What the hell is TRACER? 8 things you need to know
I am out-of-my-mind excited right now.
TRACER is dropping in the US and Canada on 28 June. It’s been blowing the hell up in the UK, South Africa and Australia for the past year, and I can’t wait for you to read it.
To celebrate, here’s a little primer on the fastest, nastiest, most explosive book ever – everything you need to know to get ready. If you’re interested in the world of Outer Earth, here’s everything you need to know,
1. It’s set on a space station
A very old space station. Outer Earth is a massive ring, six miles wide, orbiting 300 miles above our planet and home to over a million people. The world below has been destroyed by climate change and nuclear war, and it’s been a long time since anyone has set foot on the ground. Outer Earth is, essentially, a giant space ghetto, where nothing works and where you can get mugged for a protein bar.
2. Its hero is the world’s most hard-core postal worker
I wish to God I’d come up with that, but I didn’t. It’s a description given to me by an interviewer named Kerstin Hall, and I have to say, it works. See, on Outer Earth, nothing works. Everything is rusted, damaged, falling apart, and that includes the public transport system. If you want to get packages and messages from place to place, you have two options.
You can either take it yourself, and risk running afoul of the gangs that roam the corridors, or you can entrust it to a tracer: a fleet-footed courier with the speed and fighting skills necessary to navigate through hostile territory.
Tracers are what the Postal Service would be if the Postal Service knew parkour and could move through tight spaces insanely quickly. And Riley, the hero of Tracer, is the fastest one there is. She’ll take your package, and get it where it’s going…for a price.
Riley isn’t supposed to look in her cargo. It’s why she gets so much work. But when she’s ambushed by a rival gang, she discovers she’s been transporting body parts. There’s no way she’s going to stand for that…
3. You wouldn’t want to mess with her crew
Tracers work in small crews, and Riley is no exception. Her crew is called the Devil Dancers, a five-person squad who live together, fight together, and run together. There’s Carver, a mechanical genius who is both annoying and annoyingly good-looking. There are the Twins, Yao Shen and Kevin O’Connell, so nicknamed because despite looking nothing alike, they’re completely inseparable. And then there’s the crew leader, Amira Al-Hassan: an ice-cold, deadly fighter who will do anything to protect her crew…
4. Everything about the station is scientifically accurate
And I mean everything. From the way it spins to generate artificial gravity, to the fusion reactor at its core, to the way excess heat is controlled and vented into space (ammonia in the pipes, since you ask) is all based on real-world technologies. One of the things I did, before I wrote the book, is head down to Kingston University in South London to talk to an actual rocket scientist. He made sure that Outer Earth was entirely possible. If we had the money and the political will, we could build tomorrow.
5. They eat bugs
Like, a lot of bugs. You can’t use meat to feed a million-person space station, and soy and tofu will only get you so far. The solution? Bugs. Silkworms, beetles, crickets…crushed to powder and cooked in the station mess halls, or fried with a little salt in the sector markets. Great source of protein. The station’s bugs are kept in a giant habitat known as the Buzz Box, but there are rumours that a few of them have escaped, vanishing into the station’s vents…
6. The book is fast
I’ll let the reviews do the talking:
“Incoming cliche’: blistering! If you like your yarns to take off at speed, this number should suit you.” – Sunday Sport
“The relentlessly fast pace gives the book strong momentum…” – SFX Magazine
“Exhilarating and guaranteed to keep you hooked until the very last page.” – Glamour Magazine
“Constant violence and escalating stakes keep the story moving forward at a bone-jarring pace, especially in the climax, where revelations and betrayals follow each other as quickly, and as dizzyingly, as Riley vaults down stairwells.” – Kirkus Reviews
“Tracer is the literary equivalent of a base jump: fast, exhilarating and unforgettable, and once you start it you can’t stop. I loved it.” – Sarah Lotz, author of The Three
“Fast-paced, well-written and well-researched, Tracer sets a new standard for all-action SF.” – Ken MacLeod, author of the Fall Revolution and Engines of Light series
7. It’s part of a trilogy
…And you won’t have to wait long to read the sequels. TRACER drops 28 June, its followup ZERO-G on 26 July, and the final instalment IMPACT on 25 August. That’s your summer reading taken care of. All books will be available in both ebook and paperback via Amazon, at your nearest B&N, Chapters, and indie.
8. You can listen to it. And read it in German.
It’s already appeared as an audiobook, with killer performances from veteran actors Sarah Borges and Jeff Harding. And if you want to read the German version, that’s available too. I wouldn’t advise it unless you speak German, though. Kind of a deal breaker, that one.
What are you waiting for? Go pick it up!
(Amazon / B&N / Indigo Chapters)
