Tag: Cyberpunk

Earlier today, I posted my thoughts about Ashwin’s Hit the Ground Running, and now I get the fun of presenting this Q&A with the author Kate Ashwin.

Why don’t you take a moment to introduce yourself to the readers, and tell us about your comics, before hitting us with an elevator pitch for Hit The Ground Running?
Heya! I’m Kate Ashwin, and I’ve been getting away with putting stories on the internet for over twenty years now. Comics-wise, I’ve worked for UK kids’ comics such as The Phoenix and The Dandy, and my (award winning!?) Victorian-era wizardy adventure webcomic Widdershins is entirely free to read online at https://www.widdershinscomic.com/ !

Having worked on a bunch of goofy caper comics, I fancied trying my hand at writing a goofy caper novel, and that’s where Hit The Ground Running comes in! It’s an offbeat cyberpunk heist novel about robbing a megacorp’s Christmas party, and it reads kinda like Leverage, but gayer and with more cyberarms.

I can’t/won’t be the first to ask you about the difference between what you’ve been doing for years and novel-writing. Nor the last. So while apologizing for that, I have to. What was the hardest part about the switch and was that what you expected it to be? Is there a different kind of internal reward to it? (if there’s anything else about the differences/similarities you want to ramble about, go for it.)
Hey, it’s a good question! The biggest thing I kept getting tripped up on was dialogue length, oddly enough. When you’re working with comics, you really have to consider how many words fit in a speech bubble and how many bubbles you can fit onto a page. There’s a real economy of space going on to prevent clutter, so I was finding myself automatically “clipping” dialogue to fit non-existent spaces. Didn’t see that one coming! It’s also difficult to adjust your sense of comic timing to no longer include the visual, a lot of the anatomy of how I traditionally crack a joke is in the break between panels, or the facial expressions of the character, so to switch to using turn of phrase for that instead required some thought.

One of the most rewarding parts was the one I was expecting and hoping for–it’s nice to be able to get into a character’s internal narration a lot more, y’know? When you’re drawing out a scene, unless you’re doing something high-concept, a setting will look the same to the character as to the reader since you have to convey a readable sense of space. But when you’re writing it from a character’s perspective, you really get to play around with what they’re noticing in particular, any internal judgments they may be making, and such. This also applies to how they see other characters, too. Happy to report that it’s exactly as fun as I was hoping!

I could probably talk for days on this question in particular, but I’ll save that rambling for another day.

What was it about this idea—out of all of the dozens likely flitting about your mind—that made you say, “yup, this is what I’m going to spend years(?) and thousands of words on.”
Might be kind of a simplistic answer, but I just love heists. I could write heists for years and never get tired of ’em. There’s something in watching a plan come together (or fall apart) that really tickles my brain nicely.

What came first—these characters (or at least a couple of them) or the world/story?
Renji in particular has been kicking about in my head for quite a while now. I love an impulsive rebel, I love a fast-talker, I love someone who notices something is wrong with the world and sets out to do their bit to change it, and that’s all him! A guy who is going to have to shake off a lot of bad habits, but is sure as hell willing to try.

Hanging the series on a heist crew means you already have roles that need filled–the hacker, the bruiser, the stealth expert- so it’s all about building it out from there. Creating an idea for a character, then layering up little quirks and foibles like a love of plants or zines or french press coffee is one of my favourite things to do. I got to write a scene where everyone’s having tea while planning their heist, and deciding what each of their orders would be is how I get my kicks, it turns out.

The setting came kinda naturally–a cyberpunk version of the UK felt like a fairly obvious leap to make, since that’s pretty much just a step or two away from where I live anyway, and while the ol’ “vertical city as class signifier” deal is not uncommon, it’s still a fun one to play with, and there’s just a hell of a lot to say on that front, unfortunately.

This is the point where I like to ask about a supporting character or two that caught my attention. But I can’t pick just one. Truly. So, if you’re in the mood, you pick one that you want to talk about to highlight for a paragraph or two.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t pick Cadence, really. She and her sister Melody are, through circumstances they don’t wish to explain yet, stuck sharing the same body, and neither of them are having a good time with this arrangement. While Melody is the laid-back type, a hacker with a love of 90s pop and garish clothing, her sister Cadence is a furious mess of energy and punches. Her scenes were fun as I do love to write a good punch-up, and her two cyberarms were a fun addition to the usual brawl, but mostly I enjoyed writing her and Renji sniping at each other. Renji has come from a far more privileged background than Cadence, so she very much views him as some rich boy playing at rebel, fully expecting him to cut and run at the first sign of trouble. Renji doesn’t quite grasp the intricacies of this beyond “the mean lady is yelling at me” which leads to some of that good conflict where both sides have a point, which is always the best kind of conflict.

