Terry Miles

I was approved to receive an e-Galley ARC of Rabbits, authored by Terry Miles, from the publisher Del Rey, and NetGalley, for review consideration. What follows below is my honest review, freely given.

I rated this novel 5 stars. ‘Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean people are not out to get you’, is a saying that feels right at home with a story like this; anything is possible and everything can have meaning. Deja vu, the Mandela effect, every dance down the rabbit hole of show more internet conspiracy theory may have a place within an iteration of Rabbits.

The first rule of Rabbits is that you are not supposed to talk about Rabbits, not by its name, not to directly to draw attention to yourself. It’s basically full on bonkers from the get go and I loved it. You’re riding shoulder of the MC, who knows enough about Rabbits to get into trouble while waiting for the next round to happen. It’s a dense read, but in the best way because the author tucked everything up nice and neat for us readers by the end; just magic and sorrow, hollowed chests and static minds. I got to the end and wanted to the throw my Kindle, a first for me. Not in anger, but just the build up of emotion from the story, and how it all played out… I cannot put spoilers, I will not put spoilers… but this story grows and becomes more than just about a game, obviously. The end, man, the whole novel is this wonderful, gorgeous story that makes you think; it’s a person-changing story. Maybe not for everyone, but for some people, this is going to hit you by surprise. I’m going to get this in hardcover, I’m going to have to own a physical copy. show less

The Publisher Says: Conspiracies abound in this surreal and yet all-too-real technothriller in which a deadly underground alternate reality game might just be altering reality itself, set in the same world as the popular Rabbits podcast.

It's an average work day. You've been wrapped up in a task, and you check the clock when you come up for air—4:44 pm. You go to check your email, and 44 unread messages have built up. With a shock, you realize it is April 4th—4/4. And when you get in your show more car to drive home, your odometer reads 44,444. Coincidence? Or have you just seen the edge of a rabbit hole?

Rabbits is a mysterious alternate reality game so vast it uses our global reality as its canvas. Since the game first started in 1959, ten iterations have appeared and nine winners have been declared. Their identities are unknown. So is their reward, which is whispered to be NSA or CIA recruitment, vast wealth, immortality, or perhaps even the key to unlocking the secrets of the universe itself. But the deeper you get, the more deadly the game becomes. Players have died in the past—and the body count is rising.

And now the eleventh round is about to begin. Enter K—a Rabbits obsessive who has been trying to find a way into the game for years. That path opens when K is approached by billionaire Alan Scarpio, the alleged winner of the sixth iteration. Scarpio says that something has gone wrong with the game and that K needs to fix it before Eleven starts or the whole world will pay the price.

Five days later, Scarpio is declared missing. Two weeks after that, K blows the deadline and Eleven begins. And suddenly, the fate of the entire universe is at stake.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: There is no possible way to explain the effect of this book to someone who's never dropped acid, consumed ayahuasca, or been down the psilocybin road. If you know, you know; if you don't, quite a lot of what is happening here is simply...weirdness. Which, to be fair, it is; but it is so much more than merely ornamentally weird.

If you're the one who read [Ready Player One] and thought, "hey, that could be me!" then you're prime meat for the story's more esoteric references. And you'll probably like it even more if you loved [The Matrix] but less so the sequels. I'm betting that, if you've read [The Trial] and/or [Kafka on the Shore] more than once, you'll read this book with relish.

But, crucially, absent a strong desire to seek out and complete patterns in the world, and in your head, the main pleasure of the book will slightly elude you. K (hi, Franz!) who narrates the book to us, isn't gendered. K's girlfriend Chloe is not inclined, under the circumstances of the book, to compliment K on diagnostic body parts. When talking through the extreme weirdness of life inside the rabbit hole of a planet-wide conspiracy with the stakes being your very life, suchlike stuff ain't no big. But in fact, there are little indicators that K is more than a gendered presence, is in fact a Jungian archetype, several in turn by my count. But that's a discovery for the reader to make. I will say this: I liked the hunt for those tells, too.

