This was one of the most unusual books I've read, and I wasn't sure if I'd like it but it gripped me right from the start. I was so hooked I could barely put it down!

I really enjoyed this story, I found it super compelling.

There were times that I didn't quite understand all the sciencey stuff but I was invested enough in the story that this didn't really bother me. I was able to follow enough to keep me engaged.

I loved the concept of a secret game surrounded by puzzles and as the plot unfolded I found I just wanted to keep turning pages to find out what happened.

The characters were great I found them well developed and interesting to read about.

I was hooked until the very end, which I found to be very satisfying.

2.5 stars

There is a game called Rabbits that no one is supposed to talk about. Some people think that the game is used to recruit for the CIA, others that winning will make you rich, or that the underground game can become deadly if you get too deep.
K is obsessed with Rabbits and gives talks on it. One day, Alan Scarpio, a billionaire who supposedly won Rabbits in the past, appears asking for K's help. He claims there's something wrong with the game.
Then Alan goes missing, the eleventh iteration of Rabbits begins, and it has the highest body count yet.
Can K fix the game before it's too late?

When I first read the blurb for this book, I was intrigued. It ended up being quite different to what I expected, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but on this occasion, it ended up being a mixed read for me.
There are some books where after reading them I'm left feeling that I don't know much about the protagonist. This was one of those books. K was a character who I felt sorry for, but I didn't really care that much about what happened to him.
My favourite characters were probably Chloe and Baron, but I can't see them being characters that will stay for me for a long time.
The plot started off well, but around 60% of the way through I began to lose interest and the book dragged for me. I think it could have been 50-100 pages shorter than it was.
The concepts and science were interesting.
The writing style was easy to follow, but I wasn't invested in what was happening.

Overall, this was a mixed read.

I will no longer be reviewing this book as I am no longer interested in this. I think that others will enjoy this.

It’s an average work day. You’ve been wrapped up in a task, and you check the clock when you come up for air–4:44 pm. You go to check your email, and 44 unread messages have built up. With a shock, you realize it is April 4th–4/4. And when you get in your car to drive home, your odometer reads 44,444. Coincidence? Or have you just seen the edge of a rabbit hole?

Rabbits is a mysterious alternate reality game so vast it uses our global reality as its canvas. Since the game first started in 1959, ten iterations have appeared and nine winners have been declared. Their identities are unknown. So is their reward, which is whispered to be NSA or CIA recruitment, vast wealth, immortality, or perhaps even the key to unlocking the secrets of the universe itself. But the deeper you get, the more deadly the game becomes. Players have died in the past–and the body count is rising.

And now the eleventh round is about to begin. Enter K–a Rabbits obsessive who has been trying to find a way into the game for years. That path opens when K is approached by billionaire Alan Scarpio, the alleged winner of the sixth iteration. Scarpio says that something has gone wrong with the game and that K needs to fix it before Eleven starts or the whole world will pay the price.

Five days later, Scarpio is declared missing. Two weeks after that, K blows the deadline and Eleven begins. And suddenly, the fate of the entire universe is at stake.

Let’s start simple; Rabbits is one weird book. The good news is that I’m all about weird. People that know me can confirm that weird is very much my wheelhouse.

Over many years a strange game called Rabbits has been played across the world. It is only ever discussed in hushed tones by those in the know. The secrecy that surrounds the game is what makes it so enticing. The latest round of the game is about to begin. Unfortunately for us, something is going wrong and it has the potential to be extremely bad news for the human race.

We view the intricacies of the game through the eyes of a character only ever referred to as K. Rabbits has built up its own complex mythology over the decades and K is utterly obsessed with that lore. I couldn’t help but be a little sad for K. He is compelled to seek patterns in all things and there is a sense that the game has taken hold of his entire existence. It is fascinating from a reader’s perspective, however. K is driven by a desire for answers and that desire leads him down a life-altering rabbit hole. Pun intended.

What of the game itself? How do you play Rabbits? How do you win? What does it all mean? I got the distinct impression that trying to answer any/all of these questions means you are already playing. The game is more about the journey than the destination. Infuriating, I know but in the best of ways. K’s journey involves everything from random acts of Jeff Goldblum related violence, tram stops that shouldn’t exist on the Seattle Center Monorail, and the headache-inducing concept of false memory syndrome.

I don’t think Rabbits is the sort of book you read. It is more of an experience you have to dive into and see where it takes you. What exactly is going on? Is K starring in the abyss of complex multiverse theory, experiencing ripples of déjà vu, or is the whole thing the ultimate joke of an omnipotent higher power? There is so much to consider. Thinking about it, that may be the best way to describe Rabbits. It’s a book for people who enjoy a right good think about things.