The core of Cadence is her big tangled ball of feelings- she isn’t some cold combat machine, she’s a conflicted mess in this situation where she isn’t even in control of her own body half of the time, stuck with strong desire for vengeance with nowhere to park it because her enemy is an entire city, and she can’t even talk it out with her sister since they physically can’t inhabit the same room.

It’s no wonder she punches so many people.

In lieu of asking questions about a character, I want to talk about two non-characters a. At what point did you start thinking that Renji carting around a potted plant with him everywhere was a good idea (it was, btw)? Is there, in your mind, a point to it?
Oh man, the plant ended up as more of a running theme than I’d intended. While he wouldn’t admit it, Renji steals the thing from the airship because he’s burdened with an inconvenient amount of empathy, and sometimes that peeks out in unexpected ways. He steals it from the airship, where it ought to be doing well enough in the care of the company, and totes it down to the dark lower levels of the city, where it ends up thriving and cared for in a place where society does not expect things to be able to grow. So, yeah, I never met a phor I didn’t like..!

The plant actually nearly made it onto the cover–one of Ben’s sketches included it, but I decided not to go with that one as it made Renji look like he knew a single goddamn thing about plant care.

The sword—primarily the one Renji carries with him, but beyond that, the culture around these people carrying them. It seems so out-of-place, yet so fitting. Where’d that come from?
Searching for a better answer than “Swords Are Cool”, searching…

Ah, there we go, found one. I had the upper class of this setting carry swords and enact duels because it’s such a ridiculous bit of history that seems to happen whenever there are people with too much cash and not enough to do. There used to be something of a trend for “dueling scars”, to the point where people would even have them added intentionally to their own faces, and that’s just an intoxicating bit of nonsense, isn’t it? It felt kinda right to have that included, but based more around cyber arms, implants, etc. It also leaves a little more room for close combat than an excess of guns might, and simply feels like a more natural fit for a city-state that’s physically attached to the UK.

As for the sword Renji had in this book, it mostly just tickled me to have him steal the thing despite having little to no idea how to use it. Will he get better at swordfighting? I’m led to understand that it takes years of diligent practice, so the odds… are not great.

What’s next for Kate Ashwin, author? Does that depend on the reaction to Hit The Ground Running or are you already neck deep in your next project or five?
The reaction’s been good, but a little quiet- part of that is my insistence on writing for a very quiet genre, though, so that’s on me, but getting an independent book in front of people is even harder than getting an independent comic in front of them, it turns out!

All the same, I have another book or two planned out for this series, and would very much like the encouragement to get stuck in on those. The second one will be from Melody and Cadence’s point of view, and would include corporate espionage, cyborg assassin romance, and infiltrating a robot wars tournament, so obviously I very much do want to write it..!

Otherwise, I’ve been picking at a standalone spy vs spy romance novel; and my webcomic Widdershins is going to be wrapping up in the next year or two with its eleventh and final book, so that is going to be a hell of a feeling. Which feeling in particular, I am not sure, but it will very much be felt.

Thanks for your time and participation! I hope Hit The Ground Running finds its audience—I had a lot of fun with it!
Thank you! So did I!

A Few Quick Questions

Hit The Ground Running by Kate Ashwin: 2 Jailbreaks, 1 Heist, 1 Outrageous Utility Bill, and 1 Potted Plant.

By HCNewton

On March 3, 2025

In Fiction, Science Fiction

Be sure to come back in a couple of hours for a Q&A with Kate Ashwin.

Hit the Ground Running

by Kate Ashwin

DETAILS:
Series: No Loose Ends, #1
Publisher: Kate Ashin
Publication Date: November 11, 2024
Format: eBook
Length: 314 pg.
Read Date: January 25-29, 2025

You, like me, may assume that all Cyberpunk novels are set in joyless dystopias, where the neon lights and other brightly colored signs shine out against a gray and raining night (like every scene with Rick Deckard walking on his way to get some food). You’re largely correct. But what if I told you that didn’t have to be the case? Well, read on…

It was around 10 p.m. on a Thursday when Renji thought he might have a go at breaking out of prison. This idea was terrible for several reasons.
One, the prison in question was an Imperium International Forces Containment Facility, the kind widely reputed for being near-impossible to escape. Two, said facility was an airship in flight some fifty storeys above solid ground. The third, and perhaps most important reason was that he wasn’t even a prisoner, he was a guard.
But to I.I. Forces Cadet Renjiro Starkweather, the young man leaning out of the mess hall kitchen’s window to sneak a crafty cig, these reasons didn’t seem quite good enough to not at least have a try.

