Astroturf by Matthew Sperling is about a web developer who takes steroids and becomes a scammer when he becomes obsessed with an online forum.

Sorry I never got round to reading this. A shame as I quite fancied it from the blurb. It looked interesting... sorry.

Very readable and strangely intriguing, though I usually have no interest in the subject matter. I was waiting for the main character to get his comeuppance though.

Posted to Zerofiltersaurus.wordpress.com on 17th Sep-

The plot: Ned is 30, living in a basement bedsit, freshly dumped and miserable in his job. Ned is invigorated when he begins using testosterone to augment his physique and give him a boost, then develops an idea to exploit the online steroid community that he joins. Criminality and morality are strong themes, played out with a generous helping of comedy as Ned treads a dangerous path on his quest to improve himself and his life.

My thoughts: Sequel please.

Worth a read? If you want a brisk, comic tale about steroid culture and the seedy dark web, with a huge dose and irony and an insight into the rabbit hole that many so easily fall down in the pursuit of a ‘better’ body, this is a fantastic read.

Rating 5⭐️

Astroturf was published on 23rd August 2018 by riverrun. Thank you to Matthew Sperling, riverrun and NetGalley for the ARC

Astroturfing is a lot of fun. Ned is an internet designer who likes to keep fit at the gym. Unfortunately, his natural physique is never going to let him bulk up, so he looks to testosterone supplements to augment the hormones he naturally produces…

This is a short comic novel (novella?) that mixes body-building with cybercrime. The plot is simple but strong, but the real strength is in the handling of a range of social and ethical questions.

Perhaps the biggest of these is the question of physical attractiveness and the way it opens opportunities. Much of the current debate is around images of female beauty and the pressure women feel to meet unattainable standards as their social capital erodes as they age. Recently the very weird In-Cel movement has started to get some prominence – and in many ways, Astroturfing taps into the perception that the Chads and Staceys can access love, friendship, respect, career opportunities and wealth that is not available to the Beta Male.

Then, flowing from this is the question of what is acceptable in correcting the imbalances created through genetics. Is it cheating to use artificial supplements? Why are some external supports deemed to be cheating when others – protein shakes, improbable amounts of time at the gym, hiring personal trainers – deemed to be OK? Is there a moral difference when the supplements are intended to help a person in life as opposed to within a sporting competition? And does a law mean anything if nobody actually enforces it?

These questions – and more – are played out both in “real life” and in chatroom sock puppet discussions.

The story is good and the format is engaging. The characters are necessarily limited given the length of the novel, but Ned walks a tightrope between being abhorrent and being amusing – not sure he ever quite managed to appear likeable. His boss, Piotr, is a comedic horror – laddish, competitive, sexist and bullying. The gym instructor, Darus, is also a great comic creation – slow-witted, vain and greedy. The women are less well drawn and, as one might expect in such a sexist text, largely decorative.

If there is an Achilles heel, it is the dialogue. It doesn’t always quite ring true. Sometimes the characters sound as though they are speechifying, and some of the web forum posts feel rather more coherent – their arguments just a little bit too sophisticated – for the deliberately poor spelling and grammar. Oh, and I didn’t quite buy the ending which required Ned to embrace some life changes that didn’t seem quite consistent with his prior behaviour and personality.

Look, this isn’t high literature and it doesn’t pretend to be. It is a bit of fun, and it delivers that in good measure.