Sadly this book just was not for me. This sat on my kindle for quite some time - twice I have attempted to read and twice I did not finish.

Thankyou for the opportunity but I will not be providing feedback on any commercial sites for this book.

I loved Alice!! Incredible character writing but I felt there was sooooo much going on I wanted it to be spread out more than the relatively short length of pages - it was also detrimental when doing world-building, I wanted it to be expanded slightly so I wasn’t bombarded with info

A simple dystopia, entertaining, easy to read and perfect for those of us who are lovers of this type of story.

i really enjoyed reading this book, it was a great start to a scifi novel. and I really enjoyed getting to know the characters and the story.

This is my first book by the Author and based on this one it won't be my last .

The Author has created a terrible but potentially realistic world where AI's and MI's have taken the place of a human based workforce - 99% of humans are unemployed , if you have a job you hold onto it with all you have .
The cities are controlled by gangs -filled with danger - if you have nothing there is nothing to lose except your life what is left .?
When a cop , Officer Alice Yu , is brutally attacked and left for dead and her partner is abducted by a ruthless crime boss she must face her fears and enter the Fourth Ward . An area that only the most desperate live in , one where only the most desperate can leave . What will she find ?, can she survive ?

This an interesting premise of what can and might happen in our future - a thoroughly entertaining book .

I was given an arc of the book by NetGalley and the Publisher in exchange for an honest review .

The Paradise Factory, by Jim Keen. I struggled to really get interested in this book, and simply felt it wasnt for me. Thank you for giving me a chance with it and I do think others will enjoy it.

Thank you Netgalley, Jim Keen and Booksgosocial for the review Copy. This is my honest review and not affected by it in any way.

The Paradise Factory by Jim Keen is the first book in the Cortex series. It is a science fiction novel set in 2055 New York. Most jobs are taken over by Mechanical Intelligence and unemployment is at 99%. The book starts in the POV of Police officer, and ex-marine Alice Yu. She and her partner are ambushed and her partner is kidnapped by a ruthless crime boss. You follow her going into the lawless and forbidden Fourth Ward Territory to bring her partner back.
You also follow Red, a runner boy, who gets a letter he needs to take to the island. Due to circumstances he also ends up in Fourth Ward Territory.

Trigger Warnings: Murder, Hangings, Drug mentions, suicide mentions

CAWPILE Rating: 6.93 => 3 Stars

Characters : 8
Alice and Red were amazing characters to follow. Both different motives to be in Fourth Ward Territory. The backstories were well developed and are nicely revealed throughout the story. The side characters had personalities but were too little in the picture to get a well enough image from them. Even the crime boss felt a bit one dimensional. The reasoning about the bridge and what he was doing got a bit lost on me.

Atmosphere : 6
The book was really fact paced and a lot of action was happening. Due to the high amount of action the suspense and the feeling of risk was a bit lost. The book did give a futuristic vibe, with the technology described.

Writing : 7
Starting every chapter with a quote or newspaper article really gave a feel for the world and how the our world changed to what is visible in the book.
I did think Jim Keen wanted to show too much of the new technology, the main story got sometimes lost in the heavy descriptions of everything around the characters. In the beginning, the descriptions definitely helped build the atmosphere of the world.

Plot : 7
This book is like an action movie, it had its stakes and fights and was good. The only problem was that it felt like action after action after action, we didn't have a lot of breathers inbetween.
I really did enjoy the breaks to show Alice history on the Mars colonial. This definitely added more to the character.

Intrigue : 6
I wanted to read this book in one sitting, but I had to sleep. That means it got me enough interested to keep reading.
but due to the action after action, you didn't really get a point of suspense or intrigue about what would happen next. I was interested in the going-ons in the fourth ward territory and how it was build. And the last chapters definitely made me interested in the sequel.

Logic : 7
The world Jim Keen created was enormous and honestly, there was so much information about all the technology and how the world now looked that I got lost. I think the book would have been better if it was longer and more plot so the worldbuilding could have been spread out more or was reduced to less change of the now.
What I recall happened, we colonised Mars, mechanical intelligent took over, Climate Change made sure that New York was under ice and a lot of pollution was going on.

