Book Review: Origins: The Hacker

The second of two action-packed short story prequels to Barry Ryerson’s The Magic Circle.

Recently I reviewed Origins: The Secret Agent, the first of two short story prequels to The Magic Circle, that one giving backstory on Yevgeny, a key POV character from the main novel. Origins: The Hacker, goes back even further in time and follows the origin story of the main antagonist of the novel. I’ve said before how much I enjoyed The Magic Circle, so I was eager to jump into these short stories and get some more in the Celestial Chronicles universe. I went straight into The Hacker straight after The Secret Agent, reading them both in a single day.

Blurb

Decades after nuclear war, magic returns.

But how did the war start in the first place?

Follow a young hacker as his fight for freedom takes him down dark paths and towards an insatiable desire to make South Africa great, no matter the cost to anyone else.

Review

So, first of all, The Hacker is the superior of the two short stories by far. More than that, it’s bloody excellent. It’s so dark and full of tension, and Wikus’s corruption arc is brilliantly portrayed. Here in this story we go back in time even further in the continuity of the series, right to where the events that serve as the backdrop for the main novel took place. The depiction of Wikus, his tumultuous family dynamics, and the events that led him down his dark path were thoroughly engaging.

The plot was tight and immersive, and it absolutely stuck the ending. As always, Barry’s writing is vivid and enjoyable, and Wikus is a brilliant character.

If there’s only room for one of these short stories on your e-reader then this is the one to prioritise, though I’m not sure why there would be. Both of these short stories add a great deal of extra richness to the world that Barry has created and I would highly recommend them both.