NICHOLAS

In Shaffrey’s SF novel, a man runs afoul of the government’s digital watchdog.

Nicholas Leonardo is working in his greenhouse when PHIL, his virtual assistant, catches fragments of a radioed SOS signal from a woman whose town has lost all power and connection to the outside world during a bad storm. As PHIL attempts to analyze the message and determine its origins, a blinding light shuts down every piece of machinery in the greenhouse, and PHIL is damaged. Nicholas is used to working alone, happy to spend his time with his plants, but PHIL, and the memories he holds, are his last ties to his old life and everything that once mattered to him. While he tries to repair PHIL at a scrapyard owned by a longtime friend, PHIL is hit again, and Nicholas realizes that this isn’t some random anomaly but a targeted attack. The NSA’s Distributed Operations & Uplink Guardian (DOUG) program is aware of PHIL’s existence and its ability to sync with analog technology, which can’t be tracked or made to fit into the digital grid that DOUG is set to control, contain, and monitor—this makes PHIL a threat. Nicholas goes on the run, trying to find a safe place to repair PHIL enough to allow him to find the source of the SOS signal…and maybe a home where PHIL can be hidden from the oncoming digital threat. Shaffrey effectively weaves a story of found family (both with humans and PHIL) with a warning about relying too much on the digital grid. Despite the text’s brevity, the author does a fantastic job of humanizing PHIL, giving Nicholas emotional depth, and making each of the characters who help him along the way feel real, genuine, and integral to the whole. PHIL’s “damaged, but holding” updates will have readers rooting for his repair, even though details of exactly how he works and was created are left to the imagination.

A brief, exciting tale that packs an emotional punch.