"CEO in the morning, writer by night", "John Grisham of Banking"; that is how Ravi Subramanian has been introduced to the world by top magazines and newspapers. Winner of the Golden Quill Readers' Choice Award and Economist-Crossword Book Award, the author has surely made a kingdom for himself in the Indian Fiction genre.
With thorough and extensive research about Bitcoins, gaming, banking frauds and ofcourse love, he is back with a thrilling and raunchy tale to narrate in God is a Gamer. The story takes place and revolves around various locations in Washington DC, Mumbai, Goad and New York.
The plot begins with a major phishing scam on NYIB involving a heist of several million dollars from the ATMs. The fact that to rob the account holder off his money requires much more than just his account ID and password has been conveniently ignored by the writer. The book then explores the turmoil in relationships between top companies because of the scam and rise of a gaming giant.
After a year, WikiLeaks shakes the ground of the US government and the virtual currency Bitcoin, which knows no bounds illuminates from the dark. There is a mysterious death of a top bureaucrat which leads to a mad chase by the FBI, CBI and the CIA. The chaos-filled murders, interrogations and arrests with a thought provoking backdrop of the dark side of Bitcoins proves to be an exciting combination for a Saturday night book hangover.
Amidst all the goose chase there is an emotional chord that the author very sharply touches with a tale of the father-son bond who have been reunited after 20 years and a mild mesmerizing love story between two people in their 20s and their teenage types romance.
The author provides little information about Bitcoins mining and how they can be converted into actual real currencies for ease of trade. The author describes the founder of the Bitcoins, Satoshi Nakamoto, as a man who has a fetish for japanese products (Sa- Samsung, Toshi- Toshiba, Naka- Nakamichi, Moto- Motorola). However, there is an error in the fact given that Samsung is a Korean company. Sansui or Sanyo could have been used instead as this was an impressive highlight coming straight from author's mind and was likely to be noticed more than usual.
Overall, the book keeps you glued to it throughout and all your forecasts about the suspense turn out to be false until you read the post epilogue chapter. The book description rightly says "The truth seems far from reality. Where money means nothing, where predators are prey, nothing is as it seems and God is a Gamer". You will linger on to these lines for several days after completing the book.
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