It is extremely likely that Rabbits is going to fall into that genre fiction category I like to call literary marmite. Some readers are going to embrace the mind-bending adventure that explores the interconnectedness of all things, while others will refuse to engage and hate it with a passion. I fall squarely into the first category. Personally, I rather like books that elicit such strong reactions in readers. A large part of my lifelong love affair with the written word is that books have the remarkable ability to change your perception of the world. They prompt you to learn, to think and to question. I’ll admit that Rabbits left me with more questions than answers but I’m totally ok with that.

It’s just occurred to me, there is something from recent memory that might help to give you a bit of extra context about where this book fits. If you watched and enjoyed the brilliant 2020 television show DEVS created by Alex Garland, then I think Rabbits might just be the book for you. Both cover similar thematic ground. Sort of.

I’ll be honest, I could waffle endlessly about this book. This has only ever happened a few times before in my life. I have a memory of boring people endlessly years ago when I read The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. I’m still annoyed to this day I let someone borrow the book and it disappeared under mysterious circumstances. I apologise, I digress. My point is that T K Miles narrative has left me much the same way as Shea and Wilson’s writing did. To a tired old would-be non-conformist such as myself, Rabbits is the sort of fiction I love to revel in. So many ideas to explore about where we fit in the grand scheme of things. I love it.

Rabbits is published by Macmillan and is available now. Highly recommended. In fact, I’ll go further. This is a strong contender for my book of the year and we are only in early June.

Regular readers of The Eloquent Page know I like to pair any book I read with a suitable musical accompaniment. When it comes to Rabbits I was spoiled for choice. There are a handful of references to music in the novel itself which I duly listened to. It was nice to revisit Oxygene by Jean-Michel Jarre. Discovering the trippy majesty of Songs of Innocence by David Axelrod was awesome. Ultimately however my own music recommendation is the soundtrack to Donnie Darko by Michael Andrews. It has a weird, otherworldly vibe and a giant rabbit on the cover. Perfect fit or cosmic coincidence? I’ll let you decide.

Rabbits is a difficult story to describe. Part RPG gone wrong, part science fiction thriller, we follow character K - a lover of all things logical who sees patterns in everything, in a journey into the secret underworld of a deadly game.

You really need to go into this blind, as the story is set up in such a way that no-one really knows what's reality or not. This confusion add to the atmosphere of the book, and adds dimension to the unpredictable nature of the story. You never know what's going to happen next, or even what on earth is going on most of the time, and this leads to a very disorientating read. There's lots of jumping around - and for many readers this isn't going to appeal. There's also a lot of repetition to the story, which did start to grate after a while.

I will also say that I think a lot of time was devoted to creating this specific atmosphere in the book, leaving little left for the development of the characters. We never know much about K, and even less about Chloe. As a result, I just couldn't find myself invested in their story enough to care. I just don't think I'm really the target audience for this.

Brilliant book I was given a copy of this from netgalley before the release date. It was taking me a while to read with only having short bursts of reading; due to working night shifts and not being able to read more due to falling asleep but I was enjoying it that much I pre-ordered the signed copy of this from Waterstones. I won't spoil the plot or anything in the book but I was left wanting more and have so many unanswered questions that I hope there are other books planned.

This one just no longer appeals to me sadly. I tried to give it a go but I'm just not in the right headspace anymore for it.

I have heard amazing reviews for it though so don't be put off by me not feeling in the mood for this one!

My thanks to Pan Macmillan for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘Rabbits’ by Terry Miles in exchange for an honest review.

How to begin to describe this amazing debut? It almost defies summary. I think of it as the love child of ‘Ready Player One’ and ‘Fringe’ with ‘The Matrix’ as its godparent. Its narrator is K, a gamer looking to take part in the next round of Rabbits, a secret underground game that is dangerous, possibly even fatal for some.

No one knows what the rewards are for winning, though there are rumours of instant wealth, CIA recruitment, or immortality. It might even unlock the secrets of the universe. Yet, it is also known that the deeper you go, the more dangerous it becomes. Since the game first started, there have been ten iterations and the eleventh round is about to begin.

One day Alan Scarpio, reclusive billionaire and alleged Rabbits winner, shows up in K’s life seemingly out of nowhere. He tells K that something has gone badly wrong with the game and charges K with fixing it before Eleven starts – or the world will pay the price. Five days later, Scarpio is declared missing…..

This is just the opening and what a mind-blowing, alternative reality-skipping adventure it was. It is also packed with pop culture references. ‘Rabbits’ is the kind of novel that I love as aside from being very entertaining, it gave my little grey cells a workout.

