Just finished reading “A Factory of Dust” this weekend. This debut novel from Sam Arco is a sci-fi detective novel that easily blurs the lines between a good old fashioned Dick Tracey type novel and a futuristic sci-fi dystopian novel. I liked that the story never crossed into full dystopia, as that would have been way too depressing.
The book reads quick and easy with subtle warnings given about our current societal obsession with perfection and technology. The author was able to skillfully weave in current technology issues, unnatural/impossible beauty standards and all of the problems with social media we face today into the augmentation/cyborg state of the characters.
The story itself is extremely dialogue heavy which at times can get a little bogged down and I found myself unable to put the book down between chapters, or else I’d lose the story and have to read back a few pages to reintegrate back into the book. There are also a lot of typos and formatting errors in the kindle edition.
The author does a good job of storytelling from different characters without getting too far away from the main character, Miles Valentine. I would have liked a lot more background on Miles and the other characters, more back story stuff to help flesh them out and round out the story a bit more.
For a first time author, A Factory of Dust is a monumental achievement. Hopefully Sam Arco keeps writing.
Hops & Lit 