliable!

Peter is the main character, and what's lovely is that due to the writing style and the use of the LinkDiary and "Linkipedia" (that one made me giggle!), you can really get into his mind and what he sees from his perspective. In regards to upgrades that have occured to the human race, this is the main one you see. Others are briefly mentioned but not highlighted glaringly as "oo look something alien over here!!" which I thought was really good, and made you pay attention to the story. The Upgrades are briefly discussed such as "filaments" which mean people can interface and show each other things on the Link device, which leads you to believe that people are aware the updates happen sometimes afterwards, but it becomes clearer that they are not aware when it will happen...or at least you will at the start...it starts to get a little muddier as it goes through what people actually know.

Again, there is a lot of background information, but it is worthwhile information that adds to the full story. When Peter reads the "Straker tapes", or more the transcripts, there is a brief summary of what he read. If you've read the books one after another straight away then this could be boring or unnecessary, however I hadn't read 0.4 since I read it the first time so it was good to have some reference material to remind me what happened fully! There are a lot of references, such as to Mr Peterson's child  from the first novel  which, when I realised what it was in reference to, made the story feel more real. It gave an extra depth to the religion aspect of the Straker tapes.

The people who believe in the Straker tapes follow it as a religion of sorts, and Peter begins to enter this world.. One thing I enjoyed is that there is no block description of the world, and you just get little chunks of information as the story progresses. For example there is a section where Peter enters a Strakerite coffee shop and it is full of Wood. The descriptions of this section really showed what had happened to the world, while leading you to wonder how many upgrades had occurred and what had changed.

The ending...oh how I wish I could tell you how the last few chapters pan out because it is amazing. Just like 0.4 it is brilliantly thought out, and unknown until the events begin to unfold.

All I can really say is that people need to give this a chance as it is an amazing story with lots of twists and is masterfully written to keep interest. I saw some people weren't interested as it was different characters, but believe me, it brings them back in interesting ways!