What’s Hit The Ground Running About?

Renji really doesn’t belong in the Forces—he doesn’t have the mindset, the discipline, any interest at all in serving, But he does have an Aunt who did most of the work in raising him. She’s rich, she’s powerful, she’s overly-indulgent of Renji, but she also has expectations. Hence, his presence in the Forces (which he probably would’ve washed out of already, if not for her influence).

But Renji’s at his breaking point, and he probably would’ve made an attempt at escape if not for the fact that he quite inadvertently interrupted an attempted jailbreak. The downside to this is that he ends up in custody with the jailbreakers—who turn out to be affiliated with a group Renji has been cheering on. They’ve recently released a lot of really embarrassing information about the Imperium International Corporation and other leaders of the city of Unity, in a WikiLeaks-type move. It didn’t do the damage anyone was really hoping for, but it did make a splash and get some people talking.

Okay, I’m taking too long here—Renji and the others (with some help from a super-competent hacker/”gal in the chair”) do eventually escape from the Facility in quite the flashy way, but without everyone they hoped to bring along with them. And Renji ends up visiting a part of the city of Unity he’s not that familiar with, Buried—it’s the part where the workers that support the corporation and government live (as well as their families, the unemployed, and whatnot). If you think of the city of Unity as The Titanic, this would be the third-class passenger area, but not as nice.

Renji wants to throw his lot in with the group, the Loose Ends. He wants to fight back against I.I., not out of any real outrage against them. But he thinks it’d be a fun adventure, and he does want to see things get better for the citizens down below—and to take I.I. down a peg or two. They’re leery of taking him on (mostly because they can tell his motives are shaky and he’ll probably get going when going gets tough—and not in the good way). But when a crisis hits, Renji comes up with a plan that just might work.

It’s nutty, it’s risky (mostly for him), but if he can pull it off with a little assistance from the Loose Ends and an older, battle-tested temporary ally of the Loose Ends, a lot of good can be done and the crisis could be averted.

The Characters and World

So the villain of this book is really “the System” as represented by Imperium International Corporation (and as you get to know them, you’ll be able to imagine any number of mega-corps of today turning into them).

But we get a few representatives of The System to focus on—nothing more than low-level hench-persons really. But higher-level reps will have to wait for the sequels. Primarily, we’re looking at Renji’s sergeant and three fellow-cadets who absolutely are not Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle. But they do fit the same character types that those three do. All four of these antagonists are the kind you will enjoy seeing foiled—even if they are the bottom of the rung, you’ll have a lot of fun seeing Renji go up against them. Especially when he comes out on top.

The heroes—sort of a rag-tag rebel group (who really aren’t trying to overthrow anyone, just trying to survive). They’re a hodge-podge of ages, temperaments, and skills. You will almost instantly like them—while wanting to ask so many questions about all of them. I’m tempted to talk about all of them for a sentence or two, but that would get old. But I like their internal dynamics, I like them as individual characters and cannot wait to see Ashwin develop them all. They also have a number of allies—from people who work in food stalls, to a club owner, to a strange medic/tech repair duo. Really, the Loose ends and the allies we meet in this book deserve a short story or two each, just to give them a chance to shine. (Ashwin, if you see this post and run with it—no need to cut me in, the results will be reward enough. Unless this lands you a TV deal or something.).

Then there are the largely nameless and faceless people in Buried. They suffer due to what I.i. does. They have to deal with any retaliation that comes down due to Loose Ends. We don’t see much of them, but we get to meet their Community Council (even in a dystopia, lower-level government officials are petty and useless, good to know some things are constants). There’s enough citizens, and enough grudges, seen that Loose Ends will have a steady supply of potential allies in future books (and probably future turn-coats, but let’s focus on the positives).

Unity City, once-upon-a-not-too-distant time, was the city of Steelpool, which the corporation bought from a struggling U.K. government to act as its wold headquarters. It’s from Unity that I.I. can distribute it’s Internet programming, sell and market its products, and so on. Mid-level Executives on up, live there. The workers, support staff, their families, etc. are stuck in Buried.

Is This Actually Cyberpunk?

“Please, look at him. He’s even worse of a blagger than you. He looks like he’s gonna sell you life-coaching advice through the internet.”

“Does not.”

“Does too. He’s a budget vampire. That’s a bargain bin Dracula, that is.”

“You are not being a very supportive friend right now.”

“I’m not supportive. Or your friend. Besides, actual supportive friends would tell you when you’re dating an evil executive from a shitty Robocop sequel. He looks like he’s going to have his plans to bulldoze the zoo foiled by some plucky teenagers.”