Enjoyment : 7.5
I did enjoy reading this book, as previously mentioned I could have finished it in one sitting. I think the plot was really fun. I am interested in his world and how things changed. I just thought that describing every room we were in and what technology there was a bit too much at times.
I am curious to see what happens after this book and may pick up the sequel

The book was enjoyable, though not at the top of its genre. It's good enough to wile away a few hours.
If the characters including the protagonist was developed more then it would be more enjoyable.

The Paradise Factory by Jim Keen, describes a futuristic New York 2055 environment. The storyline embedded in a world of lawlessness, guilt, poverty and death provides a magnificent insight into a future world. Keen describes the different events in detail and I appreciated the manner she described the background and personal experiences of the main character, Alice Yu. The description of the character makes the reader understand Yu's frustrations and the trauma that formulated her current worldview.

The storyline remains easy to read and stays interesting during all time of reading the book. Yu coming from a law enforcement environment carrying a magnitude of baggage still aims to fight against the badness evident in the New York landscape during the time. The book offers a combination between searching for criminal leaders and also caring for the people you love. Readers who enjoy action, futuristic thinking and out of the box thinking, this book offers a must-read to see if Yu's mission will succeed.

I received a copy of the book from BooksGoSocial via Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

The Paradise Factory is a fast paced novel that will make you wonder about the future. The protagonist, Alice Yu, is a strong woman who works hard to get herself out of miserable conditions. She follows what she believes in, even if that means it will change her life and make her lose her job. I admire her perseverance and think she is an interesting main character to follow, even if I do wish she was more rounded out. Through her, the main theme of PTSD is explored which I feel is done well. My favorite part of this novel is its description and setting. The descriptions of the year 2055 are rich; it is easy to feel and understand what is going on during this time period. I felt myself getting excited reading about a year that seems so far away right now, especially when learning about artificial and mechanical intelligence.

I like this book. Jim Keen writes well. His use of setting is great and the plot, while it could possibly have felt stale, is original and exciting. The past is fast which is expected of a futuristic novel like this one. The narrative shifted too much for my taste; the POV switched between characters and I feel that distracted me from the story overall. At times it was hard to know exactly what was going on. It almost felt like there were too many actions/events going on at once and I had to stop and try to figure out which thing happened first. I could have finished this book in one sitting but did not because of this issue. I also wish there was more character development, especially with Yu. While we do see her grow in certain ways, it does not feel like enough and the reader should have gotten to know her more. All in all, this book is a good science fiction/fantasy novel that is easy to get into in the beginning. I suggest this book to anyone who wants to write about our society in the future. This book teaches you that no matter where you are, if you have the strength you can achieve anything you set your mind to.

This book follow police officer Alice Yu in a future New York where AI and reprinting of beings has made humans basically redundant and where the organized crime flourishes. Alice enters an area controlled by one of the biggest crime bosses to get back her kidnapped partner but all that she thought is not what it seems.
I am on the fence about this book, I liked the world building and snippets of information via reports or interviews at the bezinning of the chapters that give you background on how things turned out as they did. For some reason I couldn't get a connection to the main characters even though the writer tried to give them complexity. I finished the book and am sort of curious about what happens next, but I don't know if it's enough to want to read the sequel.

Basically, I just don't know with this book but if this is your genre of preference I guess it is worth the read. It was a 2.5 star for me but I will round it up to there because I cannot articulate what my problem was during the reading.

*** An ARC was kindly provided by the Publisher and Netgally in exchange for an honest review. ***

I really liked it, it is fast paced and the characters are well made. I would have liked some more background though.

A post-apocalyptic Dystopian tale where there’s clearly no chosen one with elite prowess, but a wrung woman finds herself intertwined in what was supposed to be a rescue mission but turned to be much bigger and pivotal than she’d planned.

In a nutshell
This story holds great promise and it does manage to deliver it by the end, but I’d trouble to get into it, at the start. For the first couple of chapters I was confused and I didn’t really connect with our MC or the other characters and scarcely felt for them. However, things start to get interesting as the characters' paths start to entwine and we get to see how this future world operates and how it came to be in the first place…plus whose thwarting it for their own gain from the inside?

