Kim Miller
Biopunk at it's finest. The world of the not so distant future has survived the 'decade of plagues', a time when countless people died. One company has risen to dominate the health scene and it keeping billions of people alive with biochips that monitor and treat any hint of disease that appears.
Inara has an inherited protein deficiency that means her body produces cancer cells at an alarming rate. She lives in a commune, Darkome, where people resist the dominance of the biochip and they research and treat disease themselves. Her mother died of cancer and Inara is rushing to complete their shared research to stop her disease.
When she is forced to choose between family, health, and Darkome, things take a disturbing turn. She finds that her body is able to intervene and ignore any medical intervention, changing her DNA on the fly, and she is on the way to understanding how to turn that to her advantage. Trouble is, there are other people who want to know how she does it. They only want her body, they just don't want her.
Inara tries to maintain her own autonomy but finds herself as a pawn being played by forces that want domination on the world scene.
As the book came towards the ending I mused that Rajaniemi had better finish things up here or he will run out of space. The story rushed to a conclusion and the last three words were, 'To be continued'. Darkome was published only three months ago. Looks like a longish wait for the continuation.
Rajaniemi has a winner of a story here and his prose is captivating. Where his Quantum Thief trilogy was dense and opaque, this story is Windex clear and leads the reader through a maze of technology and biology with ease. The hard science never gets in the way of the story and Inara shines as a relatable person. I found myself torn between reading nonstop to the end or taking breaks so I could stay longer in the story. It was totally delicious.
Biopunk at it's finest. The world of the not so distant future has survived the 'decade of plagues', a time when countless people died. One company has risen to dominate the health scene and it keeping billions of people alive with biochips that monitor and treat any hint of disease that appears.
Inara has an inherited protein deficiency that means her body produces cancer cells at an alarming rate. She lives in a commune, Darkome, where people resist the dominance of the biochip and they research and treat disease themselves. Her mother died of cancer and Inara is rushing to complete their shared research to stop her disease.
When she is forced to choose between family, health, and Darkome, things take a disturbing turn. She finds that her body is able to intervene and ignore any medical intervention, changing her DNA on the fly, and she is on the way to understanding how to turn that to her advantage. Trouble is, there are other people who want to know how she does it. They only want her body, they just don't want her.
Inara tries to maintain her own autonomy but finds herself as a pawn being played by forces that want domination on the world scene.
As the book came towards the ending I mused that Rajaniemi had better finish things up here or he will run out of space. The story rushed to a conclusion and the last three words were, 'To be continued'. Darkome was published only three months ago. Looks like a longish wait for the continuation.
Rajaniemi has a winner of a story here and his prose is captivating. Where his Quantum Thief trilogy was dense and opaque, this story is Windex clear and leads the reader through a maze of technology and biology with ease. The hard science never gets in the way of the story and Inara shines as a relatable person. I found myself torn between reading nonstop to the end or taking breaks so I could stay longer in the story. It was totally delicious.
A razor sharp novella that reads as if it's coated in teflon. Napper serves up a grim cyberpunk world in a futuristic Melbourne that spreads out across the Nullabor and ends with the reader asking, "Is this some happy ending or is it something I should be very worried about?"
Jack is the son of Vietnamese migrants, and that is where any follow-on from Napper's previous 36 Streets starts and ends. He's a small time crook who gets swept up in a matter of international importance. Trouble is, all he did was steel a pair of shoes. Within days he's being pursued by firstly a modern day ninja, then a carload of corrupt police officers, and then anonymous men in black four wheel drives. It's the full catastrophe.
And there's also Sally. She thought she was merely giving a ride to a fellow university student. Melbourne uni is not what it used to be.
As Jack and Sally race across the country Napper spices up their existence with the unexpected presence of a sentient AI. So it seems we now have three people in the car, each one trying to work out what went wrong and how they are going to fix things.
This is a book that I wanted to go on well after it ended. The characters are real people, the pace is rapid and the story takes them into dark places. As Napper delves into what it might mean to have an AI implant adding to human brain power his treatment of the topic is well balanced and always on point for the story.
