The setting of this book hooked me—a near future where we seem to have accepted the hyper-surveillance that worries us today. The concept of SPACE is fascinating too—the uploading of emotions, particularly. The characters and story are decent too, with the thrill-a-minute ride seeming more like a movie.
I’m taking away one star for a token girl character who the protagonist lusts after. The other thing that tripped me up were the occasional infodumps to explain the world. It seemed like convenient sci-fi-esque concepts were being introduced to explain something that would trip the plot.
Other than that, an exciting story. A bit tedious in the middle, but imaginative overall.
(Review copy from NetGalley)

This book is set in the near future. VR is rife and also regulated and limited. SPACE is a virtual world that allows regular people the chance to live out their dreams, be who they want to be. People are using it too much and getting sick. Theo and his friends regularly meet up to play games, an escape from their mundane lives. But then one day, when in VR, Theo hears a call coming in on his mum's headset. He ditches the game to answer it and what he hears is shocking. His mum is being threatened. Not only that, she is being threatened by harm to HIM! But where is his mum? She seems to have disappeared. And thus begins a rather scary cat-and-mouse game as Theo and his friends follow the clues and use their own resources to find out exactly what Theo's mum has got herself mixed up in. And what they find is shocking to the core...
I have read quite a few books like this one recently and this compares to them quite well. Yes, it's a bit Ready Player One, but it's also like the Last Reality Trilogy I recently finished. I'm still cutting my teeth with the sci-fi genre but I found this, as with previous books, to be quite easy to read given the technology which was ably explained to my satisfaction and understanding.
Characterisation was, on the whole, good. We had the usual spats along the way. Mostly differences of opinion but it added a bit of colour into the mix. The four main characters are all quite different in personality but rub along well for the most. As you would expect from a book of this genre, the baddies are mostly unknown and hide well in cyberspace. Never knowing who to trust, our foursome mostly go it alone. Until they find allies in a very strange place.
Pacing was mostly good. The beginning was a tad slow but that's to expected as the world needs to be created and explained, as well as certain things needing setting up. The action then starts ramping up steadily in the middle third and then it becomes a race to the end as the final showdown is upon us!
All in all, a good solid read that I did enjoy and which left me satisfied at its conclusion. I feel that the characters and the world do have more to give and wonder if this is the last we will hear from them... My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

The concept behind CTRL S is fantastic. Set in the near future, everything is about SPACE – a virtual reality accessed via a headset that allows people to socialise as well as take part in games. While most people use SPACE for little more than socialising, there is a small minority of users who want to use SPACE to act out their own perverted desires. And where there is demand, there will always be those who will make it possible, for the right price. Theo and his friends are dragged into this darker side of SPACE when Theo’s mum, Ella, goes missing, and they get pulled into a world they didn’t even know existed.

Theo and his friends – Clemmie, Milton, and Baxter – are fantastic. They’re a bit geeky, and don’t really seem cut out for the events they find themselves in, but I loved the camaraderie between them and their determination against the odds. Theo has had a more difficult life than his friends, and was forced to forgo university in order to get a job and help his mum with her ever-increasing debts. It’s a tale of potential quashed by circumstance, and it’s makes him a character that is easy to sympathise with as the reader comes to understand the sacrifice he’s made and why. I can’t not mention Clemmie in a little more detail. She’s such a kickass heroine who, thanks to her police officer father, knows a little more than her male counterparts. She’s nothing like the token female I was worried I might find when first introduced to Theo’s friends, and I loved her brave and selfless attitude.

CTRL S is set in a richly imagined world – both in virtual and real-world terms. While SPACE is widely considered a brilliant innovation, there are those who have concerns about it. Spending too long immersed in SPACE can adversely affect health and wellbeing, and there are time limits in place to negate those risks. Similarly, some businesses have forbidden the use of headsets, encouraging their clientele to engage in real-world activities and interactions, and I loved seeing both the positive and negative opinions of this technology. I also liked Briggs' optimistic outlook in his near future vision, with climate change reversed at the last moment, and the declining bee population revived through conservation efforts. We’re not – quite – past the point of no return, and it’s sometimes good to be reminded of that.

CTRL S is a wonderful blend of science fiction and hi-tech crime thriller, with a frantic race against the clock to save Ella before the bad guys find her. Those bad guys appear to be one step ahead at all times, and Theo and his friends quickly find themselves isolated, not knowing who to trust as it turns out that those working against them have friends in extremely high places. I think that it’s inevitable that CTRL S will be compared to Ready Player One, and while there is a similarity in terms of the virtual reality element, CTRL S is darker in tone and themes. It does get a little heavy on the technical details in places – it’s necessary to the story, but it does slow the pace down as the reader has to understand how some parts of the plot are feasible. Aside from this, it’s a fast-paced novel as Theo and friends pursue with their quest to rescue Ella.

I had seen this book being compared to Ready Player One so I was really looking forward to reading it. I had loved RPO, and have been actively looking for books similar to it. Sadly, for me, CTRL+S didn’t live up to that hype. Interesting concepts, but I just couldn’t connect with any of the characters.