What worked best for me in the read was that very sense of patterns hanging from the trees, drifting in the air, making explicit shadows on the sidewalk as you're coddiwompling among the words. I enjoy the sensation of being led and misdirected to get to a story that won't take a final shape. I don't know Seattle, I took a serious aversion to it during my 1990s foray there, so a lot of the subtext from the locale was simply lost on me. (Greenness and verdant growth are menacing in two places on Earth: The Pacific Northwest and Ireland.)

There's something very soothing about conspiracy theories. One is assured of being Right: no evidence will ever penetrate the bunker mentality. There's a Reason for the random shit that happens: THEY want it to! And, if it's too random to fit into the pattern, THEY lost a round (which is scary and satisfying) or the computer introduced a new variable. Standing on the edge, looking down, and seeing Something is the only way most people can keep going. (I myownself see nothing, and absolutely vibrate with eagerness to lose myself in it.)

So on so many levels, this isn't a book aimed at me...I'm too old, too cynical, and too disinclined to believe there's a Purpose...but it's told in that densely imagined and deeply felt way that draws me in every time. That there are trappings I could do without, well, that's because they're there for others to enjoy. That there is no rush in Author Miles's unfolding of the story is a net good thing. He could've told the whole megillah in 200pp and had room for the publisher's entire catalog of SF/F titles. But the point of the story would've been violated.

Go on a journey. Listen to the people around you. I don't mean keep your ears open, I mean *listen* as the words come towards you. It takes a lot of practice to get good at listening, but this book is both a good place to practice and a rewarding discovery when you practice the skill here. I expect a lot of readers didn't fare well with the book because it simply doesn't follow ordinary trails to get between the start and the finish. If you're a Neal Stephenson reader, if [Cryptonomicon] and [Reamde] delighted you, here's another scratcher for that itch. You're not likely to be disappointed, either, Murakami readers. And best of all, you can get a paperback to take to the beach for Labor Day! show less

Rabbits is a mind-bending sci-fi thriller that dives headfirst into a world where reality may be just one level of a complex, hidden game. Based on the hit podcast of the same name, this novel blurs the lines between fiction and reality, technology and paranoia, past and future. It asks the ultimate question: What if life itself is a game—and someone changed the rules?
The story follows K, an obsessive fan of the mysterious alternate reality game “Rabbits,” which has supposedly existed show more since 1959. With nine winners declared and the tenth iteration concluded, the game’s reward remains a mystery—rumored to be everything from secret government recruitment to immortality. But when billionaire Alan Scarpio, thought to be a past winner, warns K that the game is broken and that reality itself is in danger, things begin to spiral. And then Scarpio disappears.
What follows is a journey through shifting realities, cryptic clues, and a creeping sense of danger as K is drawn deeper into the eleventh round of the game. The novel captures the feeling of paranoia and existential disorientation in a way that mirrors the game itself: the frequent shifts in setting and timeline may seem jarring at first, but ultimately enhance the surreal, puzzle-like structure of the story.
The concept is fascinating—equal parts The Matrix, Black Mirror, and urban legend—with just enough mystery to keep you guessing. While the nonlinear structure and jumps between timelines can be confusing at times, this disorientation seems intentional, echoing the instability of the world K is unraveling. As the story progresses, the reader becomes just as unsure of what’s real as the protagonist, which is both thrilling and thematically fitting.
If you're a fan of immersive, reality-warping stories with layers of mystery and a touch of danger, Rabbits will pull you in and keep you hooked. It’s not always a smooth ride, but that chaos feels deliberate—and by the end, it all clicks in a satisfying, unsettling way. show less

This is a great book of mystery, science fiction, and puzzles. The story is meandering, but never boring, and what is real, or not real, is always on the readers brain - is K crazy, or crazy smart?

What exactly the game of Rabbits is, no one knows. Even those that study it. Maybe its a way to align ancient paths so the realities can exist. Maybe its something else entirely.

The plot is tight, but meandering. The twists and turns make sense, the character of K is well written and mental show more illness is explained respectfully and never dismissed by others. The secondary characters are just as interesting. I especially liked the cultural references, from old school computers, to dark-web searches. At times, there seems to be too much explanation of technology (old and new). But, it doesn't detract from the story. show less