A razor sharp novella that reads as if it's coated in teflon. Napper serves up a grim cyberpunk world in a futuristic Melbourne that spreads out across the Nullabor and ends with the reader asking, "Is this some happy ending or is it something I should be very worried about?"
Jack is the son of Vietnamese migrants, and that is where any follow-on from Napper's previous 36 Streets starts and ends. He's a small time crook who gets swept up in a matter of international importance. Trouble is, all he did was steel a pair of shoes. Within days he's being pursued by firstly a modern day ninja, then a carload of corrupt police officers, and then anonymous men in black four wheel drives. It's the full catastrophe.
And there's also Sally. She thought she was merely giving a ride to a fellow university student. Melbourne uni is not what it used to be.
As Jack and Sally race across the country Napper spices up their existence with the unexpected presence of a sentient AI. So it seems we now have three people in the car, each one trying to work out what went wrong and how they are going to fix things.
This is a book that I wanted to go on well after it ended. The characters are real people, the pace is rapid and the story takes them into dark places. As Napper delves into what it might mean to have an AI implant adding to human brain power his treatment of the topic is well balanced and always on point for the story.
Under the guise of writing a murder mystery thriller, Lehane gives us an extraordinary exploration of human darkness. Three boys, eleven years old, are playing in the street and something happens. Something that refuses to 'unhappen'.
As adults they live very different lives. One's a reformed criminal. One's a copper. One is just surviving, unable to throw off the darkness of the childhood experience. They rarely meet until a teenage girl is murdered. As the investigation proceeds the intertwining of their lives becomes shrouded in suspicion and alienation. They are drawn together but repulsed from each other at the same time.
Lehane writes very realistic characters. His prose is masterful as he lays open the deep emotions of these three men and their families. The plot has few twist and turns, this is not Agatha Christie dropping everything into place at the very end, it is the people that matter here. We become engaged in the lives of these disparate people, we feel with them, and we feel committed to them.
My only frustration with the book was the time it took for the setup. As Lehane fills in the stories of the three, first in childhood and then as adults, it is not until 30% of the way through that the strands start to draw together. I was engaged with the book from the start but it was not until that 30% point that I was hooked.
There was another point late in the book that he hinted at the identity of the killer. The 'means, motive, opportunity' triplets appeared on the horizon but the final reveal pulled the rug from under that idea. In the end, and after experiencing the depth of suffering of the main characters, it is the utter mundanity, the meaninglessness of the murder that hits the hardest.
This is my second Lehane novel and it certainly won't be the last.
Under the guise of writing a murder mystery thriller, Lehane gives us an extraordinary exploration of human darkness. Three boys, eleven years old, are playing in the street and something happens. Something that refuses to 'unhappen'.
As adults they live very different lives. One's a reformed criminal. One's a copper. One is just surviving, unable to throw off the darkness of the childhood experience. They rarely meet until a teenage girl is murdered. As the investigation proceeds the intertwining of their lives becomes shrouded in suspicion and alienation. They are drawn together but repulsed from each other at the same time.
Lehane writes very realistic characters. His prose is masterful as he lays open the deep emotions of these three men and their families. The plot has few twist and turns, this is not Agatha Christie dropping everything into place at the very end, it is the people that matter here. We become engaged in the lives of these disparate people, we feel with them, and we feel committed to them.
My only frustration with the book was the time it took for the setup. As Lehane fills in the stories of the three, first in childhood and then as adults, it is not until 30% of the way through that the strands start to draw together. I was engaged with the book from the start but it was not until that 30% point that I was hooked.
There was another point late in the book that he hinted at the identity of the killer. The 'means, motive, opportunity' triplets appeared on the horizon but the final reveal pulled the rug from under that idea. In the end, and after experiencing the depth of suffering of the main characters, it is the utter mundanity, the meaninglessness of the murder that hits the hardest.
This is my second Lehane novel and it certainly won't be the last.
The bones of a good story but brought down by poor writing. This was highlighted for me as I had just finished Mystic River by Dennis Lehane. Lehane is a master of prose and very definitely a hard act to follow.
