Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

It's a great idea, but was as dry as reading an instruction manual. There were reams of techno-babble that had no bearing on the story, it just felt like padding and going overboard to satisfy the "science" in science-fiction.
For me, it felt like Ready Player One, without the heart.
I felt no connection to any of the characters, you have typical angry girl (who isn't like other girls), big lumbering guy, and slightly-popular guy. They basically go on a scavenger hunt, with clues getting dropped very conveniently, to move the plot along.

This was very different to my normal read.

Unfortunately the characters lacked depth although they appeared to be in there early twenties seemed very immature.

The story was fairly violent and repetitive.

Overall not for me.

A mix between Ernest Cline's Ready Player One and Neal Stephenson's Reamde, and in any case it did not quite make it...

A very different book to what I would normally read and I enjoyed a break from the normal.

This book was very unexpected as I am not a big Sci-Fi book reader but I loved this and couldn’t put it down

With this being a sci-fi book I was slightly worried about whether I’d like it or not.

There were elements I enjoyed but did find it hard going. I’m not sure if that’s because I’m a thriller lover and found parts of this a little slow but for someone who does enjoy the genre I’m sure they’d find it much more thrilling than I did.

More science fiction this week, this time a story about immersive VR, and an attempt to examine some of the more unpleasant outcomes that might occur if it's misused.

Theo is something of a dropout, who spends most of his free time indulging in SPACE, the future version of the internet, which is accessed through complex integration rigs. These make the experience more real by simulating emotions directly in the brain. Excitement, anger, pain, all can be induced by the right signals, though this does have a slight problem.

Taking all of this input straight into the nervous system tends to make the brain overclock somewhat, meaning that the system has to be regulated. People are mandated a maximum three hours a day time in SPACE, and anything above that can potentially cause brain damage or eventually death.

But as long as you stick to the rules, no problem right? Correct, except that after one particularly heavy session, Theo gets a phone call intended for his mother, threatening his life if she doesn't hand over "something" to a criminal enterprise. Given that his mother hasn't got in touch with him to warn him about this, he rather suspects she's been captured and killed and decides to investigate it himself.

And so begins a YA-ish quest through both the virtual and real worlds, with Theo and his group of friends teaming up with both a group of anti-SPACE activists and the artificial life that has slowly evolved within SPACE.

This is theoretically fairly high concept, with elements of the singularity, and the ethics of "fake" reality, looking at whether or not it's right to indulge in vicarious thrills based on real experiences, but it never really explores these properly. Instead, it's a pretty fluffy thriller, bouncing back and forth between reality and VR, in a way that might make a cool film (especially if you did a lot of work on the aesthetic), but mostly gets confusing in the book.

The climax in particular, in which the team split up between the two modes, didn't show significant separation. It has some nice grittiness in what people will actually do for power and how the imbalance always affects those lower down in the power structure, but in general it spoilt this by eventually turning our heroes into super powered beasts themselves.

Could have had a lot to say, but instead gave us relatively shallow action.

‘CTRL S’ is one of those books that has a load of good ideas but zero engagement. I really enjoyed the first quarter or so of it, but the more I read the less I found myself caring about the characters or what happened to them. That’s disappointing, because there’s a lot of promise here. Ultimately, though, the book ended up being very forgettable.
The book is partly set in a virtual reality would (SPACE) and so the blurb inevitably compares it to ‘Ready Player One’. It’s really nothing like that book though, free of its somewhat oppressive geekiness and featuring a detective story rather than an extended quest. Those are, for me at least, both pluses, so I had high hopes for the book, but they got dampened by the dull characters. The plot concerns a group of students in future London, the hero being one of the group called Theo. When his mother disappears he and his friends investigate, uncovering a vast criminal network operating in both cyberspace and the real world.
There are two things that work really well about the book. The first is that is has a great sense of place. Nu London (as it is termed in the book) is a convincing evolution of the modern day city, and Andy Briggs throws in enough detail to make it interesting. SPACE is similarly believable, a virtual world based on London but with subtle (and not so subtle differences). There are touchpoints that connect the real and cyber worlds, allowing the characters to flit between them.
The other element I enjoyed is the level of detail on future tech. Again, the advancements Briggs describes are credible and fun. They are recognisable enough that they don’t take a lot of explaining, but different enough to be entertaining. One of the central concepts is the books is that of virtual emotions, an interesting idea that Briggs explores in detail.
The problem, as I noted at the start. Is that none of it is very engaging. There’s loads of action, peril and running around, but I never connected with the characters enough to be truly engaged. As a result I found myself whizzing through the book, wishing it over so I could pick up something else. That’s never a good sign, and it’s a shame because there’s so much here that’s good.

