I'm sucker for a dystopian tale.
I have organised the location I will flee to to defend my life during a zombie apocalypse, I have mused on the best ways to defeat the inevitable robot uprising and how I will escape the glare of Big Brother in doing so.
Nick Clark Windo has stumbled across a variation on the techno-dystopian theme - during a bout of insomnia, he has said.
In his debut novel, future humans are installed with The Feed.
An implant in their brain allows them to communicate wordlessly, to access information in a nanosecond, to actually feel what others are feeling.
But with this comes a predictable reliance.
Clark Windo asks: what would happen if The Feed was switched off and people went back to being simple people again, having to fend for themselves, communicate verbally and make uninformed decisions?
Like all good fiction of its kind, there are parallels with modern society and our increasing connection to the internet and reliance upon it. It prompts readers to consider where we would be should the web suddenly be disabled or if electronic technology itself ceased to exist.
The premise of the novel is intriguing and begins with our two protagonists Tom and Kate experiencing life through the lens of The Feed.
The author skilfully allows us to live it through those all-seeing eyes of the character but within a handful of pages ``the collapse'' takes place.
The president is assassinated and The Feed eventually disintegrates.
Fast-forward a few months as civilisation falls apart and we are again with our two main characters, attempting to survive in the wasteland that remains.
Life is one of constant struggle: for food, shelter and safety from the hardy scavengers that were not crushed in the collapse.
They also face a threat from an outside source that they fear without fully understanding.
To make it more complicated, Tom and Kate have to steel themselves against such threats while protecting their 6-year-old daughter Bea.
The plot meanders through their daily struggles and several life-shattering moments, without ever really providing the thrills it should.
Clark Windo's best moments come at the outset and climax, when he uses The Feed.
It is the most thought-provoking issue he raises, yet it is drowned by the action in between.
The prose was oddly difficult to read, too. The film producer-turned-author regularly employed staccato sentences that felt more like movie shorthand than flowing description.
There was all the potential for an outstanding read but, sadly, The Feed will lie among the many middling novels of the genre.
Rob Kidd is an ODT court reporter and books editor.
