The River Blade by T.R. Thompson (book review)
‘The River Blade’ by T.R. Thompson is a mix of the Science Fiction and detective genres which mostly takes place in a virtual reality setting known as the River or the Grid. I’m not quite sure if the River and the Grid are the same thing but I’m not quite sure about anything in this book. There are three main characters, Cass, Adlai and Detective Poe, and the point of view frequently skips about between them. In this future, nearly everyone has data ports in their necks by which they plug into the VR world. They spend a lot of time there, so the real world is getting worse as everyone ignores it. ‘The uglier the real world got, the more time you spent online escaping it, which led to the real world just getting uglier.’ Why buy stuff or try to make your environment better when you can easily enter the Grid, where everything is lovely? One side effect is that crime is lower. No one wants real-world material goods.
The virtual reality world is controlled by the corporations who own the Grid and set it up with quantum computers. But clever, rebellious hackers can also go off-Grid, where there aren’t so many rules and controls. It’s a jungle out there with vampire hunters working in packs to kill unwary travellers. Down these mean streets, a man must walk who is not himself afraid. Detective Poe in a raincoat and hat. He’s sent to investigate a car crash in the real world. I think it’s the real world. Poe follows the clues from one place to another and meets a variety of interesting characters as he unravels the mystery.
Soon, Poe is being followed by Cass, who has become powerful in some sort of gamer way and acquired a tool called the River Blade, which can cut through anything in the VR world: bones, walls, machines…anything! In real life, Cass works in a boring office and spends all her off time in the River. I get the impression that nearly everyone does except very poor people who can’t afford neck data ports.
While chasing clues, Poe frequently talks to Adlai, who is described as his ‘ever-present intellectual companion’. Yet Adlai isn’t with him. When we join Adlai, he’s sitting in a bar drinking bourbon and thinking about his Roman Catholic upbringing and how he rejected it and why. At first, he decided he was smarter than his parents and other churchgoing fools but soon realised this wasn’t true. Yet how come they believed and he didn’t? These musings will resonate with any Catholic, so I presume the author was brought up in the one true faith.
Confession: (It’s a Catholic thing). By page 60, I was getting fed up with the general confusion and would have quit if it wasn’t a review book. A reviewer has a certain duty. Stories set in virtual reality always ring a bit hollow, including ‘Star Trek’ holodeck tales, because…well, what’s the point? Poe’s detective work was interesting and the adventures of Cass as she leapt about rooftops and cut her enemies throats were exciting, but it all happened in virtual reality, so it didn’t make any difference, did it? I think Adlai’s musings kept me reading.
Well, it got better after that. It didn’t get much clearer, but the character arcs converged and there was some sort of conclusion. I don’t know what it meant. I enjoyed the journey, though. In fact, I enjoyed it very much by the end.
I finished the book in time for its release date and then spent three days wondering what to say about it. I still don’t know. I think for some readers it might be brilliant, dazzling, a tour de force and all that. Others might throw it across the room before page 60. It’s well-written, intelligent, thrilling in places, fast-paced and blessedly short by the standards of modern novels. The only trouble with it is that you’re not quite sure why the virtual reality matters. I suppose events in the Grid, sometimes traumatic, would have an effect on the mental state and psychology of the people taking part. Then there’s the matter of the real world falling to pieces when we all spend our time not in it. Perhaps we’ll find out in a few years time if Mister Zuckerberg gets his way.
At any rate, I guarantee you will love ‘The River Blade.’ Unless you hate it or you might be indifferent. It’s a bit like ‘Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance’ because you don’t know who to recommend it to. It’s not ordinary, run-of-the-mill, standard, trope-ticking or meeting-expectations kind of fiction. I’m glad I read it.
Eamonn Murphy
June 2025
(prod: Roundfire Books/Collective Ink Books, 2025. 192 page small enlarged paperback. Price: £12.99 (UK), $16.95 (US). ISBN: 978-1-80341-859-9)
check out website: www.collectiveinkbooks.com/roundfire-books/our-books/river-blade-novel