I understand that ‘Rabbits’ began life as a series of podcasts and I certainly plan on seeking them out as well as keeping an eye out for future projects by Terry Miles.

Very highly recommended.

It was ok. I liked the ideas and the pacing. I enjoyed the plot. I found the characters interesting. Despite this, I somehow couldn't fully enjoy it.

A game that has either been going on for the last 50 years or hundreds of years. It is in its tenth iteration and used to provide you with unlimited wealth or knowledge or is just used by the CIA as recruitment. Even when you are looking to play the game you are already playing.
Rabbits is a labyrinth of a book but remain fun and interesting, never trying to confuse the reader but just dropping enough information and coincidental clues to keep you determined to read the next chapter.
I found the ending a little abrupt but the journey was well worth it and some of the scenarios are fantastic. Well recommended.

Rabbits by Terry Miles surprised me in many ways. I requested it on NetGalley and signed up for the blog tour on a bit of a whim. I’m not really sure what made me do it because I’ve not read anything that’s not space opera or fantasy in a long while, and this is neither. What it is, however, is a totally wild ride from start to finish. A book that makes you question not only the world it takes place in but the world around the reader as well. More than once I eyed my surroundings suspiciously.

Rabbits was originally a podcast, which I am 100% going to check out when I get the chance. I’d be fascinated to hear how an RPG podcast became this twisty, trippy book and how it all links into the story that I ended up reading.

There are a variety of interesting characters in this, all of which felt unique enough to stand on their own whilst not overtaking the story from our main character K. Just K. K is a slightly obsessive player of Rabbits, think of it like that game you played as a kid where you sit down and just yell related words at each other. Now zoom out and imagine the connections you make in that game on a much larger scale, involving a massive variety of items, people and historical events. That’s Rabbits.

K is just one of many people who play this game where the prize is supposedly anything you could wish for. Naturally, most winners seem to end up loaded as well. Why K is obsessed with Rabbits and his story throughout is intrinsically linked with the game itself, in about 100 ways that are hard to explain, but this link and how it impacts the story is great to read and created such a layered character who I rooted for throughout the whole story.

The other character that seemed to be closest to everything was Chloe, K’s kind-of girlfriend and a skilled Rabbits player in her own right. It seems only natural that these two end up tangled amongst the game that could kill everyone and everything. Chloe was equally an interesting character, unique enough to hold her own, but not strong enough to overpower K and the story that was being told for him as well.

Rabbits by Terry Miles is one of those you should really read slowly, make sure you’re understanding and remembering every detail, because that’s the point of Rabbits, and Terry Miles has done a marvellous job of bringing that to the story itself. It’s important the characters don’t miss a detail whilst playing Rabbits, and it’s important the reader doesn’t miss a detail when reading Rabbits. It’s such a subtle and enjoyable detail.

The ending is where this book… is probably like marmite. Rabbits by Terry Miles ends rather ambiguously, you don’t get a set answer to what Rabbits really is. Is it to do with wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff? Is it a super-powered AI that’s been running since the 50s? Is it something else entirely? Who knows? And personally, I think that’s the point. Rabbits, at it’s core, is unknowable. And again, it’s a theme that’s not only in the game, but it’s on the page as well. And there are people who won’t like not having an answer. In my opinion, though, it’s part of the magic of Rabbits. It’s part of that twistiness, part of that something that makes you look around after finishing the book imagining something similar in the real world. If we had a definite answer to what it was, it would take away part of that magic.

And as a bonus, this book has plenty of geeky details to make you grin. At least if you’re anything like me. It’s much like Ready Player One in that easter egg aspect of things. And don’t forget…

The door is open.

“The Door is Open.”

First, I’d like to thank Black Crow PR and UK Tor for sending me the ARC, I was intrigued right from the teaser copy, and the cover only added to a mystery that remained so right until the end.

Rabbits is a strange, absorbing – and at times, disturbing – SciFi mystery that holds its cards right until the end, scattering a trail of page-turning breadcrumbs that confuse and intrigue. It’s conspiracy, philosophy and the unknown stitched together into a vivid tapestry that leaves K, the main character, at a loss and in dire straits.

“R U PLAYING?”

The plot, which I’ll really try to skim over, sees K, a Rabbits know-it-all and fanatic, embroiled in an iteration of the game – a worldwide mystery and underground game that’s as deadly as it is hard to play. Only, a famous player contacts him and tells him this round has gone awry and he needs to fix it before he too becomes part of the mystery and disappears. It kept me on the edge of my seat throughout and kept me guessing at what would come next … as Rabbits really is a game you can’t predict. It sets a fast pace from the beginning but felt like it does sag a little through to the ending, which then takes off again. Because the game itself is so bizarre, at no point did I really feel like I had a hold on what it was or how they played it; this created a real sense of intelligence in the main character at the same time as keeping the reader utterly in the dark. Although the game itself was difficult to interpret, the idea that propelled the mystery part of it was something to grab on, and I did find myself pulled along by my own guesses – I, too, felt part of K’s iteration of the game.

