This book was recommended to me by a bookclub friend. “Lesbian scientists!” she said. “There’s a drug that makes people see God (or Gods or G-d),” she said. It sounded like a cool idea, reminding me a little of Nexus by Ramez Naam or some post-William Gibson kind of thing about our modern technology gone just a little too far.
My overall experience of reading this book was just “meh.” The concept did sound pretty interesting and it begins with a character who is a lesbian in a mental institution, so I realized pretty quickly it wasn’t an average sci-fi book. The first few chapters are about her getting out and coming back to her life on the outside, and about her past in working for a drug company startup that manufactured a chemical that would make the users see God. What is interesting is the withdrawal from the drug; a teenager in the beginning kills herself because she no longer has access to the drug and God goes away from her. But then the heroine of the book goes on a journey to find out who is manufacturing this substance based on her company’s original design, and it wasn’t a particularly interesting journey to me.
Afterparty dabbled in philosophy but didn’t really make any real decisions, and it sort of ends up just being a bit of a road trip/heist story. There was nothing that felt super original to me, maybe because I’ve read so many books before that feature genetic engineering, near future, cyberpunk stuff.