It’s being marketed as cyberpunk. But I think a lot of readers are going to bump up against the tone—the humor, the snark, the optimism that Renji brings and wonder about that.

If you look at the tech (which I haven’t done a good job of describing), the merger of corporation/government/city-state military, the dystopian nightmare that most of these people endure. You’ve got yourselves the making of a decent cyberpunk reality. But what about tone?

But you’ll be grinning throughout this book, there’s some good laughs, there are some goofy moments, and so on. How does that fit with William Gibson and Bruce Sterling’s Mirrorshade vision? Can you do a non-noir cyberpunk? I think yes. Think of Snow Crash while Hiro is a pizza delivery driver (sure, that’s post-cyberpunk), some of Rudy Rucker’s work, and …a couple of others I suddenly can’t think of the names of. There are even bits of Gibson’s Sprawl trilogy that are about this amount of fun. So yeah, it’s an outlier, but it’s not without precedent.

I only bring this up because I’m pretty sure there are some purists who’d complain about this. People who ignore the whole “punk” part of the aesthetic, no rules, etc. I really don’t care what others think. I’ll take a cyberpunk that makes me grin any day (especially now).

So, what did I think about Hit The Ground Running?

“Stopping them.” The tired look in Minjun’s dark eyes seemed as though it came from a much older man. “This isn’t afable with some terrible dragon for the heroes to hunt down, or a magic combination of words that will break the overlords’ evil spell. This is a city, a society, an ecosystem with problems embedded in its very roots. How exactly do you stop a society?”

This is a heist novel and I wait until now to talk about a heist? What is wrong with me? It’s an audacious plan with a great and benevolent pay-off. Naturally, as any self-respecting heist story demands—it goes awry. The reader knows that even before Renji outlines his plan—the questions are: how does it go awry, and how do our heroes respond? All I’m going to say about that is that I’m eager for book 2 in this series.

This is a fast-moving story with a lot of moving pieces—Ashwin keeps the plates spinning just fine and moves the story along just fine. This is so hard to talk about without getting into the details of the heist, the character twists (of the two bigger ones, I saw one coming miles away and the other took me totally unawares) were revealed with panache, or anything else.

Ashwin’s been storytelling for a long time in graphic novels, she knows how to tell a story and bring characters to life. Turns out she can do that just as well with words as she can do with pictures and words (or so I assume, I haven’t dipped a to in to that yet).

There’s a bit of a budding romance (or is it just a lust story?) that acts as a great distraction for Renji, too. That didn’t do much for me, I thought we had enough other things to keep the story going—but it’s a good plot complication—and who knows, maybe it lays the groundwork for something better.

This is a quick read. A fun read. There are so many bits and pieces I’d call out here, but you should read them for yourselves.

If you’re up for a good time (even if cyberpunk isn’t your thing—just think of it as snarky SF), you’d do yourself a favor to give this a whirl. I need to see what comes next, and I expect after your introduction to the Loose Ends, you will, too.

This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, the opinions expressed are my own.
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Auxiliary: London 2039 by Jon Richter: A Gripping Hardboiled Cyberpunk Read

By HCNewton

On May 5, 2020

In Fiction, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller

Auxiliary: London 2039

by Jon Richter

Kindle Edition, 224 pg.
TCK Publishing, 2020

Read: May 1-4, 2020

Grab a copy from your local indie bookstore!

TIM stood for “The Imagination Machine.”It hadn’t seemed like a game-changer when it had been quietly released by the Imagination Corporation twelve years previous, at least not to Dremmler. It was simply a logical next step, a “one stop shop”that brought together office applications, email, social media, an enhanced personal organiser that was, as the company’s marketing eloquently put it, “like Alexa on steroids.”Video gaming, on-demand television, information searches, holiday bookings, shopping, dating, movies, music: TIM was a single interface for the entire online, AR/VR experience…

TIM had become ubiquitous; the go-to OS for almost everything. It flew the planes. It drove the cars. It answered your queries when you contacted customer services. It controlled the robotic surgeons that performed life-saving operations. It filed your tax returns. It delivered your food. It selected your music. It read your children bedtime stories.

And it ran the AltWorld. Whatever you wanted to see, or be, or do, or feel, or [expletive]. Real life had been made obsolete.

In the obsolete “real life,” Carl Dremmler is one of the remaining detectives in the London Police Force (which doesn’t seem to be much of a presence). His days are largely filled with cookie-cutter investigations verifying that people has wasted away while immersed in Augmented Reality to the point they couldn’t notice their physical health had deteriorated—although he gets to break it up occasionally by something like a civilian attacking a postbot.

