Alif the Unseen

 Alif the Unseen (2012) by Willow Wilson

Alif is the handle of a young Arab-Indian hacker in a Middle Eastern security state who uses his computer skills to shield anyone who wants protection from "the man"--whether they be communists or Islamists or feminists. The Hand is the head of State security who makes it his job to hunt down hackers like Alif and punish them. Alif makes the mistake of falling in love with the woman who winds up betrothed to the Hand. Things go from bad to worse when Alif develops a new program that can identify someone's presence on the web--no matter how many aliases they use, fake emails, cycling ISP locations, etc. And then Intisar (the woman in question) sends him a rare book dictated by a jinn to a Persian scholar centuries ago--a book that the Hand wants desperately. Alif finds himself on the run--helped by human friends, jinn, and other forces not seen by humans for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years. What is so important about this book that the Hand is willing to kill for it? And can Alif prevent it from falling into the wrong hands?

So...a superhero Alif isn't. He's a pretty unaware, screw-up a great deal of the time. He constantly gets all those who help him along the way in precarious situations and spends a lot of the book making things go from bad to worse. But once he starts to grow and shoulder the responsibility (rather than blundering along and just apologizing to everyone for what a mess he's made or swearing up a storm when things go wrong), the character really comes into his own. I enjoyed watching him grow up before my eyes. 

It was also very interesting to read a techno-fantasy novel based in and on a culture that is very unfamiliar to me. Though I am very familiar with the story of Aladdin and the lamp, it was still difficult at first to immerse myself in this story out of the One Thousand and One Nights from the opposite side. Here we get stories based on the Middle Eastern folk tales from the view of the jinn. Humans who got hold of the rare book of stories believed it would bring great power...but Alif learns that you should be careful what you wish for. You just might get it. Combining this world with the present-day and the world of technology was an impressive effort which worked very well for the most part. I really like the idea of combining religious thought and philosophy with computer coding to create a new computing technology. Did I understand it all--no. But that's okay. I understood enough to follow the story and to appreciate the end of the story.

I will say that Alif is not my favorite character in the book. Hands down, my favorite is Dina, his next-door neighbor. Dina is smart and stubborn and loyal. She sticks with Alif even when he's making bad decisions that could cost them dearly. She loves Alif--not for who he is, but for the man she knows he can become. it's satisfying to see her proved right at the end. I also really like Vikram a dangerous jinn who risks everything to help Alif and Dina. He's sortof like the bad boy who has a heart of gold and does the right thing in the end. 

A really good fantasy/thriller that kept me hooked to the very end. ★★★★

First line: The thing always appeared in the hour between sunset and full dark.

Last line: Night birds began to sing in the stunted dusty trees, and the breeze from the harbor carried with it the sound of cheers and shouts and horns.