Richard Powers, _Playground_ (1)

 IF YOU CARE about such things: big bright flashing spoiler alert.

The quickie description of this when it was published last fall was "does for the ocean what The Overstory did for trees," but that seems misleading to me. There is a diver/oceanographer character, Evie Beaulieu, whose role in the novel resembles that of Patricia Westerford in The Overstory, and Powers delivers some rich descriptions of what she sees on her dives, but Evie and her research do not seem as deeply incorporated into the fiction as was the case with Patricia Westerford. Her path crosses those of the novel's other main characters towards the end, but she does not seem to be at the book's thematic heart.

The novel is mainly about the other three main characters, whose lives are deeply interlaced and are presented in two narrative strands. 

One strand is the first-person narrative of Todd Keane, addressed to a "you" whose identity we do not learn for a long time. Todd grew up a child of privilege in a north shore suburb of Chicago. At an elite private high school he meets Rafi Young, a black Southsider who is in the school thanks to a scholarship funded by Todd's father. Both ridiculously brainy, they bond first over chess, then over the ancient Chinese game Go, and eventually over the whole range of nerdish realms that insatiably intelligent high school kids are attracted to. 

They both go to University of Illinois, Rafi because he can afford it, Todd in large part because of the school's research into artificial intelligence (which longtime Powers readers will recall from Galatea 2.0). There they meet Pacific Islander and aspiring artist Ina Aroita--the latest in a series of impossibly magical and charismatic young women conjured up by Powers (cf. Olivia in The Overstory, Alyssa in Bewilderment, Thassadit Amzwar in Generosity). 

Both young men fall in love with Ina, naturally. She chooses Rafi, but Rafi and Todd become profoundly estranged. Todd then goes on to create Playground, a social media platform that is also a game (following Rafi's suggestion), which makes him billions and billions of dollars. But--unhappily--he has developed Lewy Body dementia. In response, he is formulating a major plan to tie up his life's loose ends, in which the "you" he addresses will play a part.

The other strand, of course, is the story of Ina and Rafi. They have ended up on a tiny island in the South Pacific, Makatea (non-fictional), and are raising two kids. Makatea is recovering, scarred and abandoned, from extensive phosphate mining by western companies. The people of the island have recently gotten an offer from a consortium of tech bros who want start a sea-steading operation in their vicinity. The people are about evenly split, for and against, with Ina and Rafi against. Then they find out the main tech bro in the consortium is...Todd Keane.

Quite a set up, no? Will Todd, Rafi, and Ina reconcile and live happily ever after, or are we headed for murder and mayhem?

To  be continued.