What brings Dremmler to our focus is a very different kind of case—maybe an impossible case. A woman has been killed—horrifically, I should add. Her boyfriend, the prime suspect, has been caught (very literally) red-handed, but insists that he tried to stop it from happening, but his cybernetic arm acted independently from him.

The problem with this is that the software that controls the arm is unhackable. There is no way for this to have been anything but the accused. Unless the impossible is a lot more possible.

Dremmler finds himself fighting pressure from above to close this case and his increasing conviction that the boyfriend is innocent. He just can’t explain how. The London of 2039 is a cyberpunk future—but not one so advanced that people living in it can’t remember what life was life before TIM was ubiquitous. Dremmler has a strong preference for, well, now—which makes him the perfect person to want to believe there is a problem in a perfect OS.

I’ve always found that the best cyberpunk, seemingly paradoxically, shared a lot of characteristics with early 20th-century noir. This novel is a shining example of that—it’s actually been a long time since I’ve read a cyberpunk novel that’s embraced the noir-ness as much (or as well) as Auxiliary: London 2039 does. Dremmler is as hard-boiled a character as you could want (haunted by tragedy, alcoholic, driven) and I was reminded of Nathaniel West’s work several times by the secondary characters and mores throughout the book.

At the same time, there’s a Golden Age of Science Fiction feel to a lot of the work—especially as it relates to AIs, the place of technology in culture (and how it interacts with humans), the role of escaping from Standard Reality into Alternate Reality, and so on. As often as I was reminded of West or Chandler, I was reminded of Asimov or Clarke (Richter is more pleasant to read).

I had a blast with this. It’s just the kind of mix of genres that appeals to me and Richter executed it all perfectly. Great, twisty plot; compelling characters; a fantastic setting; and enough implications to ponder to satisfy any reader. I strongly recommend Auxiliary: London 2039 to you.

4 Stars

My thanks to Overview Media for the invitation to participate in this tour and the materials (including a copy of the novel) they provided.

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: Auxiliary: London 2039 by Jon Richter

By HCNewton

On May 5, 2020

In Book Tour, Fiction, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller

Today I’m pleased to welcome the Book Tour for the cyberpunk thriller Auxiliary: London 2039 by Jon Richter. Following this spotlight post, I’ll be giving my take on the novel here in a bit. But let’s start by learning a little about this here book, okay?

Book Details:

Book Title: Auxiliary: London 2039 by Jon Richter
Release date: May 1, 2020
Format: Ebook/Paperback
Publisher: TCK Publishing
Length: 224 Pages

Book Blurb:

The silicon revolution left Carl Dremmler behind. Now the machines are god … but even He needs a good detective.

Maybe Dremmler isn’t obsolete after all. Yet.

Through the glittering urban jungle of the future prowls Carl Dremmler, police detective—one of the few jobs better suited to meat than machine in 2039. His latest case: a murder suspect caught literally red-handed. The investigation seems open-and-shut, but the tech-wary detective can’t help but believe the accused’s bizarre story: that his robotic arm committed the grisly crime, not him. An advanced prosthetic, controlled by a chip in his skull.

A chip controlled by TIM.

TIM—The Imagination Machine. The silicon god of the UK. The omnipresent AI that drives every car, cooks every meal, and plans every second of human life in London. But if the accused murderer’s story is true, then TIM has been compromised … and Dremmler is in horrible danger.

TIM’s systems were supposed to be impregnable. Un-hackable. Perfect. Only somebody very powerful could bend the AI to their will. Somebody with ambitions. Somebody willing to kill to keep their secrets. If Dremmler’s going to crack this case, he’ll need to question everything he thinks he knows—and face down every terror 2039 has to offer.

About the Author:

Jon Richter writes dark fiction, including his two gripping crime thrillers, Deadly Burial and Never Rest, and his two collections of short horror fiction, volumes one and two of Jon Richter’s Disturbing Works. His latest novel, cyberpunk noir thriller London 2039: Auxiliary, was released in May 2020.

Jon lives in London and is a self-confessed nerd who loves books, films and video games – basically any way to tell a great story. He writes whenever he can, and hopes to bring you more macabre tales in the very near future. He also co-hosts the Dark Natter podcast, a fortnightly dissection of the greatest works of dark fiction, available wherever you get your podcast fix.

If you want to chat to him about any of this, you can find him on Twitter @RichterWrites or Instagram @jonrichterwrites. His website haunts the internet at www.jon-richter.com, and you can find his books available at Amazon here: https://amzn.to/2OXXRVP .