From Eidetic memory to deepfakes, from the Berenstain Bears and confirmation bias, this book had me googling conspiracy theories, quantum theory, philosophy, and other weird and wonderful things; it had me playing along almost, learning about new theories and delving back into old theories that I’d read thoroughly about before. I’m well read on the side of conspiracy theories as I find them intriguing if not believable, so it really did pique my interest when a lot of the big real-world ones were woven into the plot. There’s also some things I didn’t know about, like the proper term for photographic memory and how this works, so I found myself doing a bit of extra-curricular reading (haha). So, if you’re into that kind of thing – or even intrigued by it – and ready to fill the gaps in your knowledge, there’s a lot you can get out of Rabbits and it’s great fun in my opinion.

Overall, if you like mysteries that are set in a world of quantum computing and conspiracy, I’d recommend you give this blend of science fiction a go.

This book was good!! If you're interested in the Mandela affect, or Glitch in the Matrix horror stories, Rabbits is definitely up your alley. Would've rated higher but sadly the momentum dropped a little for me towards the end.

Instagram review:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CQNu-u1rUCT/

This was certainly intriguing. I'm a big fan of Ready Player One and I liked God Game as well so I figured this was a good fit for me.

Unfortunately that was not the case. I found the writing style really lacking for me, the MC was not one I could connect with even on a superficial level. I found the way things were tossed together to be convoluted and very hard to pick out what actually was important and what was white noise.

Too many ideas shoved into one novel and a heavily unsatisfying ending for me.

I think it had potential and I do think it will be a fun read for a lot, especially those who listen to the podcast so don't let my review deter you if you're intrigued by the book!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Have you ever been obsessed by something that seems fairly innocuous but then takes over your life? A TV show and it’s long history? A band and the meaning of every song and every single performance. Perhaps that infamous browse of Wikipedia to look something up and then an hour and many many links later you discover all this weird stuff linked together. Humans love a puzzle to solve and if we are not paying attention then we can commit too much time to it. In Rabbits by Terry Miles we are taken on a dark path to solve a puzzle that may change reality and could threaten the world.

K is a thirtysomething who made money from share trading thanks to their unusual gift for spotting pattens and now lives for a different kind of game – researching the sixty year old game known as Rabbits. Rabbits is a mystery spoken of only in weird corners of the dark net and ever shifts through history and rumour. A game that requires players to construct links and links out of coincidences and obscure clues some of which require reality to have been shifted or huge resources to fake. If though you can win you can be very wealthy and powerful. K has really just been an observer of the game regaling other gamers with their knowledge of the history and strangeness of its various iterations but when multi-billionaire Alan Scarpio turns up and asks K for help investigating what is going wrong with the game it sets in motion a series of disappearances, mysterious deaths and changes to reality from movies that no one now remembers to Bowie being alive – Rabbits has begun the new game and K finds out someone is keen this time to make the game and possibly the world fall apart.

Rabbits is an intriguing and ambitious tale knitting out of fifty odd years of culture a decent game history that uses clues in the web, art, media and even just on the street to suggest our reality is weirder than you think. Miles services from stoner filled gaming arcades to cults to corporations pulling all the threads together and nothing stays fixed forever. In fact, as we get the story from K’s point of view then we even see them experience reality changing around them – a building may lose an entire floor, or a strange malevolent presence can be felt. K tells us not just the history of this bizarre game and its players but their own personal relationship that covers not just growing up but hidden family relationships hinting at a larger story under the surface. It is very kinetic style of storytelling moving location to location and back and forward in K’s or the game’s life. This successfully keeps the reader on their toes trying to work out the strange clues that evolve. We feel K’s bewilderment as they start to lose their own grip on reality and their friends start to get concerned or perhaps find the current one no longer matches their memories.

