I picked up “Darknet” because I work in AI and automation and I wanted to see what someone who sees the darker possibilities of the technologies would imagine as our future.

Matthew Mather does a good job with the technology. The things he imagines are a “five minutes from now” version of the current technology used for bots, machine learning, pattern recognition, drones and cryptocurrency.

He’s also come up with a dark and plausible global conspiracy, powered by an AI technology that happily uses humans to do the wetwork.

The action is set across the world: China, the US, Canada, the UK. There’s a surprisingly high body count and the action is relentless.

I’m sure the novel has a clever resolution for dealing with the monstrous entity Matthew Mather’s imagination has spawned but I’m never going to find out what it is.

I gave up just before the half-way point because I realised that I really didn’t care what happened to any of the people. It was like watching someone else play a video game: great graphics and sound effects but zero emotional engagement.

If you’re in it for a fast-paced, action-packed thriller with a plausible extrapolation of current technology then “Darknet” may do it for you. Personally, I’ll wait to download the video when the movie is inevitably made.