Purchase Links

Amazon UK ~ Amazon US

My thanks to Overview Media for the invitation to participate in this tour and the materials (including a copy of the novel) they provided.

The Data Disruption by Michael R. Underwood

By HCNewton

On June 16, 2017

In Fiction, Genrenauts, Michael R. Underwood, Science Fiction

The Data Disruption

by Michael R. Underwood
Series: Genrenauts, #0

Kindle Edition, 68 pg.
2017

Read: May 27, 2017

It’ll come to no surprise to any of my longer-term readers that I liked this — it’s pretty established that I’m a Genrenauts fan. I dig the characters, the world(s), the type of stories Underwood’s telling — the whole kit and caboodle. This story is no exception — I liked it. This takes place just before Leah is recruited, so the team is functioning very smoothly — no growing pains needed — just King, Shireen and Roman doing their thing like seasoned pros.

It’s a pretty straight-forward, classic cyberpunk story (yeah, I’m old enough that cyberpunk can be called “classic”) — notorious hacker, D-Source, has gone missing. Which is causing all sorts of problems for the rest of his crew, and (by extension) all of Cyberpunk world as well as ours. So King and his team (minus Mallery, off in Western world) head out to save the day. They’ve worked with D-Source in the past and therefore have an easier time getting an “in” to the story in-progress. What results is a solid heist story with all the cyberpunk bells and whistles.

Underwood has been modeling this series after TV shows, and wrote this as a “lost pilot” to “serve as an introduction to the series, which I’ll use to invite more people into the worlds of Genrenauts.” Here’s my problem with that — no one watches a lost pilot until the show’s been around for a while, and usually only fans see it. No one sits down to watch “The Cage” (or the two-part version, “The Menagerie”) as an introduction to Star Trek, and for good reason. Similarly, Leah Tang is our point-of-entry character, and to remove her from the equation takes something away from the overall story. Also, there’s something that’s slowly revealed over the course of the first few books that’s just blatantly stated. I just think that works better the way that Underwood originally wrote it.

Still, Underwood knows what he’s doing, and if he thinks this will work to bring in new readers, I hope he’s right.

Putting that aside, I’m supposed to be talking about the story, not Underwood’s plans. The story worked really well. It was a little too short for me — but it’s supposed to be short, so I shouldn’t complain. Besides, I almost always complain about short story length — even I’m tired of that. While the story was told in its fullness, I just would’ve liked to see everything fleshed out a little more — also, I wouldn’t mind spending more time with my friends. Fast, fun, with good action — celebrating what makes a cyberpunk story work — and winking at the genre at the same time.

Still, any time with the ‘Nauts works for me. Good story, decent intro to this series that I can’t stop recommending — and a great price (free). Still, reading this after the sixth book would be my recommendation after starting with The Shootout Solution.

—–

3.5 Stars

Cyber World: Soundtrack of Humanity’s Tomorrow

By HCNewton

On November 8, 2016

In Fiction, Science Fiction

Cyber World: Soundtrack of Humanity’s Tomorrow

Hex Publishers, 2016

I enjoy music, I listen to a lot of it — but I’m no expert, so take this for what it is.

Okay, I’m not technically an expert on the other stuff I write about, but I’m closer to one when it comes to writing than I am music. But at least with books I have an idea how to talk about them, I really don’t know what to say about music — “I give him a 42 but I can’t dance to it!”

There’s a very 80’s-vibe to a lot of this music (a good thing, by and large, in my opinion . The Scandroid songs sound to me like something out of a British synth-pop band. Which may make it less than appealing for some, but it works for me (although some of the lyrics could be more interesting). I did learn what the word “Aphelion” means, though, so there’s that.

The best stuff on the album are the instrumentals — Celldweller’s “Patched in” is great background music — I’ve already been using while writing and reading. Which is not to take anything away from Mega Drive’s two songs — I alternate which of those I like best, but both are getting a lot of play time on my devices.

The three instrumental songs, in particular, do a great job of getting you into the right mood for the kind of stories the book tells — where those with vocals take you back to the era where Cyberpunk was born. So they can also put you in the right frame of mind.

A good companion piece to the anthology, and a fun listen overall. I recommend it.

Disclaimer: I was provided with a copy of this album by the publisher, which was going above and beyond. I thank them for this — it was very generous and pretty cool of them.

—–

3 Stars

Cyber World by Jason Heller and Joshua Viola, eds.

By HCNewton

On November 8, 2016

In Fiction

There’s a soundtrack to this anthology, and I’ll be posting about that tonight — short version: if you like music that shares the same roots as these stories, you should check it out.
—

Cyber World: Tales of Humanity’s Tomorrow

by Jason Heller, Joshua Viola eds.

