RISE OF THE WATER MARGIN

An SF novel, set in the not-so-distant future, about cyber warfare threatening the U.S., China, and beyond.

Bates, the author of Wave Man (1993), offer a sweeping mystery-thriller that spans multiple continents as operatives from two of Earth’s superpowers ultimately band together to save the world, and perhaps the entire universe, from a terrifying cyber threat. Bates opens his story with Mili Parekh of the U.S. National Security Agency and Lin Chong, a commander and cybersecurity expert in China. Neither knows the other, but eventually their stories will intertwine, as will those of Chinese monk Lu Da, Stanford University student Vaughn Neumann, an evangelical U.S. president and his equally devout environmental advisor, and many others. Bates writes of secretive groups, a catastrophic accident on a ship, a massive dam break, and so many plot twists and characters that the author provides a glossary of characters at the end of the book. Fortunately, Bates’ prose style is simple and straightforward, bringing a cohesiveness to the thriller that it might have otherwise lacked. In just a paragraph or two, he deftly introduces characters in ways that allows readers to identify with them quickly. For the most part, he writes concisely and elegantly; however, the manner in which the book renders the speech patterns of Mili (“Acshess to thish report ish eyesh only”), who has cerebral palsy, is unsettling and likely to strike readers as offensive. Also, about two-thirds of the way into the book, Bates’ many plot twists and characters result in a challenging tangle, although the story manages to come together by the end.

A crowded thriller, hampered by uneven and sometimes-problematic execution.