Human.4,  Mike Lancaster

Ever think you’re missing what’s going on between what’s said and what’s not? And what if you did wake up and find the world was a completely different and scary place? Those things that go bump in the night? This book isn’t going to help you with those fears. It’s probably going to make them worse.

This book starts with an introduction, apparently from some unknown point in the future explaining about reading and books. What follows is the transcription of some tapes that have been found that were recorded around our time by someone called Kyle Straker. Kyle was living a normal life in a small town, his parents had a few issues, and he was doing his best to get out of going to the annual talent show. All pretty average stuff really. But during the talent show, he volunteers to be hypnotised. And afterwards he finds that the entire world has changed. People don’t seem the same, phones and computers don’t work anymore. And with only a couple of other “normal” people, finding out what is going on is rather difficult. I thought I knew what was going on about halfway in, then it turned out to be something just slightly, but rather critically different. And that’s about all I can say without giving too much away!

Totally a fantastic book. Dystopia and very much a classic science fiction story going on as well (not too strong though, so don’t worry if you aren’t into serious sci fi!)

Recommended if you liked the Gone series (Michael Grant), creepy dystopia books like Unwind (Neal Shusterman) and Peeps (Scott Westerfeld) or science fiction books like The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary Pearson. Also thoroughly recommended if you liked The Matrix as that’s what I kept thinking of when I was reading it!

And if you got an eBook reader for Christmas or like reading on your computer then this is also available on Overdrive, under the title “0.4”.