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Mosaic 17K
All royalties on this work for the month of April & May 2017 will be split between the author and a donation to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
It's the year 2036 and the waters are rising, the dead are piling up and small-time hacker Sophie Locke is just trying to get by at the fringe of civilization. Global society is barely recovering in the wake of a geomagnetic storm, the Cincinnati city-state has fallen into disrepair, and mysterious black butterflies are appearing at sites of life and death. Fueled by her need to understand the murder of a childhood friend, Sophie will gather an unlikely crew as she seeks answers. Unfortunately, this drags her beneath the crosshairs of a conspiracy intent on rendering humanity obsolete.
Mosaic 17K is a novel about coming of age as humanity butts up against the event horizon of the technological singularity, still staggering from a natural disaster and unprepared. The story chases Sophie as she tries to cope with the constantly changing world that might be right around the corner from us, as she loses track of time while the real and the virtual begin to blur.
It's the year 2036 and the waters are rising, the dead are piling up and small-time hacker Sophie Locke is just trying to get by at the fringe of civilization. Global society is barely recovering in the wake of a geomagnetic storm, the Cincinnati city-state has fallen into disrepair, and mysterious black butterflies are appearing at sites of life and death. Fueled by her need to understand the murder of a childhood friend, Sophie will gather an unlikely crew as she seeks answers. Unfortunately, this drags her beneath the crosshairs of a conspiracy intent on rendering humanity obsolete.
Mosaic 17K is a novel about coming of age as humanity butts up against the event horizon of the technological singularity, still staggering from a natural disaster and unprepared. The story chases Sophie as she tries to cope with the constantly changing world that might be right around the corner from us, as she loses track of time while the real and the virtual begin to blur.
616 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 6, 2017
6 people are currently reading
26 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 23, 2017
This book has a little bit of everything. A coming of age story wrapped in noir and cyberpunk inside of a dystopia, heavily accessorized with action and adventure and a hint of humor. The characters and their interactions are believable and the dialogue is a treat to read. There are AIs, robots, mysterious black butterflies, murder, ecological disaster, mysterious figures, ecological concerns, overarching corporate interests, a merry band of miscreants, a strong female protagonist, war veterans, cyborgs, hacking, and so much more. It is a big book full of big ideas and big characters.
It is set in Cincinnati in the near future and is the only story I've ever read that actually does the region justice rather than just taking a generic urban setting and calling it Cincinnati. As a resident of the area, I could easily recognize a lot of the places mentioned.
I would often catch myself asking, "But what about this thing that happened back in this earlier part of the book? Did the author forget about that?" I had nothing to worry about, virtually everything gets a wrap up by the end. The book has a solid end with just enough wriggle room to leave an opening for a sequel. I'm looking forward to that eventual sequel.
It is set in Cincinnati in the near future and is the only story I've ever read that actually does the region justice rather than just taking a generic urban setting and calling it Cincinnati. As a resident of the area, I could easily recognize a lot of the places mentioned.
I would often catch myself asking, "But what about this thing that happened back in this earlier part of the book? Did the author forget about that?" I had nothing to worry about, virtually everything gets a wrap up by the end. The book has a solid end with just enough wriggle room to leave an opening for a sequel. I'm looking forward to that eventual sequel.
August 7, 2024
Great Cyberpunk in Cincy
I went looking for sci-fi and found this cyberpunk gem from an independent author on Reddit. Like all cyberpunk, it's heavy on the computer speak, and I didn't follow a lot of that because my coding experience stops at the Turtle back in the early days when the Mac was still short for Macintosh and it had a green screen.
Like baseball, if you just gloss over the stats, you can still enjoy the story of the game. The plot is good, the heroine is in the tradition of Frodo and all the little people going up against odds stacked well against them and it's just and all around engrossing read set in my hometown.
I went looking for sci-fi and found this cyberpunk gem from an independent author on Reddit. Like all cyberpunk, it's heavy on the computer speak, and I didn't follow a lot of that because my coding experience stops at the Turtle back in the early days when the Mac was still short for Macintosh and it had a green screen.
Like baseball, if you just gloss over the stats, you can still enjoy the story of the game. The plot is good, the heroine is in the tradition of Frodo and all the little people going up against odds stacked well against them and it's just and all around engrossing read set in my hometown.
November 10, 2017
This is an incredible dense, very good book that should become an introduction to cyberpunk. There is easily enough material for two books, although I am not that happy with the ending.
If this story was not written in order to get someone into cyberpunk, then this is a very fortunate accident, because the book hits all the spots for today’s young adult fiction: the young female protagonist, searching her place in the world, the grizzled companions, the conflict so much larger and the antagonists seemingly invincible. This does mean that the story loses for the more experienced reader, once the conflict began to emerge I pretty much knew how it would resolve. Despite that, I wanted to know how this resolution would come around and on the way experience this wonderfully dark world.
There is no sugarcoating, the ending - in the fine tradition of William Gibson – is a mess. I was impressed how the author managed to make the computer and hacking elements work without resorting to too much handwaving and technobabble only to stumble on the final stretch. The ending feels hurried, doesn’t resolve major questions and introduces a sequel hook that feels forced. I liked this book, I recommend this book, I don’t want a sequel. The story is told, I am content.
Considering this is the first book from this author, I am very impressed. This book should be more prominent than it is right now.
If this story was not written in order to get someone into cyberpunk, then this is a very fortunate accident, because the book hits all the spots for today’s young adult fiction: the young female protagonist, searching her place in the world, the grizzled companions, the conflict so much larger and the antagonists seemingly invincible. This does mean that the story loses for the more experienced reader, once the conflict began to emerge I pretty much knew how it would resolve. Despite that, I wanted to know how this resolution would come around and on the way experience this wonderfully dark world.
There is no sugarcoating, the ending - in the fine tradition of William Gibson – is a mess. I was impressed how the author managed to make the computer and hacking elements work without resorting to too much handwaving and technobabble only to stumble on the final stretch. The ending feels hurried, doesn’t resolve major questions and introduces a sequel hook that feels forced. I liked this book, I recommend this book, I don’t want a sequel. The story is told, I am content.
Considering this is the first book from this author, I am very impressed. This book should be more prominent than it is right now.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews