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CTRL S

Andy Briggs (Goodreads Author)

3.78 · Rating details · 23 ratings · 14 reviews

Life in the near future's NOT ALL BAD. We've reversed global warming, and fixed the collapsing bee population. We even created SPACE, a virtual-sensory universe where average guys like Theo Wilson can do almost anything they desire.

But ALMOST ANYTHING isn't enough for some. Every day, normal people are being taken, their emotions harvested - and lives traded - to create ...more

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Paperback, 416 pages

Published November 28th 2019 by Orion Publishing Group

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Average rating 3.78 ·

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· 23 ratings · 14 reviews

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Jul 18, 2019 K.S. Marsden rated it it was ok

Shelves: netgalley

When the virtual world is becoming a staple of everyone's lives, Theo and his friends have to find his missing mother, and uncover dark secrets.

I received a free copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

In the future, taking part in virtual and augmented reality is as common and everyday as meeting up with friends in the park.
When Theo makes the choice to give up his dreams of university, and gets a dead-end job in a burger joint, to help his mother out with spiralling debts, going When the virtual world is becoming a staple of everyone's lives, Theo and his friends have to find his missing mother, and uncover dark secrets.

I received a free copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

In the future, taking part in virtual and augmented reality is as common and everyday as meeting up with friends in the park.
When Theo makes the choice to give up his dreams of university, and gets a dead-end job in a burger joint, to help his mother out with spiralling debts, going into SPACE is his only escape. Especially when his three closest friends are all moving on with their lives, doing everything he never will. Every game played together should be savoured.
Theo's repetitive cycle of work and gaming is interrupted when his mum mysteriously disappears, and dangerous people start to come after him.
It's up to Theo and his friends to follow the clues, to find answers.

Along the way, they come up against "dark web" activity, showing that even in this shining future with brand new technology, there will always be sick demands, and people abusing the system.
I really liked that this aspect was explored, and I think it was the strongest element of the book.

I really struggled to read this. It's a great idea, but was as dry as reading an instruction manual. There were reams of techno-babble that had no bearing on the story, it just felt like padding and going overboard to satisfy the "science" in science-fiction.
For me, it felt like Ready Player One, without the heart.
I felt no connection to any of the characters, you have typical angry girl (who isn't like other girls), big lumbering guy, and slightly-popular guy. They basically go on a scavenger hunt, with clues getting dropped very conveniently, to move the plot along.
Theo's mum constantly pissed me off. At the beginning of the book, she basically bails, doing a runner and leaving her teenage son to deal with the gangsters. I know that she had her reasons, but leaving Theo, with no training and piss-poor instructions was a crappy move.

Overall, this book was not for me. This is more for those who like the technical side of sci-fi.
...more

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Nov 28, 2019 Kate rated it liked it

Shelves: favourites-read-in-2019, out-in-2019-and-read

Entertaining adventure, much of which is set in an alternate reality gaming world but the gap between reality and artifice becomes very blurry indeed. With the four main characters all around twenty and the central figure searching for his mother, it does have a Young Adult feel about it. Incidentally, the characters seem to spend a fair amount of time throwing up, so there's also an icky factor! Review to follow shortly on For Winter Nights.

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May 06, 2019 Adam added it

Major problems with the eARC formatting. They need to fix the layout & make it legible.

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Nov 09, 2019 Jacqueline Allan rated it liked it

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an arc copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I had high hopes for this book as I’m a fan of Ready Player One and a few others but I was really disappointed. I felt that the characters were not likeable and weren’t developed well. Storyline was ok.

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Oct 28, 2019 Kath rated it really liked it

This book is set in the near future. VR is rife and also regulated and limited. SPACE is a virtual world that allows regular people the chance to live out their dreams, be who they want to be. People are using it too much and getting sick. Theo and his friends regularly meet up to play games, an escape from their mundane lives. But then one day, when in VR, Theo hears a call coming in on his mum's headset. He ditches the game to answer it and what he hears is shocking. His mum is being This book is set in the near future. VR is rife and also regulated and limited. SPACE is a virtual world that allows regular people the chance to live out their dreams, be who they want to be. People are using it too much and getting sick. Theo and his friends regularly meet up to play games, an escape from their mundane lives. But then one day, when in VR, Theo hears a call coming in on his mum's headset. He ditches the game to answer it and what he hears is shocking. His mum is being threatened. Not only that, she is being threatened by harm to HIM! But where is his mum? She seems to have disappeared. And thus begins a rather scary cat-and-mouse game as Theo and his friends follow the clues and use their own resources to find out exactly what Theo's mum has got herself mixed up in. And what they find is shocking to the core...
I have read quite a few books like this one recently and this compares to them quite well. Yes, it's a bit Ready Player One, but it's also like the Last Reality Trilogy I recently finished. I'm still cutting my teeth with the sci-fi genre but I found this, as with previous books, to be quite easy to read given the technology which was ably explained to my satisfaction and understanding.
Characterisation was, on the whole, good. We had the usual spats along the way. Mostly differences of opinion but it added a bit of colour into the mix. The four main characters are all quite different in personality but rub along well for the most. As you would expect from a book of this genre, the baddies are mostly unknown and hide well in cyberspace. Never knowing who to trust, our foursome mostly go it alone. Until they find allies in a very strange place.
Pacing was mostly good. The beginning was a tad slow but that's to expected as the world needs to be created and explained, as well as certain things needing setting up. The action then starts ramping up steadily in the middle third and then it becomes a race to the end as the final showdown is upon us!
All in all, a good solid read that I did enjoy and which left me satisfied at its conclusion. I feel that the characters and the world do have more to give and wonder if this is the last we will hear from them... My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book. ...more

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Nov 18, 2019 Marvin rated it really liked it

With CTRL S, Briggs explores (and exploits) the concept of SPACE, a future version of the Internet that includes VR and emotions (from and to the real world). Four young friends, around twenty years of age, hop in and out of SPACE to find the mother of one of them, who appears to be kidnapped. After a few chapters of introducing things – new concepts need to be explained, no way around that – these friends find themselves engaged in fast-paced action, almost like it were a video game.