Kindle Edition, 250 pg.
Hex Publishers, 2016

Read: October 26 – 31, 2016

Heller insists in his Afterword that this is not a collection of Cyberpunk stories, and who am I to doubt him? Although it feels pretty punk to ignore the Editor/The Man. It sure feels like Cyberpunk — but I’m also pretty sure that it doesn’t matter what I call it, as long as I say that it’s good, strong, creative, mind-bending, and occasionally mind-blowing. I can’t summarize this anthology better than Hex Publishers did:

Cybernetics. Neuroscience. Nanotechnology. Genetic engineering. Hacktivism. Transhumanism. The world of tomorrow is already here, and the technological changes we all face have inspired a new wave of stories to address our fears, hopes, dreams, and desires as Homo sapiens evolve—or not—into their next incarnation.

Cyber World is a collection of this new wave of cyber-inspired tales, that should appeal to a wide audience. There’s part of me that wants to write a paragraph or two on each story — well, most of them — but I don’t have the time for that, and I can’t imagine many of you would read it. So I’ll opt for brevity. As I read through this collection, I noticed that my notes had a theme, I’d consistently remark on three aspects of the stories: 1. The Premise/Cyber-Conceit; 2. The Story/Characters; 3. The Language Used/Way of telling the story. Now, this actually sounds like a pretty decent strategy to approaching these, but I’m not clever enough to do that deliberately, apparently. Almost every story here nailed two, if not three, of these aspects.

There was a story that only scored on one front for me, but I’m not going to mention which one, because I know others will strongly disagree with me — I might even disagree in 6 months — so I’m not going to focus on it. Even those stories that didn’t do much for me, I can absolutely see where others would say that they’re a favorite. Usually, when I read a bunch of short stories I don’t see where people would have much appreciation for some of them (I mean, I know tastes vary, but sometimes you just don’t get why people like stuff). Not here — tough to ask for more than that. The writing is on point — lean, terse, quick-moving — with the occasional appropriate exception. There’s something that made me smile about all but one of the stories. The voices are strong and individual — yet pretty much clearly belong together.

I do want to talk about a few of these — sorry, no one really wants to read about how I write these things, but I think this says something. I wrote that fragment, and then took one more look at my notes, trying to find 3 or 4 stories to focus on and I came up with four in a row and stopped myself before things go out of hand. Again, this speaks to the strength of this collection. I still wasn’t able to restrict myself to 4, though:

Mario Acevedo’s “Reactions” is maybe too-brief, but a compelling look at remote warfare drugs and the effects of both of those on the brain/soul. Just enough zag to his pretty obvious zig to make this a keeper.
“The Rest Between Two Notes” by Cat Rambo contains this line:

But this is New York City, and there can be traffic jams or terrorist threats or flash plagues to contend with…

“flash plagues.” I love that concept. There’s just so much — probably a novel if someone wanted it, in those two words. The rest of the story was pretty weird and disturbing, and though provoking on its own, but those two words (for me) sealed it as a favorite.
“The Faithful Soldier, Prompted” by Saladin Ahmed reflects the international flavor of this book as well as featuring an odd mishmash of spam emails and religious revelation. Something only Ahmed could probably pull off.
“Staunch” by Paul Graham Raven pushed just about every stylistic button for me — mix of bio/technical/cyber/genetic fiction, plus political/economic commentary — and a whole bunch of other stuff — while telling a tight story.
“Will Take Care of Our Own” by Angie Hodapp is probably the most accessible, closest to mainstream story in this batch. Which doesn’t stop it from being a great story about politics, with some interesting commentary on contemporary issues — just what SF is supposed to be about — with a good fallible protagonist.
Minister Faust’s “The Ibex on the Day of Extinction” felt very different from most of these stories, and I don’t know how to talk about it without spoiling the whole thing, but I wanted to focus on how good it was.
“The Singularity Is in Your Hair” by Matthew Kessel — can I use the word “sweet” about one of these? Probably not, but this tale about VR helping a person with a debilitating disease experience more than many people is very close to it.
“A Song Transmuted” by Sarah Pinsker just blew me away several times.
“It’s Only Words” by Keith Ferrell — is almost a counter-point to the worlds the rest of these take place in — a dash of Thoreau to rebut the rest.
“The Bees of Kiribati” by Warren Hammond was just freaking chilling — a police interrogation to a heinous crime, becomes so much more. I want a book in this world, now. Just without the creepy killer (it can have another creepy killer, I just don’t want anything to do with this one again).