LIKES & NOT ( in details below)
-LIKED- Character development - world-building - the plot twist
_NOT - Pacing - writing not really compelling- Confusing world

It took me a while to actually enjoy what I was reading, it took a good 50% of the book for it to really intrigue me into continuing the story. The writing had a sardonic tone reflecting the state of the world the book is set in, where it’s bleak, uncertain and every hope for reparation has been dashed. The world overrun by artificial intelligence and no sooner people began exploiting it, putting an end to any futuristic dream as NYC recovers from the thwart.

- We get plenty of action ( DUH she's a cop in a no-cop zone), and we see the result of POST-AI invasion with Reprinted-human (which is wicked) turned into mercenaries or deformities being improved with AI sort of implants.
-Plot twist- yes Unpredictable -yes- game-changer -yes-.....anything more - spoilers!-
- I loved how the character development was portrayed here; how they start out to be and how their motives reform as they hurdle through the story.
- ALICE: we meet a worn-out cop whose partners kidnapped and she sets off on a rescue mission in hopes it will save her job.
But cops aren’t loved in the part of town she’s been ambushed, and despite her attempts at deceit and taking cover she’s tagged for capture and is on the run in a foreign territory. Throughout it all we are given glimpses of her past and how it shaped her and how it continually haunts her. She’s morally grey, with little hope of redemption and her only aim is to escape her own memories before they suffocate her.

RED: Then we have got a teenager, whose jaded from the unemployment crisis and scores a hit when she’s hired as a messenger…only if he gets to the destination first alive. He proves to be annoying but a useful partner in crime to our MC and he grows on you as the story progresses. He starts off as her character who is more of a child than adolescent and towards the end, he’s gained a realistic perspective, to say the least, and I’m actually looking forward to more of Red and Alice dynamics in future installments, they barely made acquaintance here (OK more than that, but it has potential!).

BANKS: Then we meet our Antagonist…self-righteous, ambitious and cunning, he isn’t completely succumbed to Tech and neither is he old fashioned, which makes him a very dangerous person to deal with and I’m pumped to see what else we get to see regarding him in the sequels.

-The AI components are the most fascinating elements of the story, take her suit for example who’s built to antagonize the wearer, I enjoyed their little sarcastic quips every now and then.

THE MI, although a lot regarding it has been unveiled and talked about, I still find myself confused as to how it operates exactly. But meeting them finally and realize how deep their roots go in the human world and the prospect itself is terrifying.



All in all it was a different, entertaining read which paints a realistic picture of the post-AI revolution and how humans thrive through it all.

The Paradise Factory attracts with its cover and the promise of a glimpse into the near future. Set in 2055 New York, the book explores a world ruled by AI in all of its shapes and forms, rendering mankind obsolete.

The rise of synthetic intelligence leads to a complete societal breakdown to the point where law-free zones are suddenly allowed to thrive. Amidst all that, we meet officer Alice Yu, whose partner's been abducted by one of the most fearsome crime bosses in New York.

Against all odds and in direct conflict with police regulation, she enters one of the law-free zones to get her partner back. As she struggles with the demons haunting her, a boy from the gutter literally falls from the sky to turn her situation around.

What I liked about the book was the fast pace and the overall depiction of the future and the existence of synthetic intelligence at different levels with different purposes. What I did not like about the book was the fact that most of the events seemed to resolve themselves and there wasn't enough space for Alice's character development.

Also, the book felt a bit scattered all over the place, mixing genres into a mass that boiled into action that just didn't have enough cyberpunk for me. At first, there was an imbalance between the major POVs but that was gradually resolved. I liked the secondary characters more than Alice, but won't hide that wished the main antagonist was juicier.

The overall impression is of a pleasant quick read with lots of potential to develop, that's solid 3/5 stars. Thanks to BooksGoSocial for providing The Paradise Factory through Netgalley.

Having read a few dystopian novels about how we might be live in the future recently, I was intrigued when I saw this book on @netgalley (thanks for the eARC 😊)

It’s set in the near future (roughly 2050) but the world has changed due to Mechanical Intelligence. Robots have taken all the jobs!