The book opens with a chase on foot through the city. The author tries to convey urgency and danger with complicated sentences and his grammar fails him. It's not a good first impression.
For instance, the narrator, a copper, is chasing a suspect and is referring to himself in this sentence. "Pushing forward and closing the gap, the lights of street vendors and stores blur past my vision." The grammatical subject here is 'the lights of the street vendors', not the narrator. Such clumsy grammar continues through the book.
Two sentences later we read, "Hologram advertisements dance and pulsate above autonomous vehicles designed to promote the latest thing you need to buy." Once again his grammar fails. This sentence tells me that autonomous vehicles are designed to promote the latest thing. I know that is not what he means but it is how the English language works. It is as if the author does not know how to maintain the grammatical subject through a sentence.
Both of these examples are only three or four paragraphs into the novel. And sadly such clumsy writing continues through the book. Add to this the constant use of heavy handed adjectives, I suspect for the purpose of conveying drama, and reading the book becomes tiring.
However, let's move to the story itself. Set in a dystopian world I imagine is inspired by the movie Blade Runner with a bit of cyberpunk added in, the narrator, Sol, a police officer is trying to close a case. He's pursuing a suspect through various layers of the city, from desperate poverty to the ultra rich. Body modifications are the norm for many people, some legally allowed but others most certainly not. Some of his adversaries are fully human, some of them modded to the point of being machines, and very dangerous machines. As the story unfolds Sol finds that his initial suspect leads him to levels of society that have unlimited influence in the city. Is the whole society compromised by these links to the ultra wealthy?
The story moves rapidly and Sol rushes from one crisis to another. Through it all his motivation is to provide for his wife and daughter, who are always on his mind. The author is keen to show Sol as a man of integrity with family as his prime concern. His behaviour, however, is less constant. I'm prepared to say that as an Australian, I'm not the best judge of character or actions of a US police officer. He jumps too suddenly from being calm and reasoning to volatile and chaotic for me to appreciate him as a person.
Finally, this is the debut novel of the author and I always want to support new authors. The book is let down by his prose and it could be improved with a good editor. The story has potential and if this is indicative of the imagination of the author then hopefully his next book will show some maturity of language and form.
The bones of a good story but brought down by poor writing. This was highlighted for me as I had just finished Mystic River by Dennis Lehane. Lehane is a master of prose and very definitely a hard act to follow.
The book opens with a chase on foot through the city. The author tries to convey urgency and danger with complicated sentences and his grammar fails him. It's not a good first impression.
For instance, the narrator, a copper, is chasing a suspect and is referring to himself in this sentence. "Pushing forward and closing the gap, the lights of street vendors and stores blur past my vision." The grammatical subject here is 'the lights of the street vendors', not the narrator. Such clumsy grammar continues through the book.
Two sentences later we read, "Hologram advertisements dance and pulsate above autonomous vehicles designed to promote the latest thing you need to buy." Once again his grammar fails. This sentence tells me that autonomous vehicles are designed to promote the latest thing. I know that is not what he means but it is how the English language works. It is as if the author does not know how to maintain the grammatical subject through a sentence.
Both of these examples are only three or four paragraphs into the novel. And sadly such clumsy writing continues through the book. Add to this the constant use of heavy handed adjectives, I suspect for the purpose of conveying drama, and reading the book becomes tiring.
However, let's move to the story itself. Set in a dystopian world I imagine is inspired by the movie Blade Runner with a bit of cyberpunk added in, the narrator, Sol, a police officer is trying to close a case. He's pursuing a suspect through various layers of the city, from desperate poverty to the ultra rich. Body modifications are the norm for many people, some legally allowed but others most certainly not. Some of his adversaries are fully human, some of them modded to the point of being machines, and very dangerous machines. As the story unfolds Sol finds that his initial suspect leads him to levels of society that have unlimited influence in the city. Is the whole society compromised by these links to the ultra wealthy?
