A highly immersive and imaginative cyberpunk tale.
Six lives collide in a technology-crazed near future in this debut SF novel.
In Toronto, Kel Rafferty is a researcher at “arguably the largest facility in the world for studying animal models of neurodegenerative diseases”—basically a massive indoor jungle in the middle of the city. But strange things are happening in the lab. Two of her macaques are found mysteriously dead, and some of the data in her logs has been wiped clean. Then her study is threatened due to the increasing irrelevancy of her Alzheimer’s research. Fortunately, she comes up with a new idea: cognitive amplification. What if she could induce a state of “flow,” those times when everything leaps to mind easily and without effort? She builds prototype implants to test her theory, but one night at the lab, she is knocked out and most of the implants are stolen. So begins an intricate mystery that throws together a number of unlikely figures, including Ray Tilson, the survivor of a strange drone explosion; Seth Bacchi, a novelist (and hypochondriac) desperately trying to reach readers in an age of artificial intelligence-generated fiction; Maura Torres, the demanding head of an ascendant virtual reality company; Haroon Minhas, a teen from the city’s analog slums; and Meike Bergholtz, Kel’s assistant with strange dissociative tendencies. In this cyberpunk story, Clarke’s lush prose envisions a future both alien and utterly believable: “Three meal options appeared on-screen: cricket flour flakes and milk, a termite muffin, and buqadilla, a spicy dish of chickpeas and mealworm protein.” Seth “picked the last option and then had the fabber brew him a cup of yerba mate while he waited for his breakfast to print.” The individual characters are wonderfully specific and uniformly intriguing. Unfortunately, the plot takes its sweet time getting started, requiring the audience to follow the various players through many chapters during which their association is unclear. But patient readers will be rewarded once the storylines begin to come together. The author’s vision is generally beguiling enough that even when readers aren’t sure where Kel and the others are going, they will be confident that they are in good hands.
A highly immersive and imaginative cyberpunk tale.Pub Date: Jan. 29, 2020
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 355
Publisher: Fractal Moose Press
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Curiously compelling but not entirely satisfying.
The fourth and final volume in the Terra Ignota series, a science fantasy set on a 25th-century Earth where people affiliate by philosophy and interest instead of geography.
For the first time in centuries, the world is seized by war—once the combatants actually figure out how to fight one. While rivalries among the Hives provide several motives for conflict, primary among them is whether J.E.D.D. Mason, the heir to various political powers and apparently a god from another universe in human form, should assume absolute rule over the world and transform it for the better. Gathering any large group to further the progress of the war or the possibility for peace is hampered by the loss of the world transit system of flying cars and the global communications network, both shut down by parties unknown, indicating a hidden and dangerous faction manipulating the situation for its own ends. As events play out, they bear a strong resemblance to aspects of the Iliad and the Odyssey, suggesting the persistent influence of Bridger, a deceased child who was also probably a god. Is tragedy inevitable, or can the characters defy their apparent fates? This often intriguing but decidedly peculiar chimera of a story seems to have been a philosophical experiment, but it’s difficult to determine just what was being tested. The worldbuilding—part science, part magic—doesn’t really hold up under scrutiny, and the political structure defies comprehension. The global government consists of an oligarchy of people deeply and intimately connected by love and hate on a scale which surpasses the royal dynasties of old, and it includes convicted felons among their number. Perhaps the characters are intended as an outsized satiric comment on the way politicians embrace expediency over morality or personal feelings, but these supposedly morally advanced potentates commit so many perverse atrocities against one another it is difficult to engage with them as people. At times, they seem nearly as alien as J.E.D.D. Mason.
Curiously compelling but not entirely satisfying.Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7653-7806-4
Page Count: 608
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2021
An intriguing unlocking of underwater secrets, with the occasional thrill.
In the not-too-distant future, a marine biologist specializing in cephalopod intelligence discovers a species of octopus with astonishing language skills—research that a giant corporation wants to monetize.
Dr. Ha Nguyen is so amazed by her findings that she's willing to submit herself to the odious tactics of the big tech company, which controls the Vietnamese island where the octopuses dwell. Having "resettled" the population of the Con Dao Archipelago, the company not only will kill any outsiders who attempt to set foot there, but also has ordered Ha's death should she attempt to leave. Not that she has any inclination to do so. Once exposed to the octopuses, she is determined to uncover the great mysteries of extrahuman intelligence. In spite of their hostile reputation, these are creatures of transcendent beauty, communicating through glowing visual symbols that move on their skin in complex patterns and sequences. In a world of robot-operated slave ships, bee-size drones, and AI automonks with three-fingered hands and light receptors for pupils, her main ally is Evrim, the world's first and possibly last true android, which not only thinks like a human being, but also believes it is conscious. Ha's benefactor and adversary is Dr. Arnkatla Mínervudóttir-Chan, the Icelandic brains of the corporation, whose ultimate goal is to create a mind "wiped clean of its limitations." A prolific writer of SF stories making his debut as a novelist, Nayler maintains a cool, cerebral tone that matches up with the story's eerie underpinnings. Less an SF adventure than a meditation on consciousness and self-awareness, the limitations of human language, and the reasons for those limitations, the novel teaches as it engages.
An intriguing unlocking of underwater secrets, with the occasional thrill.Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-374-60595-7
Page Count: 464
Publisher: MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: July 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