It’s the first book in what I imagine is a trilogy, but I won’t be reading on. I didn’t finish this one. Got 20% in, and realised I still didn’t know what the story was about, where it was going, what point was trying to be made. And the characters weren’t engaging enough to continue. I’m all for a slow burn, but I didn’t feel like anything had happened, despite some ‘action’ scenes.

The author has taken on a bit too much I feel and the world building is a struggle to get through. The idea of MI taking over interests me, and I got on board with the idea that this would lead to unemployment and therefore a change in society. That, for me, would have been enough. To explore what that world felt like. However, the author has also thrown in climate change (the book is set in a frozen NYC), mentions that there’s now flying cars. And one of the main characters did her Marine training on Mars.

It’s just a bit too much - the best books of this type don’t stray too far from what could really happen and this one takes the changes too far. It jolts you out of the story when you read something and go ‘REALLY?! In 30 years time?!’

I feel if a book hasn’t grabbed you before the Kindle says you’re 20% through it, then it’s probably not the book for you. Only my second DNF of the year. Not one I’d recommend!

A ⭐️ review for me, since I didn’t finish it and don’t feel I’m missing out.

This is pretty good scifi that is unpredictable and suspenseful. Interesting tech and AI and a fun plot make this a good tale, although it isn't always realistic (if that's what you're seeking). Recommended for scifi and cyberpunk fans.

Thanks very much for the review copy!!

THE PARADISE FACTORY by Jim Keen is the first book in the Cortex series and is a New York 2055 cyberpunk story. Alice Yu is a New York policewoman and a former United Nations marine. The book starts with her and her partner being ambushed. He is abducted and she is left on the street injured. With New York bankrupt and 99% unemployment, she elects to bring her partner back from the forbidden Fourth Ward Territory against orders and without backup. As she works to rescue her partner, a young boy, Red, is trying to deliver a letter to Manhattan. Their paths cross and they team up on the lawless Brooklyn Bridge that is ruled by a criminal empire.

The story line is interesting with a setting where sentient machines leading to a breakdown in the human social order and Alice and Red’s dual tasks. However, the writing style of flashbacks and switching points of view between Alice and Red broke up the rhythm and flow of the story for me. Both Alice and Red were characters that you could root for and both had clear goals. The world building needed some work to fully satisfy me. The plot twists were believable and several were unexpected. The ending was dramatic.

Overall, this was an entertaining and intense read. It includes several themes including PTSD, sentient machines, unemployment, greed, criminal empires, murder and much more. While my rating is three stars, I do plan to read the next book in the series. I recommend this to science fiction and cyberpunk fans.

Thanks to BooksGoSocial and Jim Keen for a complimentary ARC of this novel via NetGalley and the opportunity to provide an honest review. Opinions are mine alone and are not biased in any way.

This is being marketed as cyberpunk, which I found very misleading, as there are no cyberpunk elements. It’s more a post-apocalyptic sci-fi dystopia. The apocalypse in this case is brought about by the invention of Mechanical Intelligence, a machine that has made human workforce obsolete. Hundreds of millions are without work and those lucky enough to be employed can lose their job on a whim, with no social security to fall back on. That the humanity is still alive and kicking is more because of stubbornness than for any discernible survival skills.

The story follows Alice Yu, a Brooklyn cop in her twenties—I think—whose partner is abducted right in front of her. Even though loyalty to one’s partner and initiative are discouraged by her bosses, Alice goes after him. Traces lead to Brooklyn Bridge, a lawless no-go-zone ruled by criminal empire. She knows she’ll lose her job if she goes there, but she goes anyway.

Another story-line follows Red, a young boy who needs to deliver a message over the Brooklyn Bridge, an errand that would pay well if the other kids weren’t trying to kill him for it. The paths of Alice and Red meet on the bridge and they team up.

The plot is straightforward: find the partner and save him. Obstacles come in form of bridge security trying to kill Alice for their boss, a crime lord who has a nefarious enterprise to conceal. The constant fights became boring pretty soon, but Alice is fighting PTSD from her time as a Marine in Mars, which gives some depth to her character. Because of what she considers a personal failure in Mars, she decides that saving Red is more important than finding her partner, a decision that Red disputes, forcing her to face her past.

