After On: A Novel of Silicon Valley

In the cutthroat world of online startups, millions of dollars hinge on every success and failure. So when the crew at Giftish.ly are bought up by Phluttr — a ubiquitous Snapchat/Twitter hybrid — they think they’ve been tossed a life preserver. But as Phluttr grows, it becomes self-aware, and with access to the information of pretty much everyone on Earth, Phluttr could change the world…or screw it up royally.

After On puts our obsession with social media in its crosshairs and fires away, gleefully skewering not just oversharing but the surveillance state, the dot com boom (and bust), and the tech industry in general. Reid could have stopped there, but he’s gone a step further, juxtaposing the soullessness of technology with a wonderful crew of misfits and lost souls who all managed to find each other.

These protagonists, flawed idealists all, anchor a story that feels jumpy to start with — peppered with odd interludes of Amazon reviews and intentionally hyper-masculine sci-fi-action nonsense — but comes together in a very satisfying way in the last 50 pages.

This is a huge step forward for Reid, who shows off a confidence and ambition in his storytelling that presages great things to come.