Exit Point

by Anil Goel

Set in a chillingly probable 2016, Exit Point is tech thriller that takes us into a dark, mysterious online world where an ancient mystery is finally unravelling after centuries. Startling events that seem unrelated at first begin to fall together into a plot that that cuts across Australia, India, China, Hong Kong, London, America – and ultimately all of mankind. From Adam and Eve. To us.

A dozen sharks go berserk off the coast of Bondi Beach and land up dead with terrible burn marks on their nose. A super-intelligent teenage girl is found dead with no apparent cause and her father, implicated in another murder in the same house, at the same time, insists he doesn’t know how she died. The investigating team gets a mysterious tip-off – the girl was chatting with another teenager on a social networking site at the exact time she died. A young reclusive tech genius is contemplating a suicide pact with an online soul mate who suddenly disappears.

As these seemingly disconnected events begin to come together into an existential crisis thundering towards mankind itself, all hopes lie with Alok – and his quest to find his intimate. At all of 17 years of age, he saved a country. At 25, can he save humanity?”

507 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2014

About the author

Anil Goel grew up in Mumbai, India in the 70s and fell in love with computers when he saw one for the first time in the Asiatic supermarket at Churchgate in the 80s. He went on to graduate with honours in Computer Engineering in the 90s and worked in the technology industry for more than a decade before writing his first novel “Release 2.0: The Bangalore Imperative”.

Release 2.0 was hailed as “India’s first IT thriller” and rated very high for its fast pace, imagination and vision of the technology industry, earning Anil the moniker of “Prophet Of Doom” from the Deccan Herald. Exit Point is his second novel. It is based on the internet.

A diehard technologist, who believes the entire miracle of the universe can be reduced to a computing problem, Anil’s stories are tech thrillers that are based on real technology but stretch the limits of what is currently available and what may be possible in the future.

You can find him on http://www.facebook.com/anilgoel.

Reviews

[Parwati Singari · Rating 3 out of 5]

“I link so I am.”
The eternal war between Intelligence and Emotions.
Right from Kapila Rishi’s Kapila Samhitha is the mind and emotions. Here it forms the fabric for a whodunit.
Exit point authored by Anil Goel, is a IT thriller published by Leadstartcorp and ISBN 978-93-84226-26-8
The story opens in 2004 with an Australian intelligence officer observing strange phenomenon occurring along the Australian coast. The story then turns futuristic to 2015, now that seems a little amusing considering we are on the brink 2015.
Australia- United Kingdom-America creates x-net an advanced internet program. It is one of the most popular programs for people living more in the virtual world than the real world. To the extent there is a death switch which can be activated to record your last moments.
Meg a thirteen year old x-net addict is found dead in mysterious situation. Alok a 25yr.old recluse Indian geek reaches out to Shane the investigating officer. The quest to solve the mysterious death, leads the team to Hong-Kong, London, Mumbai and back. Then there is Mark a suspect who is such recluse that despite of being the whiz of the internet enterprise world is a ghost who walks for he lives a double life as a scavenger on the streets of Mumbai.
There is Wealthy Desai who is brought up in Silicon Valley and he draws a parallel between being brought up in a Himalayan valley where the farmer is constantly worried that the big cat would eat up the livestock.
Despite of the virtual world residents are still mundane; the author equates the residents of the virtual world to Delhites since everyone is judged by their status. To me the protagonist Alok and his chat with is soul mate in the x-net is like very animal like, like a peacock spreading its tail for the pea-hen
Intelligence gets personified into an energy that communicates, and conversation that it holds with on x-net is quite Sufi like in its presentation though not in philosophy.
There were some very interesting concepts like
-- Al Qaeda being an organization that took on a life of its own to render its creators redundant.
--Being over qualified means you are dumb and stupid and develop skills that nobody wants.
-- Hydrogen atoms being gregarious, not wanting to be alone, so they communicate with each other and find stability as Helium.
the book is quite interesting though tends to drag at times, once the mystery is solved there and all the main characters receive their trophy the reality of and the reality of exit point is revealed, the books takes a deep unreadable plunge into the vague murky waters that is the geeky version of hippie culture. Mind you it covers the span of good 50 pages which I found unreadable.
Good read for people who are into social media, whodunits, and technology.
I wonder if the author realize how much of traditional thought he has used in the book.
About The Author—Anil Goel is a Mumbai raised, IT personal who wrote 2.0 the first IT thriller of India. To him the computer is the panacea for all challenges and he uses it as the fabric to tailor his tales. He has earned the moniker of Prophet Of Doom by Deccan Herald and can be reached at http://www.facebook.com/anilgoel.
The book was a complimentary copy from Lead Start Publication for reviewing.
I have refrained from giving out the spoilers.