After all the fighting, the main conflict is solved amazingly easily. If it hadn’t been for the chapter that followed, which showed the truth of what was on the other side of the bridge and gave both the world and the main characters some new depth, this would’ve been a solid three star book. The ending changed that.

I had some issues with the book. One of them was with the way the scenes were set. Namely that they weren’t. Every scene, especially in the beginning, started right with the action or even a beat after it. For example, the book starts a moment after Alice’s partner has been taken, when she is fighting her injuries. No context was offered to where she was, why she was there, and why her partner mattered so much to her. As it was, I had trouble understanding Alice's need to go after him other than the general ‘of course she does’. Were they friends or was there a debt to pay? Was he a lover, a mentor? In a world where such decision means a pretty certain death, it needs to be a good reason. Causes were given later in the book, but it came too late as I’d already formed my opinion.

Incidentally, I’m not a fan of a narrative where character motivations, like the cause of Alice’s PTSD, are rationed and revealed after they have already influenced character’s actions. It made the narrative style was very claustrophobic with too little to work on. I had to put the book down fairly often just to clear my head. That fortunately changed towards the end of the book when all the players were familiar and the plot began to move forward.

I had issue with the world-building as well. If the world is that rigged against humanity, with no chances of survival, how come there are so many humans left? Especially since there’s a constant winter. Why are there no riots? The only one seems to be planned by the bad guys for their benefit. The idea of MI didn’t work well either. How could a machine replace the entire workforce? All it seemed to be able to do is print human body parts. They are so expensive that countries bankrupted themselves to get one, so they can’t be in every factory for example. And if they are supremely intellect, how come one of them could be fooled by a human? All the other technology seemed to be in the service of humanity, like the intelligent jacket Alice was wearing, so why was the humanity in such a bad state. Also, most of the technology appeared to be micro-chip based, whereas MI seems to be based on a Babbagean difference engine—a cool idea that would’ve changed the entire world-building if everything was based on that; a twenty-first century steampunk world powered by nuclear reactors.

All the issues aside, I liked the book enough to keep reading through the claustrophobic chapters. I liked Alice from the start and Red grew on me. Bad guys could have been more evil, but considering the ending, there’s maybe some use for them in subsequent books. I’m not entirely sure I’ll continue with the series, but I’m glad I read this one.

I must say this is my first cyberpunk read. I dunno if I would consider Altered Carbon cyberpunk or just sci-fi so there's that.

I loved, loved the concept. I'm not a fan of the police state nor cops in general so I do love it when no one places any great importance on their job or their ability fullfil that job. It was very satisfying to see the AI just didn't take Alice's word that her partner had been kidnapped without any proof. That gave me a tiny little smile.

I found it hard to believe that the world has advanced as much as it seems to have done from 2020 to 2050. That's 30 years, and right now we have people drinking bleach to cure COVID 19. Somehow I don't think we are on the brink of a tech boom on that magnitude of this book.

But that's ok I can suspend disbelief enough to keep reading. The writing the prose was just a little too much in a lot of places. It was hard to picket a lot of the settings and people as it was just too much input, as Johnny 5 would say. It was too much too fast to process all of it properly. I think we can all picture a bar without half a page of description. The purple prose was wasted on stuff that we didn't really need to know about.

Alice's detective skill set left a lot to be desired and other than being a Marine she honestly had no business trying to solve anything. She was more of a bash em over the head sort of copper. Not Miss Marple. It just wasn't believable that she was up to the task, and I know that it supposed to be part of the charm of her being in the predicament that she was in, but it wasn't enough for me. Its like yes Miss Marple is old, but she's extremely observant, and people are relaxed enough around her to spill all of their secret because Marple knows how to turn on the old lady charm when she needs to. Alice doesn't have any of those skills. And worse she's not a precision warrior like John Wick to be able to fall back on pure force.

Alice is a strangely created character that I don't think is living up to our expectations and what this plot demands of her.

I will however keep reading this series to see if she improves.

Keen has crafted a horrific future that is entirely believable here. The story flowed smoothly and gave tons of context to help me understand why the world is so far gone and how humanity is dealing with the side affects. I really enjoyed the story and how the characters interacted with each other. This was a plot where I didn't know what was coming and that was perfect.