The summary of this book got me excited about the potential for futuristic worldbuilding, character development, and a good mystery, but only one of those really materialized.

When Jake wakes up in a mysterious house with no memory of who he is or how he got there, it's clear that something is wrong. Even though he doesn't remember who he is, he knows that something about him looks and feels different and this is not where he is supposed to be. As he begins to regain his memory, he remembers recognizing in 2014 that 3D printing and machine learning could potentially be disastrous to the world economy, yet the future turned out much worse than even he could have imagined. Humanity has shrunk to a small fraction of its size, the global economy has shriveled, and the rich have taken charge in ways previously unimaginable.

As Jake gets to know his host, Roger, he can't help but see a sinister side to him as he seemingly takes joy in recounting the horrific details of the destruction of the world as Jake knew it. Roger is quickly outed as a sadist who can't be bothered to do his own dirty work, but employs a full staff of advanced robots, or Bots, to carry out his every whim. Jake quickly realizes that his own former work is a critical inflection point in the trajectory of this devastation, and only he is able to change or stay the course. Saving humanity requires working behind Roger's back, getting the assistance of some of Roger's most trusted staff, and fully tapping into predictions about the future he made 223 years ago.

Existential Thread starts with a great concept about 3D printing and machine learning leading to dystopian future, but fails to deliver on the technological worldbuilding that would have made this story great. In fact, 3D printing is rarely discussed, and machine learning even less so. I feel a little weird saying this, as the first few chapters are devoted, almost ad nauseum, to worldbuilding. But the advances in technology that are described are tropes of the genre and most are practically near-future at this point--they certainly will not take 223 years to achieve. The rest really lack the scientific basis to be plausible at all. For a book that posits itself as being heavily reliant on 3D printing and machine learning, the author betrays little technical understanding of either.

From a literary standpoint, I was frustrated with how explicit the author made the symbolism in most cases, and how he relied almost exclusively on obvious Biblical references that appear over and over in the genre, e.g., the ark. His scientific references are to Darwin. And, don't fret, any names that you didn't quite catch the significance of are spelled out for you in an appendix. Additionally, while the novel is in the 3rd person, it is clearly from Jake's perspective, yet there are several chapters where it is not possible for Jake to have that information and they come before he has access to the Ark files. It's poorly executed even for 3rd person omniscient.

Characters are flat, which is honestly *fine* in a book this short where you don't get too invested. But I found it frustrating that characters that seem primary in the first half all but disappear by the second half, and those that become primary in the second half showed up barely, if at all, in the first half. With the exception of Jake.

More than anything, what I struggled with in this novel is outdated cultural norms, with only a few nods toward a more contemporary worldview. While some of this can be written off by Roger's admittedly problematic views, depicting women and people of nations other than the United States and races other than white in the way the narrator does is not valuable to the storyline and is, in my view, completely unnecessary. For being written in 2020, it reads culturally as if it were written in the 1950s or 60s, with a few exceptions. At one point, he even references a human "common ancestor" and a primitive, presumably African woman as having the DNA that is the "closest match" to the "human common ancestor," as if race is a genetic variant and not a social construct. The way women are portrayed in this book is, in a word, gross.

That said, you may really appreciate this novel if you are looking for a fast-paced read that is heavily plot-focused. And if you're into the subtly smart, tough, cowboy type, Jake will be a super relatable character for you.