There is though a slight elephant in the room I better get out of the way. A lot of clues reference pop culture and it is hard not to think of Ready Player One as we get K explaining famous or mildly obscure movies, games or books. A Watchman reference here, some old computer games there and after a while it does feel a little too close in approach to ignore RP1 but the story gets much more interesting when the culture gets played with rather than worshipped. Miles though can create some weird horror instead as time changes or characters find themselves driving down roads with no lights or being chased by something that wants to end you are written very well and disturbing without the need to link everything to an obscure fact every few pages and that saves the story from becoming a drain. Then the story moves neatly from thriller to horror and while RP1 is all about warm glows of nostalgia here we get something a little darker and stranger. Although after a while the cycle of MK Ultra experiments, cults and billionaires to meet can appear that we are going through the classic conspiracy tropes too. I’m not sure I needed the kitchen sink throw at me every few pages and perhaps those constant reference get in the way of a story rather than embed it in our world!

Rabbits is a strange and weird thrill ride going in unusual directions and stylishly giving the reader a puzzle to solve. Fans of the podcast this came from get a different story but with many nods to it. The limitation is with its love of finding links within pop culture and need to explain itself that sometimes it feels all for effect rather than exploring why people get obsessed but when it cuts loose and plays with horror and changes to reality it gets to create a much more interesting tale. It’s an unusual story that you’re going to be surprised by and also want to solve yourself just don’t start trying to link all events together.

Rabbits was definitely one of the most interesting book that I've ever read. I knew the podcast but I didn't listen before. But the synopsis of this book was so good I immediately requested it. When I started reading the book, I thought it was all about playing the game but it went in very different directions. This book is full of twist and turns and every time I started reading it, I couldn't put down. There were few issues that remain open-ended but maybe I may not have noticed. Terry Miles has an amazing imagination and this book was amazing too. It's already among the best books that I've read this year. I'll check the podcast too. Overall, I'm really happy that I read this book, and thank you for the early copy. 4.5/5

A game has been played in secret for decades. Those who compete do so under pseudonyms and without any real understanding of the stakes or what is awarded to the winner. Some rumour that your wildest dreams will be granted and others that it is a form of CIA recruitment. The game has no name but amongst its disciples it has been awarded the name of Rabbits. Follow the clues and explore the Wonderland it leads you to.

Inception meets [book:Ready Player One|9969571] in this mind-bending and uniquely-constructed read. I was quickly enamoured with the story, even when my understanding was very minimal. It took almost the entire novel for me to get to grips with all that was occurring and even then I was left with many questions and a furrowed brow. I did not dislike the novel for that, though. In fact, it felt like part of its charm.

This was a read hard to categorise, devoid of sure footing for its readers, with an abundance of untrustworthy characters, and in a setting that could never be trusted for remaining where it was meant to. It only made sense that any sense truth would be hard fought for and also come with its own air of mystery and a potential, double-sided, duplicitous nature too.

If you don't finish this book solidly convinced that the game of Rabbits, or something similar exists or existed, then go back and read it again.

This book is a complete meta fictional-or is it?-recording of the history of this game, how it started and how it gripped the consciousness of nerds. It managed to stay underground, played in secret yet somehow, has caught the mind of conspiracy theorists the world over. And the more into you get, the higher the stakes and yet, there remains no official investigation into the psychological side effects or fatalities ascribed to this game.

No one really knows where it started, the rules of the game are super simple in that no one talks about it ,and it's a closely guarded secret known only to those who search hard enough to find the clues after the doors to Rabbits opens with a key phrase. And even working out the key phrase is an adventure in itself.

Narrator K's life has been taken over by the notion of this process-he has always had a propensity for noticing the details that pass others by, and after the death of his parents in his teens, he dives even more deeply into a world of real-or imagined?-patterns like never before.

For example, a game character from a 90's videogame inexplicably popping up in an arcade game from the 80's. Or a picture of a bird taken with a camera invented 50 years after the bird went extinct. Or a name in the credits of a film, or tv show, which is a ghost, something which shouldn't belong.

K becomes immersed in a life where his family is made from the dwellers on the dark side of the internet, the nerds and the geeks who don't belong anywhere else and see nothing wrong with a life spent unravelling a virtual Gordion Knot.

And as you read, the sense that they are modern day Quixotic gamers dissipates, because you too slip through the cracks in reality being painted on a huge canvas of probability, and begin to wonder what lies behind the fabric of 'every day life'.

The narrative and quest of this story is fantastic-a reclusive billionaire, who may or may not be the rumoured winner of a previous cycle of Rabbits, appears in an abandoned arcade to ask for K's help. He tells him Rabbits is broken and then immediately disappears the next day.

It's left up to K-can he dissociate himself from the situation enough to logically look for a real missing person?

I loved absolutely everything about this book,it messes with your head in the best possible way!

Fast paced and fun, Rabbits is the kind of book I love. Unpredictable and addictive, I couldn’t help but keep reading. I loved the gaming references throughout and the fear and tension created by the conspiracies was really very believable. I felt like this really could happen in the not too distant future. Great writing