[Sandeep Sharma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tech thrillers are very rare in Indian market or we can also quote this as every other genre except the regular ‘love & romance’ and mythology (thanks to Amish) , is pretty rare sight for the Indian section of the bookstores. So first of all I would like to congratulate the author Anil Goel for taking up the risk of writing up something new.

This novel is his second attempt towards tech thrillers. The title, ‘Exit Point : On the internet no one knows you are dead…’ creates a huge hype of expectations in the readers mind as the title is pretty catchy and anticipating.

The book starts with a bang. It shows an internet blackout in Australia in the year 2004 which results in something unusual in the oceans and affects the sharks living inside them. Starting is pretty confusing but slowly picks the pace and keeps on demanding for the reader’s attention and eventually till the start of the main theme of the book, reader finds himself wondering ‘What’s going to happen next’.

With the entry of Alok in the Shane’s investigation of a suspicious death of a girl, the author starts to play with the imagination of readers. The wannabe technologies of the future world will keep you gasping because the author is pretty good in it.

Story mainly revolves around the futuristic social networking site called ‘X-Net’ and an external app called ‘Death-Switch’. I loved the way the author takes liberty to explain everything to the reader, layer by layer, without making his reader lose his attentiveness.

Middle portion of the book is dedicated to Mark; the founder of X-Net. That portion is my personal favorite.

After the chase, comes the most important part and that is the ‘Exit Point’ and the mystery behind the blackout and the subsequent death of Megan. Now that’s the portion which I felt a bit disappointing. I didn’t expect the climax to be so mediocre. I had pretty high expectations with the climax part.

Another thing which I felt wrong with the book was too much of technicality involved in it. There’s a point where the reader feels totally detached with the main story and gets lost in the technical stuffs.

In the end I would also like to put forward a point which I loved about the book. It’s the originality of the plot. We have seen or heard so many concepts regarding the D-day of the humanity, about the purpose of the humanity on earth, future of human race; but I never heard anything like this before. The chat between the ‘HE’ and ‘SHE’ was a delight for those who keeps an intellectual touch within themselves.

FULL REVIEW AT 'THE AUTHOR'S BLOG'...

[Anuja · Rating 3 out of 5]

The plot was so good, it did not allow me to put the book down. But as it progressed, it got a little boring because at some places there was too much of description, inclusion of scenes which weren't really necessary.
The plot was great but frankly I could not digest the story. Overload of technical details and if it was so necessary to add the details then why was kristi's story left hanging?
I don't know what to say or interpret what I feel about this book. It left me with a big question mark not about the possibility of the story turning real but about what was exactly happening.
We read about time machines, aliens and other futuristic stuff and accept it and here I am, accepting the story of this book as well. But I personally feel the author spent way took much time coming to the point and that's what killed the wonder. By the time I reached the end I was sighing and tsking so loudly, my room mate woke up. Just because of the 'beating around the bush' aspect of the story, I feel I wasted my time reading this book. Books are supposed to leave you with a satisfied feeling or something to ponder about. This book did nothing of that sort to me. It left me disappointed because the book could have been so much better. I am sorry about being so blunt but this is what I think.

Last but not the least, I appreciate the author's efforts to write this book bcoz it must have taken a lot of research to come up with the story. It is nice to see Indian authors write about sci-fi.

[Lazy Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's an 'unputdownable' read, has all the ingredients of a potboiler, yet raising some existential questions. Hold on to your seats during second half of this book as it gets into the top gear with a fitting finale.

While the central character binds and drivers the plot, the readers would enjoy a bigger picture as one mystery leads to another and a resolution that is sure to impress even a mildly evolved reader.

Fantastic effort by a person who is not even a full-time writer. Would encourage everyone to buy a copy!

[Sushma · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the story was futuristic.I was a bit confused at the starting of the book but it got interesting as I continued.
The story revolves around X-net which is a social media in the future.It was fascinating to read how internet was intertwined with the plot.
But reckon some parts of the book was just random and unnecessary. Story ended,in haste,abruptly.

[Sheetal Dash]

Planning to read it someday.