Ruff is an expert at keeping readers off-balance and providing entertaining stories that cross genres ... Employing a diverse cast of characters and weaving historical facts with an abundance of pop culture references, Ruff’s richly imagined world of next-generation internet is plausible and a bit frightening. The action inside the virtual gaming world is sleek and exciting, but the extrapolation of identity, friendship, and human relationships makes the narrative shine.

Ruff's...newest technothriller is an exciting page-turner that delves into the online gaming world and should appeal to both veterans and newbies. For fans of Ernest Cline's Ready Player One and Marie Lu's 'Warcross' series.

Ruff has a real affinity for identifying crucial culture influences and shaping stories around them ... a less political, and perhaps less thoughtful follow up ... At its best, 88 Names is a romp through different video game scenarios and cultures in a more highly developed sensory framework than presently exists. Ruff’s accounts of space battles and South American bank robberies are exciting without being terrifying ... This balance between high stakes and low stakes ultimately undermines Ruff’s new novel. There’s great potential within it for an exploration of how we emotionally invest and commit hundreds of hours to imaginary worlds. The novel’s exploration of the future of cybersex as provocation and violence is potentially fascinating but ultimately incomplete. Likewise, the question of what a reclusive dictator might possibly want with expansive knowledge of video games doesn’t have a satisfying answer ... many ways, Ruff has obviously modelled 88 Names on the novels of William Gibson, but he doesn’t have Gibson’s knack for deep characterization, nor his talent for obfuscating the book’s lack of destination. 88 Names needs either an elegant destination or an upgrade in style to move from reasonably good entertainment to smart, subversive science fiction.

... this fun, fast-paced novel from Ruff...is equal parts amateur sleuth mystery and science fiction thriller ... A prevailing—and powerful—theme is the nebulosity and mutability of online identity. The many pop culture SF references make this adventure pure geek gold. Ruff remains on a winning streak with this seamless genre hybrid.

I was utterly engrossed in his depiction of a virtual world of epic quests, galactic-spanning space battles, and incredibly violent bank heists ... What stands out, though, is how much fun Ruff is having combining the conventions of spy fiction – the betrayals, the twists, the contrivances – and the freedoms, both creative and personal, afforded by role-playing ... However, in service of 88 Names‘s high-octane plot, Ruff’s treatment of online culture lacks depth ... the novel’s dramatic tension leans heavily on the superficial notion – most likely influenced by Russian bots and sock-puppets – that you can’t trust a person’s profile on the internet ... Given that 88 Names is set more than two decades from now, and putting aside the fact that our views on gender and sex are likely to shift significantly over the next five to ten years, let alone 20, I’d like to think that the proliferation of VR, and the intimate, first-person perspective it provides, will assist in breaking down traditional conceptions around how a person identifies ... Although I did expect something a little more chewy and thoughtful from the author of Lovecraft Country, I also recognise that for Matt Ruff 88 Names is a heartfelt love letter to role-playing games, and to that extent the book is a success.

It’s a pretty good thriller, but it’s also very much a book for gamers by gamers. If acronyms like MMORPG, PvP, or PPML throw you for a loop, this might not be the ride for you. Gamers for life who can pry themselves off the controller will certainly dig this digital-era whodunit. Good characters, keen social commentary, and propulsive action sequences with a bit too much tech jargon.