Please note that this book is not for me - I have read the book, However I had to DNF and because i do not like to give negative reviews I will not review this book fully - there is no specific reason for not liking this book. I found it a struggle to read and did not enjoy trying to force myself to read this book.

Apologies for any inconvenience caused and thank you for the opportunity to read this book

In a futuristic world where visiting virtual reality space is totally possible, this exciting and unique book takes you to the places of pure imagination. Exciting, interesting, intriguing 5 stars

Although I found myself struggling a bit with suspension of disbelief in places (largely around the virtual world overlaying ours), it was an entertaining read, with decently likeable characters, and villains who were not merely cardboard cutouts.
An enjoyable read.

I was looking forward to this book from when it was given to me, but I felt a bit disappointed after reading it to be honest. I couldn't connect with the story or the characters, in fact the characters were quite annoying for me. And there was too much throwing up and brutality. While brutality I can deal with, vomiting and stuff like that put me off a bit. Overall not a book which I enjoyed. And thank you to NetGalley and Orion Publishing for giving me this book in exchange of my honest review.

This was one of the many e-arcs that was on my list to get through in December and I have to say this one surprised me. When I started reading CTRL+S the comparisons to Ready Player One started playing through my mind and I think that tainted my experience a little because this one didn’t feel as developed or as well written. But once I got past that and started to enjoy the book as a whole I thought differently. I loved the idea of a conspiracy and the way technology can be used for the worst. It was an interesting concept and one that is pretty relevant to everything moving as quickly as it is. Overall I really enjoyed this book, but I did have a few issues with the characters and the writing style.


I think the characters in this book were a little two dimensional, I wish there had been more about the individuals and more of their backstories. I felt as though there were too many of them and not a lot to distinguish them from each other. I wanted CTRL+S to draw more on the faults and flaws of each character and at some points, this was really well done, but at others, it felt as though the characters were jumping from emotion to emotion and it was hard to focus on who was who. Also what each of their motivations was for the various things that happen throughout the book, I just think the chance to get to know all of them was a little lost and I wish we had had more insight into them each as individual people.


I think the best bits of Ctrl+S for me would have to be the conspiracy that this entire book runs off, I really enjoyed seeing how the technology had not only evolved but also how it had been manipulated. I think this book could have done with being a little longer, especially as I think the twist at the end and the reasoning behind it all happened really quickly and I would have loved to have had more of an experience with that part of the story and learn more about the politics of the world they found themselves in. I wonder if there had been more emphasis on this part of the story whether that would have made up for the character’s faults a little more.

For me, the worst bit was the fact that there were so many characters introduced and in such quick succession that you never really understood who was who and what their part in the story was and why they were such an integral part of the story. I do think there was so much potential with the different people and how they were dealing with the consequences of being in the VR headset. I would have loved for CTRL+S to have investigated that a little more.

I would recommend CTRL+S but would say if you have read and are a fan of Ready Player One bear in mind that it can seem a little jarring at first because they feel like very similar books. I also think that this is a very plot-driven story and the characters can sometimes let the story down. But I really enjoyed reading it, and I wouldn’t hesitate to read other books by Andy Briggs.

At the beginning of the book, I thought this would be replica of Ready Player One (which I loved). I quickly realised it had a niche of its own. Its set in a near futuristic world, where virtual reality, called SPACE, is accessible to everyone. It is a much better copy of the real world, and society has to be restricted to 3 hours a day. Theo's real life is dismal in comparison. His mom cant hold a job and he is forced to flip synthetic burgers while his friends party it up at university. They are home for the holiday and catching up when Theo's mom disappears and leaves a trail of clues that hint at something dangerous and very important.
I love how much thought and detail went into describing the virtual world so that it felt quite real. The book pulls you in from the start and sets a roller-coaster pace. The characters were well described, although I would have liked a bit more about the relationships between them. I also loved the concepts, that the virtual world could start to incorporate virtual emotions. I couldn't put the book down and images created in the book have stayed with me way past the end. Overall, an exciting, thrilling near futuristic read.

