Alif the Unseen
A tour-de-force of a debut that blends classic fantasy -- the fascinating, frightening, sometimes-invisible world of the djinn -- that's genies to some of us -- with the 21st-century reality of a super-hacker in mortal danger in a repressive security state on the Arabian Gulf.
Alif (that's his handle) is a brilliant young superhacker working out of his mother's small apartment, and his computer has just been breached. While Alif scrambles to protect his clients -- dissidents and outlaws alike, whoever needs to hide their digital traces, he and his friends realize that they've been found by 'the Hand' -- maybe a person, maybe a program, but definitely able to find anyone, and that could lead to prison, or worse. Alif,…