Brilliance

Gifted. I’m a sucker for a good dystopian novel. I loved reading Brilliance by Marcus Sakey because of his skill in a constructing a world just close enough to our own to give me chills. He presents a new way in which we separate “us” versus “them,” and constructs a government that manipulates citizens and operates without oversight or accountability. In the world Sakey creates, one percent of the population born since 1980 has a level of giftedness, or brilliance, a special enhanced skill of one kind or another. The majority are called “norms” and the brilliant are labeled, “abnorms.” Through testing children, the government identifies and selects the most brilliant, then removes them from their families to attend special schools in which their names are changed and their talents are channeled. Some of the abnorms have become terrorists, and a special unit of the government called “Equitable Services” tracks them down. The protagonist of this novel is Nick Cooper, an abnorm who works for Equitable Services. The suspense and tension of this novel remains sharp from beginning to end. Nick and the other characters are well developed, and the current or near future world that Sakey creates is believable enough to be truly frightening. I loved this novel from beginning to end, and expect that it will appeal to those readers who like action novels with a dystopian twist. Rating: Five-star (I love it) Click here to purchase Brilliance from amazon.com.