Heller (and I read his book Taft 2012 before starting this blog, so you can’t read all the nice things I thought about it at the time) and Viola did a bang up job with this collection. They might not love the label cyberpunk (but someone neglected to tell those who wrote blurbs, or the promotional material I read), and perhaps it’s not the most accurate — but if these stories aren’t Cyberpunk, they’re the result of evolution from Cyberpunk. Cyber World is a direct descendant of Mirrorshades — a couple of these stories could’ve easily been included in that collection (but some require more current cultural/technological input).

Don’t read too many of these in one sitting, it takes away some of the impact — but you’ll have a hard time stopping once you start. One of the best collection of stories I’ve read in forever.

Disclaimer: I was provided with a copy of this book by the publisher in exchange for this post and my honest opinion. I thank them for this.

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4 Stars

Near Enemy by Adam Sternbergh

By HCNewton

On January 27, 2015

In Fiction, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller

Near Enemy

by Adam Sternbergh

Hardcover, 306 pg.
Crown, 2015
Read: January 14 – 16, 2015I will admit to being a bit nervous about this — Shovel Ready hit me in a sweet spot and I wasn’t sure that Sternbergh was going to be able to follow it up with an unnecessary (I thought) sequel. Also, as long as I’m being honest — without looking at my post or notes, I’m not sure I could’ve described what about Shovel Ready appealed to be so much. It took less than 2 pages of Near Enemy for it to come back to me — yeah, good story, world building and all; but it was the voice and the distinctive way Sternbergh employed the voice that really worked for me. Obviously, in two pages I had no idea if he could pull it off in terms of story/character/etc., but that voice was there, so I was going to enjoy finding out.

Even more than Shovel Ready (I think), this is a Cyberpunk novel as told by Elmore Leonard. It’s been a year since we left Spademan and the rest, and if there’s anyone who expected a happily ever after for any involved, well, I think they didn’t pay close enough attention to the book. Perseophone and her baby are tucked away upstate, and Spademan’s back to work. Once again, though, he doesn’t complete a hit. He finds the target, Lesser, while he’s in the Limnosphere, and is persuaded to wait a moment until he emerges. Lesser gives the wildest story about what happened to him inside — so wild it’s technically impossible. Spademan’s curiosity is piqued, so he lets Lesser live while he looks into the veracity of his claims.

Spademan’s investigation leads him into a maze of politics, police corruption, Islamic activism, assassins that make Spademan look amateurish, and a strange quasi-religious/quasi-Luddite group. The plot’s really not that twisty — it can’t be while being told in Sternbergh’s minimalistic style — but it’s definitely not straight-forward. And though I saw the big surprise twists coming — their reveals were very satisfying. It’s violent — but not as violent as you’d think a novel about an assassin in a very dystopian New York would be.

One example of the violence is a fight scene in the Limnosphere that suggests the climactic battle in The Matrix missed a golden opportunity by not taking fuller advantage of the impossible and/or strange that would be possible in a virtual world.

Of course the ugliness isn’t limited to the damage that people can do to others’ bodies — there’s plenty of other trauma to be found. One example is Spademan’s description of how the City reacted to the last major terrorist attack:

Cops came after midnight.
Special ops. Special cops. The lethal kind, who never bothered to memorize Miranda rights.
Clad in black. Move in tandem.
Red laser dots dancing over locked doorways.
Hand signals. Gloved hands. Give the go-ahead.
Boots unleashed on doors. Doors caved in with a clatter. Suspects scrambling as they’re yanked from their beds, still tangled up in the sheets. Some half-dressed, some half-cursing, dragged into hallways under sweeping flashlight beams, wrists zipped up in plastic cuffs, then shoved down the staircase. Some more than shoved.
A few unfortunate escape attempts shot down as they fought back. Or at least that’s how it got written up in the reports.

At the same time, in the midst of the blackness, there’s moments of happiness, contentment, camaraderie.

There’s a real heart to this character, real sadness — maybe even hope. When you thinking you’ve got Spademan figured out — he does something you don’t see coming. There’s this flashback to a High School (maybe Junior High) English teacher working with Spademan that’ll tug on your heartstrings.

Near Enemy successfully builds on Shovel Ready expanding the world, characters and story strongly, as well as setting things up for (I’m guessing) a final climactic novel that is going to knock my socks off.

This is the kind of book that makes you want to call in sick, blow off appointments and resent the fact that you have loved ones that want to spend time with you (and that, ordinarily, you want to spend time with, too). It’s as immersive as the Limnosphere, with none of the side effects, and just as addictive.
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Note:I received this book for free from Blogging for Books for this review. Which was generous and cool of them, but didn’t impact what I said about the book.

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4 1/2 Stars