High octane, fast paced and for me completely unputdownable!! I found the technical descriptions of future tech both fascinating and a bit scary and there's a strong message about the dangers of spending too much time online that is a useful reminder for all of us. Great for any techy or science fiction loving teen or adult with plenty of plot twists along the way.

There were a couple of formatting errors early on, which usually means I would have given up on the book - this generally means it'll be hard to read all the way through! But I pushed on and was pleasantly surprised with this book. A good and interesting book.

I received this book from Netgalley
This is a near future novel full of new tech that is very believable and slipped into the story line in an easily understandable way. It has characters that you connect with and like and a really good story line. Maybe we will all be gaming like this soon. Thoroughly enjoyed it . Review posted on Amazon
#Netgalley

A brilliantly fun, British, big-hearted ride of a novel for fans of Ready Player One, Stranger Things and One Word Kill.

Life in the near future's NOT ALL BAD. We've reversed global warming, and fixed the collapsing bee population. We even created SPACE, a virtual-sensory universe where average guys like Theo Wilson can do almost anything they desire.

But ALMOST ANYTHING isn't enough for some. Every day, normal people are being taken, their emotions harvested - and lives traded - to create death-defying thrills for the rich and twisted.

NOW THEO'S MOTHER HAS DISAPPEARED. And as he follows her breadcrumb trail of clues, he'll come up against the most dangerous SPACE has to offer: vPolice, AI Bots and anarchists - as well as a criminal empire that will KILL TO STOP HIM finding her

I didn’t really enjoy this book, the writing was not for me for the most part the only part I did like was the science-y parts a fan of science and a good knowledge on the subject those parts where easier for me to understand. The relationships between the characters where written well but personally I did to get on with them.
The plot of this book was good, but I a, very conflicted about this book and for that reason I give it a 3 star rating.

I found this very disappointing as the characters read like cardboard cutouts based on cliches and the writing itself was so dry and technical that it hardly felt like a fiction novel. It was a struggle to slog through and despite sounding promising and like everything I love to read, it just wasn't.

I was excited to read this as it has virtual reality, a disappearance and dark secrets. However the way it was written didn't really work for me. There was a lot of information and science-y language that didn't really add anything to the story for me and I also found it quite hard to read. I enjoyed the relationship between Theo and his friends. Although the Charcaters are similar to Charcaters in other books I've read and I didn't really connect to them. Theo's mums disappearance was interesting and it did make me continue reading as I wanted to find out all of the secrets. Overall it was an okay read for me and I would recommend this to sci-fi fans.

Really enjoyed this book and couldn't stop reading it, a lot of things in the book is really up my street and the characters are really well done too. Really want to read more sci fi novels like this :)

When the virtual world is becoming a staple of everyone's lives, Theo and his friends have to find his missing mother, and uncover dark secrets.

I received a free copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

In the future, taking part in virtual and augmented reality is as common and everyday as meeting up with friends in the park.
When Theo makes the choice to give up his dreams of university, and gets a dead-end job in a burger joint, to help his mother out with spiralling debts, going into SPACE is his only escape. Especially when his three closest friends are all moving on with their lives, doing everything he never will. Every game played together should be savoured.
Theo's repetitive cycle of work and gaming is interrupted when his mum mysteriously disappears, and dangerous people start to come after him.
It's up to Theo and his friends to follow the clues, to find answers.

Along the way, they come up against "dark web" activity, showing that even in this shining future with brand new technology, there will always be sick demands, and people abusing the system.
I really liked that this aspect was explored, and I think it was the strongest element of the book.

I really struggled to read this. It's a great idea, but was as dry as reading an instruction manual. There were reams of techno-babble that had no bearing on the story, it just felt like padding and going overboard to satisfy the "science" in science-fiction.
For me, it felt like Ready Player One, without the heart.
I felt no connection to any of the characters, you have typical angry girl (who isn't like other girls), big lumbering guy, and slightly-popular guy. They basically go on a scavenger hunt, with clues getting dropped very conveniently, to move the plot along.
Theo's mum constantly pissed me off. At the beginning of the book, she basically bails, doing a runner and leaving her teenage son to deal with the gangsters. I know that she had her reasons, but leaving Theo, with no training and piss-poor instructions was a crappy move.

Overall, this book was not for me. This is more for those who like the technical side of sci-fi.

An excellent read in the vein of Otherland by Tad Williams. Well worth a read if future tech, shadowrun, matrix is in your list of interests.

Great Work!

When Theo's mum disappears and he gets hunted he turns to his friends for help. They switch between the virtual and real worlds looking for clues and answers, and through the search we learn about Theos mum. Her dreams, and skills. What we dont really learn is anything much about the group of friends - I dont feel like we learn that much about them - its all about the action not character development but its an easily readable story.

I’ve read a few dozen pages of this book, but unfortunately the formatting of the Kindle file is too broken to continue.

There are many, many live breaks and no spaces for paragraphs, chapter breaks, etc., and has made the reading experience especially difficult to judge this book fairly.

Please let me know if you’re able to fix this problem, and I will revisit the story with a new version of the Kindle eARC.

Thank you!