Today’s team review is from Lilyn, she blogs here http://www.scifiandscary.com/
Lilyn has been reading The Happy Chip by Dennis Meredith
Dennis Meredith is a solid writer who has turned his talent to near-future, on-Earth science fiction instead of reaching for the stars as so many writers do. I have previously read his book Wormholes and thoroughly enjoyed it, so I was quite happy to pick up The Happy Chip.
The Happy Chip is an interesting, thought-provoking book simply because you could see something like the Happy Chip getting very popular, very fast. The benefits of it sound fantastic, but when you stop to think about it at all, you see how easily it could go sideways. The love of money and control will always encourage people to do horrible things. Some more so than others.
Luckily, the main character and his wife are willing to do whatever is necessary to put a stop to things in The Happy Chip . Speaking of the pair, I loved Brad and Annie. While the implications of the Happy Chip technology is enough to pique your interest and get you to pay attention, it’s the relationship between the husband and wife that really cemented my interest in the book. I loved how they worked together as a team and trusted each other implicitly. I want more characters like these in books, please!
The pacing of The Happy Chip was perfect. The action was constantly going. The science is not unbelievable at all (which makes it scary). There’s a lot of good things to say about this novel, and I recommend it for fans of near-future science fiction scenarios. However, there are some minor problems. I noticed it in Wormholes, I believe, and I saw it in this book as well. While his beginnings and middles are excellent, the end of the stories are a bit weak, and the dialogue during action-packed times can be a little too dramatic. Not enough to turn me off, by any means, but it is an area that feels like it needs some improvement in.
Overall, this was a good, entertaining read from an author who knows how to spin stories that feel like they could happen just a few months from now. If you like Earth-based and/or near future science fiction at all, you should definitely check out The Happy Chip from Dennis Meredith.
Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book for review consideration as part of Rosie’s Book Review Team.
You feel ecstatic! Until you kill yourself.
The Happy Chip is the latest nanoengineering wonder from the high-flying tech company, NeoHappy, Inc.
Hundreds of millions of people have had the revolutionary chip injected into their bodies to monitor their hormonal happiness and guide them to life choices, from foods to sex partners.
Given the nanochip’s stunning success, struggling science writer Brad Davis is thrilled when he is hired to co-author the biography of its inventor, billionaire tech genius Marty Fallon.
That is, until Davis learns that rogue company scientists are secretly testing horrifying new control chips with “side effects”—suicidal depression, uncontrollable lust, murderous rage, remote-controlled death, and ultimately, global subjugation.
His discovery threatens not only his life, but that of his wife Annie and their children. Only with the help of Russian master hacker Gregor Kalinsky and his gang can they hope to survive the perilous adventure that takes them from Boston to Beijing.
The Happy Chip, an edge-of-your-seat thriller, spins a cautionary tale of unchecked nanotechnology spawning insidious devices that could enslave us. It dramatically portrays how we must control our “nanofuture” before it’s too late.
Dennis Meredith brings to his novels an expertise in science from his career as a science communicator at some of the country’s leading research universities, including MIT, Caltech, Cornell, Duke and the University of Wisconsin. He has worked with science journalists at all the nation’s major newspapers, magazines, and radio and TV networks and has written well over a thousand news releases and magazine articles on science and engineering over his career.
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Rosie Amber 
Very good review, Lilyn, and like you, I loved the premise of this book, and there were many elements I liked. I had some issues with it, too, but different ones from yours, which only goes to show how differently we all read…!!
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