Ghost in the shell

3.5 stars.

3 stars for the actual book, and adding a half star for the "Author's Notes" at the end.

While it has some great ideas, the story itself is very incoherently told. I'm a huge fan of the 1995 film, and while the book has a lot of additional content - I'm gonna stick to recommending just the film for now. (Seriously, if you haven't seen it you're missing out)

If you're planning to read it - make sure you read the "Author's notes" alongside the main chapters. I read them at the end, and reading them alongside would have helped a lot with improving readability.

There are 2 main issues with the book that I faced:

1. The art isn't coherent. It is very easy to lose track of what's happening in scenes. This isn't always the case - there's a lot of beautiful panels in here. But the bad ones are so bad, they act as confusion goalposts.

2. Too much of the world-building is in the author's head. What we're told is usually just-enough for the scene to make sense, and sometimes not even that. These are better explained in the author's notes at the end, but it doesn't feel adequate. I can tolerate being thrown into a world, but the ambiguous understanding that we get of the world ends up muddling the author's intent.

For all its faults, it is still a very prescient story. Here is just one of the many interesting notes (from the Author's Notes section at the end):

In talking about what is right or just, whether with regard to groups or individuals, Muslim society or Christian society, etc., the different concepts of what is right lead each to view the other as evil. This makes the whole concept of right or wrong seem rather antiquated. If a consensus of the majority is all it takes to determine what is right, then having and controlling information becomes extraordinarily important.