An enjoyable romp in the style of Ready Player One and a pretty similar plot too. The virtual world of Briggs' imagining is called SPACE and is a landscape where anything can happen. Unfortunately our hero Theo's mother has been dallying with some pretty nasty criminals and he is sucked into a deadly investigation to try and save her after she is kidnapped.

The eARC book wasn't formatted at all - so chapters collided and paragraphs weren't clear which made the read a tricky one. Added to this was that there was a lot of scifi jargon and the rules of SPACE to understand. Sometimes the reading got pretty heavy going.

There were some pretty horrible torture scenes and deaths which made for an icky time. The main premise of what the bad guys are up to is super dark so this was to be expected.

Theo's friends are his Scooby gang, but the characters are written in a way that makes it hard to respond warmly to them - we never really get to know them and they are quite hard to like.

Thanks to NetGalley for the eARC copy.

CTRL S is an unusual (but very enjoyable) crime thriller, set in the virtual world of SPACE (like the internet, but with integrated VR and emotional capabilities).

It took me a few chapters to really get into this one, but once I'd wrapped my head around it all it got much more interesting. The story centres around the idea of how emotions might eventually become harnessed within a virtual world, and the dangers this could lead to, which I thought was a unique and interesting concept. I did feel at times as though I was reading an outline for a possible movie - not that this is necessarily a criticism, as it would definitely be a movie that I would go to see!

A fast paced and interesting crime thriller set in the virtual world of SPACE. This story raises the idea of how emotions can harnessed within virtual reality, and how they can be abused. There's some great ideas here and I'd love to see a film come from this.
I also loved the fact that it's set in the UK.

I don't read as many books in this genre as I would like, but the blurb of this book hooked me in from the off, and this continued from the first page. I hate spoilers but the characters in this book are certainly going to take you on a ride. I plan to buy this book for my brother, who will love it. Ready Player One fans, this one is a must read!

With CTRL S, Briggs explores (and exploits) the concept of SPACE, a future version of the Internet that includes VR and emotions (from and to the real world). Four young friends, around twenty years of age, hop in and out of SPACE to find the mother of one of them, who appears to be kidnapped. After a few chapters of introducing things – new concepts need to be explained, no way around that – these friends find themselves engaged in fast-paced action, almost like it were a video game.

While reading this, you get the idea that some good old 2D platform gaming concepts (Donkey Kong, Mario …) are combined with cyberpunk characteristics and ideas like Second Life. Not everything in this book feels like brand new. But Andy Briggs added many ideas of his own and as such created a Hollywood-style action thriller that is really fun to read.

Moments of relaxation in this book: zip. From the very first page, the main characters are running around and fighting for their lives. Even the unavoidable technobabble is mostly packed inside layers of action. The story is for the larger part a rat race that gets more and more insane while it progresses. It’s really like a platform game with levels. Every level is faster and trickier than the previous one. Think “chapter” instead of “level” and you’re close. There are moments when you cannot afford to let your concentration slip, or you’re lost. But it’s not all about action. The base of it all is a solid book plot. All the shooting and running around serves a purpose: saving a kidnapped mother and along with it the future of SPACE.

Are Briggs’s ideas far-fetched? I don’t think so. I can imagine a near-future in which many of the concepts shown here, will start happening. It’s an imaginative book but definitely not unrealistic. It makes you think about the future that our current Internet is heading towards, and which of the aspects we want and want not. But probably CTRL S is not written to be an eye-opener. So let’s not go there. This is an enjoyable read and I have done exactly that: enjoyed it.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an arc copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I had high hopes for this book as I’m a fan of Ready Player One and a few others but I was really disappointed. I felt that the characters were not likeable and weren’t developed well. Storyline was ok.