THE LOCKUP PERIOD
VINCE THOMPSON
Dubious Ventures Press (non-affiliate Amazon link)
99¢ ebook, available now
Rating: 4* of five
The Publisher Says: 90 Days to IPO Riches–if they can just figure out what to do with the body!
A fast, fun, and twisty ride through the underbelly of Silicon Valley—where fortunes are made overnight, and everyone is chasing their cut.
Mario Kennedy yearns to be part of tech’s in-crowd. But with an unfair rap sheet and a job slinging pizzas, he’s stuck on the outside. When MenuAi—a startup in which he holds advisory shares—announces it’s going public, he finally gets his shot. That is, if he can survive the ninety-day lockup period… and the stock lives up to the hype.
Driving that hype is Ravi Singh, a rising star in venture capital determined to land his first unicorn—no matter the cost. Covering the frenzy is Jamie Villanueva, a young reporter caught between breaking the story and settling a personal score.
On the night of the IPO, a troubling twist: A dead body turns up in the CEO’s apartment. Expose the truth, and everything collapses. Conceal it until the lockup period expires, and walk away rich.
In Silicon Valley, it may be that making a killing… isn’t just a figure of speech.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: Glossy surfaces are hard to limn without feeling that tacky and brummagem have become their limits. That's what happened here, that was what I honestly expected to happen, and I suspect it's what Author Vince intended to give me.
It's a satire, it works itself into a knot showing me its satirical intent, and I still feel myself curling my lip at Mario as well as Ravi and Noah all the while thinking "wow I wish MenuAI was real." Jamie might just be the most relatable character in the story because she's passionately *determined* to end this tentacle of AI's viabiity and existence before finding she has more passion for a person in place of A Cause.
And I despise her too.
Which is the strength of Author Vince's writing, he's made all-there characters into people. Most debut authors would make the easy choice of making the story about the satirized action, like a medieval mystery play. I'm very glad he chose not to and that he possessed the skill at characterization to make it work. It's also notable that Author Vince kept the action moving, no one sat on their butt and thought and thought then moaned for a chapter or two about how sore their butt was. Navel-gazing "Я" not us. Also missing is the expected jargon-heavy, whether tech talk or finance speak, wodges of stodge. I'm probably happier about that than any other facet of the read.
It's distasteful to me that these amoral fools do not see that they're well and truly screwed no matter what happens so are better off being honest and taking theirr lumps instead of making everything worse for everyone. Like Martha Stewart going to prison rather than pay a fine when the Feds had her dead to rights on that insider trading mess.
I'll stress again that this is me wagging my finger at naughty fools, not thundering Old-Testamently as I chuck the works under a bus. Author Vince got me to buy in when that was a longshot; kept me involved when that was unexpected; and made me very glad I'd been on the trip as I finished the read.
It's unexpectedly easy to say that y'all did oughta read this story even if you *hate* tech stories/people/procducts, revile all things financial/bankster connected; and do not care if all these people end up dead and buried in a ditch.
All of those statements applied to me, too, and here I am offering the read to you in honest expectation you'll like it.