The story moves rapidly and Sol rushes from one crisis to another. Through it all his motivation is to provide for his wife and daughter, who are always on his mind. The author is keen to show Sol as a man of integrity with family as his prime concern. His behaviour, however, is less constant. I'm prepared to say that as an Australian, I'm not the best judge of character or actions of a US police officer. He jumps too suddenly from being calm and reasoning to volatile and chaotic for me to appreciate him as a person.
Finally, this is the debut novel of the author and I always want to support new authors. The book is let down by his prose and it could be improved with a good editor. The story has potential and if this is indicative of the imagination of the author then hopefully his next book will show some maturity of language and form.
Under the guise of writing a murder mystery thriller, Lehane gives us an extraordinary exploration of human darkness. Three boys, eleven years old, are playing in the street and something happens. Something that refuses to 'unhappen'.
As adults they live very different lives. One's a reformed criminal. One's a copper. One is just surviving, unable to throw off the darkness of the childhood experience. They rarely meet until a teenage girl is murdered. As the investigation proceeds the intertwining of their lives becomes shrouded in suspicion and alienation. They are drawn together but repulsed from each other at the same time.
Lehane writes very realistic characters. His prose is masterful as he lays open the deep emotions of these three men and their families. The plot has few twist and turns, this is not Agatha Christie dropping everything into place at the very end, it is the people that matter here. We become engaged in the lives of these disparate people, we feel with them, and we feel committed to them.
My only frustration with the book was the time it took for the setup. As Lehane fills in the stories of the three, first in childhood and then as adults, it is not until 30% of the way through that the strands start to draw together. I was engaged with the book from the start but it was not until that 30% point that I was hooked.
There was another point late in the book that he hinted at the identity of the killer. The 'means, motive, opportunity' triplets appeared on the horizon but the final reveal pulled the rug from under that idea. In the end, and after experiencing the depth of suffering of the main characters, it is the utter mundanity, the meaninglessness of the murder that hits the hardest.
This is my second Lehane novel and it certainly won't be the last.
Under the guise of writing a murder mystery thriller, Lehane gives us an extraordinary exploration of human darkness. Three boys, eleven years old, are playing in the street and something happens. Something that refuses to 'unhappen'.
As adults they live very different lives. One's a reformed criminal. One's a copper. One is just surviving, unable to throw off the darkness of the childhood experience. They rarely meet until a teenage girl is murdered. As the investigation proceeds the intertwining of their lives becomes shrouded in suspicion and alienation. They are drawn together but repulsed from each other at the same time.
Lehane writes very realistic characters. His prose is masterful as he lays open the deep emotions of these three men and their families. The plot has few twist and turns, this is not Agatha Christie dropping everything into place at the very end, it is the people that matter here. We become engaged in the lives of these disparate people, we feel with them, and we feel committed to them.
My only frustration with the book was the time it took for the setup. As Lehane fills in the stories of the three, first in childhood and then as adults, it is not until 30% of the way through that the strands start to draw together. I was engaged with the book from the start but it was not until that 30% point that I was hooked.
There was another point late in the book that he hinted at the identity of the killer. The 'means, motive, opportunity' triplets appeared on the horizon but the final reveal pulled the rug from under that idea. In the end, and after experiencing the depth of suffering of the main characters, it is the utter mundanity, the meaninglessness of the murder that hits the hardest.
This is my second Lehane novel and it certainly won't be the last.
In Robert Louis Stevenson's 'Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde', Jekyll is worried about his dark side and tries to slice off that part of his personality, creating the monstrous Hyde in the process. Tim Major takes these characters and envisages them as a pair of investigators to explore the dark side of humanity.
The wealthy Muriel Carew attends a fund raiser party at a London mansion where she encounters her ex-fiance, Henry Jekyll. Suspicious stuff happens and on leaving the party she finds a dead body. Following up her suspicions, and with a few more clues, she finds her way to the obscure office of Hyll Investigations, the current workplace of her ex.
People in 1890s London have been reported missing. Their families have been contacting Jekyll to find them. And now Muriel is awkwardly imposing herself into his work. She proves to be a better investigator and together they stumble through Victorian London to discover the whereabouts of the missing, either alive or dead.