While With CTRL S, Briggs explores (and exploits) the concept of SPACE, a future version of the Internet that includes VR and emotions (from and to the real world). Four young friends, around twenty years of age, hop in and out of SPACE to find the mother of one of them, who appears to be kidnapped. After a few chapters of introducing things – new concepts need to be explained, no way around that – these friends find themselves engaged in fast-paced action, almost like it were a video game.

While reading this, you get the idea that some good old 2D platform gaming concepts (Donkey Kong, Mario …) are combined with cyberpunk characteristics and ideas like Second Life. Not everything in this book feels like brand new. But Andy Briggs added many ideas of his own and as such created a Hollywood-style action thriller that is really fun to read.

Moments of relaxation in this book: zip. From the very first page, the main characters are running around and fighting for their lives. Even the unavoidable technobabble is mostly packed inside layers of action. The story is for the larger part a rat race that gets more and more insane while it progresses. It’s really like a platform game with levels. Every level is faster and trickier than the previous one. Think “chapter” instead of “level” and you’re close. There are moments when you cannot afford to let your concentration slip, or you’re lost. But it’s not all about action. The base of it all is a solid book plot. All the shooting and running around serves a purpose: saving a kidnapped mother and along with it the future of SPACE.

Are Briggs’s ideas far-fetched? I don’t think so. I can imagine a near-future in which many of the concepts shown here, will start happening. It’s an imaginative book but definitely not unrealistic. It makes you think about the future that our current Internet is heading towards, and which of the aspects we want and want not. But probably CTRL S is not written to be an eye-opener. So let’s not go there. This is an enjoyable read and I have done exactly that: enjoyed it.

(Thanks to NetGalley and Orion Publishing Group for an ARC of this book.) ...more

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Dec 03, 2019 Mira added it

An enjoyable romp in the style of Ready Player One and a pretty similar plot too. The virtual world of Briggs' imagining is called SPACE and is a landscape where anything can happen. Unfortunately our hero Theo's mother has been dallying with some pretty nasty criminals and he is sucked into a deadly investigation to try and save her after she is kidnapped.

The eARC book wasn't formatted at all - so chapters collided and paragraphs weren't clear which made the read a tricky one. Added to this was ...more

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Oct 28, 2019 Payal rated it liked it

The setting of this book hooked me—a near future where we seem to have accepted the hyper-surveillance that worries us today. The concept of SPACE is fascinating too—the uploading of emotions, particularly. The characters and story are decent too, with the thrill-a-minute ride seeming more like a movie.
I’m taking away one star for a token girl character who the protagonist lusts after. The other thing that tripped me up were the occasional infodumps to explain the world. It seemed like ...more

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Nov 19, 2019 Rachel rated it it was amazing

I don't read as many books in this genre as I would like, but the blurb of this book hooked me in from the off, and this continued from the first page. I hate spoilers but the characters in this book are certainly going to take you on a ride. I plan to buy this book for my brother, who will love it. Ready Player One fans, this one is a must read!

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Nov 20, 2019 Chrys rated it really liked it

A fast paced and interesting crime thriller set in the virtual world of SPACE. This story raises the idea of how emotions can harnessed within virtual reality, and how they can be abused. There's some great ideas here and I'd love to see a film come from this.

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Nov 09, 2019 Melissa rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2019-popsugar-reading-challenge

A great take on where technology may lead to in the future. It reminded me of Ready Player One, but a hell of a lot more sinister. Was it a bit far fetched? Absolutely. Did I love it all the same? You betcha.

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Sep 02, 2019 Allyn Nichols rated it really liked it

An excellent read in the vein of Otherland by Tad Williams. Well worth a read if future tech, shadowrun, matrix is in your list of interests.

Great Work!

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Nov 13, 2019 JOCA added it

Shelves: dnf

Interesting premise but I wasn't engaged by the writing style. This also felt a bit too similar to a few other books I've picked up recently. This was a DNF for me.

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Sep 14, 2019 Bev rated it it was amazing

High octane, fast paced and for me completely unputdownable!! I found the technical descriptions of future tech both fascinating and a bit scary and there's a strong message about the dangers of spending too much time online that is a useful reminder for all of us. Great for any techy or science fiction loving teen or adult with plenty of plot twists along the way.

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About Andy Briggs

Andy Briggs

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A British writer who works extensively in Hollywood and more recently in comic books.

Hero.com and Villain.net are his first books launched in June 2008, with their sequels HERO.COM: VIRUS ATTACK and VILLAIN.NET: DARK HUNTER are out now - and more in the series coming next year.

The books are available in UK, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa.

Next year they will be out in: USA, Czech ...more