The Paintball Club, by Harper Greendale, tells a cyberpunk adventure story in a realistic almost-future.

Three young friends — Edie, Stella and Travis — are chatting about the state of the world, and what they would do to change it. While they see cruelty and exploitation around the world, the three don’t see violence as the answer. Instead, their late-night talk turns into the idea of paintball bounties, a decentralized smart contracts with a secret, anonymous bounty for paintball-splattering disliked leaders. This starts as a realistic chat between close friends (Who hasn’t talked about what we would do to change the world???), but by combining their unique skills and connections, the friends are able to start a project that affects the entire world.

The A-plot of social rebellion through technology, and how that ripples out and changes the world, is such a fun cyberpunk adventure. But it’s the special relationships that really shine in this novel.

I remember reading an Arthur C Clarke novel ages ago in which the plot had almost nothing to do with romance, but the characters hade a quiet, chill acceptance of non-monogamy. Some of these older sci-fi stories often had a similarly relaxed idea about sexual orientation, that in the future, people would just do what they like. It’s fascinating to me to see a similar theme in The Paintball Club where the lines between friendship and intimacy are blurred. Edie, Travis and Stella are connected in a special relationship, that’s more than friendship, a kind of relaxed, chill poly trio, without rules or labels, but plenty of warm, understanding love.
Edie and her friends often feel disconnected with the world around them and out of sync with the expectations of that world. Their special friendships — romantic and not — provide connection and resiliency. These connections provide a warm and hopeful thread, even when the narrative takes twists and introduces dangers and dark elements.

The writing has an unusual style, the narrative basically never shows or hints if it can state directly. This took a little adjustment for me, especially since I read a lot of mysteries and thrillers where there’s a question of who to trust and what might be hidden. In The Paintball Club, the main trio of characters simply state what they’re feeling and what they want, directly, and that information matches the omniscient narration and the characters actions. They’re so upfront that there’s nothing to infer or analyze. It requires some getting used to, but it serves to highlight how different Edie, Stella and Travis are from the typical society.

While the paintball club with their secret smart contracts starts off with the absolute best intentions, other groups with less idealistic motives start to make use of their anonymous bounty system. The original digital activism came from their honest desire to change the world without death and violence, but as the novel shows, even without violence, this social power from the smart contracts can be misused. The original plan to improve society and defend human rights  has repercussions around the globe. This adds tension to the story, and also realism. New technologies can have wide-reaching and unexpected results.

Although many people want to use the anonymous paintball contracts for their own, selfish purposes, one of the villains is particularly intriguing to me. A couple of male music critics are so angry about a young female musician, Half Moon Pearl, and her dedicated fans (think Swifties or the Beyhive) that they decide to target her. These themes of gatekeeping artistic expression and entertainment, and of harassing fandom are relevant today, and the cyberpunk adventure adds drama and excitement. Two threads combine here, in the (male) anger towards the public and popular Half Moon Pearl, and in some of the anger towards the secret and anonymous paintball club creators. This makes a dramatic storyline.

Overall, The Paintball Club was a fun cyberpunk adventure story with thoughtful, reflective social elements. I always love the cyberpunk themes of digital innovation, hacking and rebelling again social rules. These worked here, with an element of warm, loving connection through the story.