It is the nature of these abductions that gives Major his grist for the mill as he walks us down the stairs into some horrific basement of human desire and cruelty.
The two characters of Jekyll and Hyde form a symbiotic pair, one working in daylight and the other in darkness. Each one knows nothing of the thinking of the other but Muriel interacts with both, a complicated trick that Major handles well.
The novel carries itself well for the most part but I thought it lost some punch towards the end. The final crisis is sold short as the depravity behind the abductions is revealed and the denouement lets us down rather gently.
In Robert Louis Stevenson's 'Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde', Jekyll is worried about his dark side and tries to slice off that part of his personality, creating the monstrous Hyde in the process. Tim Major takes these characters and envisages them as a pair of investigators to explore the dark side of humanity.
The wealthy Muriel Carew attends a fund raiser party at a London mansion where she encounters her ex-fiance, Henry Jekyll. Suspicious stuff happens and on leaving the party she finds a dead body. Following up her suspicions, and with a few more clues, she finds her way to the obscure office of Hyll Investigations, the current workplace of her ex.
People in 1890s London have been reported missing. Their families have been contacting Jekyll to find them. And now Muriel is awkwardly imposing herself into his work. She proves to be a better investigator and together they stumble through Victorian London to discover the whereabouts of the missing, either alive or dead.
It is the nature of these abductions that gives Major his grist for the mill as he walks us down the stairs into some horrific basement of human desire and cruelty.
The two characters of Jekyll and Hyde form a symbiotic pair, one working in daylight and the other in darkness. Each one knows nothing of the thinking of the other but Muriel interacts with both, a complicated trick that Major handles well.
The novel carries itself well for the most part but I thought it lost some punch towards the end. The final crisis is sold short as the depravity behind the abductions is revealed and the denouement lets us down rather gently.
Set one hundred years into the future, China has invaded Vietnam and is twenty years into a heavy handed occupation. Lin, born in Vietnam but adopted and raised in Australia, has returned and works within a chaotic insurgency. She's a gang member and Bao, the powerful gang leader, is training her for leadership in battle.
I came to this book from the world of Gibson's Sprawl books, but whereas in Gibson the brutalism is in the overall environment (images of the Blade Runner movie), the brutalism in 36 Streets is in the damage being inflicted by various enemies on each other. It's more like a Bruce Lee world of wounding, dismemberment, and murder.
Into that world Napper injects mind enhancement through sophisticated software, future-tech body repair and modification, and a darkly envisaged computer game that is undermining a nation's trust in itself.
Lin has been hired by the developer of the computer game to find whoever murdered his business partner but as she delves deeper into the game and the people around it she finds herself bouncing between her gang, its street rival, the Viet Minh resistance, and the Chinese occupying forces.
Lin picks up a DNA fragment from Molly Millions, and there's a polite nod to 'tears in rain'. As I understand it the book was part of Napper's PhD thesis on cyberpunk and referencing his source worlds is fitting, and done respectfully.
Set one hundred years into the future, China has invaded Vietnam and is twenty years into a heavy handed occupation. Lin, born in Vietnam but adopted and raised in Australia, has returned and works within a chaotic insurgency. She's a gang member and Bao, the powerful gang leader, is training her for leadership in battle.
I came to this book from the world of Gibson's Sprawl books, but whereas in Gibson the brutalism is in the overall environment (images of the Blade Runner movie), the brutalism in 36 Streets is in the damage being inflicted by various enemies on each other. It's more like a Bruce Lee world of wounding, dismemberment, and murder.
Into that world Napper injects mind enhancement through sophisticated software, future-tech body repair and modification, and a darkly envisaged computer game that is undermining a nation's trust in itself.
Lin has been hired by the developer of the computer game to find whoever murdered his business partner but as she delves deeper into the game and the people around it she finds herself bouncing between her gang, its street rival, the Viet Minh resistance, and the Chinese occupying forces.
Lin picks up a DNA fragment from Molly Millions, and there's a polite nod to 'tears in rain'. As I understand it the book was part of Napper's PhD thesis on cyberpunk and referencing his source worlds is fitting, and done respectfully.