What do you think?
Rate this book
Irreconcilable Differences
Rachel Santana is thirty-six years old. She's an agent for Interpol Covert Services. Before that, she was an interrogator at the White Sands Reeducation Camp, following the breakup of the United States. Before that, she was a prisoner there. Before that, a Yankee, one of a group of corporate mercenaries trying to extract something like a victory in the Middle East. Before that, she was a United States Marine. She's a survivor. A cop. A soldier. A destroyer. A killer. Now, Robert Neil, Rachel's boss and soon-to-be ex-husband, has implanted a digital copy of Rachel's mind in Michelle Marie (Micki) Blake, a 16-year-old farmgirl-hacker in rural Kansas. The mission: Learn the local hacker ecology. Locate the dangerous new player prowling the rural networks. Destroy him. Take no prisoners. Leave no incriminating evidence. As covert missions go, it should be pretty simple. There's nothing simple, though, about being conjoined at the cortex with someone else. There's nothing simple about life on the farm, the life of a high school student, the life of a 16-year-old in post-United States Kansas. And the rural hacker ecology is unraveling with new forces in play, new powers, new players. It will take all of Rachel's experience just to survive. All of Micki's skills as a hacker to dig for the truth. All of their combined abilities to put the pieces together, to find the real threat despite the web of deception and half-truth that surrounds both their operation and Copy-Rachel's very existence. And somehow, they have to avoid being grounded.
312 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2008
5 people are currently reading
16 people want to read
About the author
James R. Strickland
4 books27 followersJames R. Strickland has been telling stories since before he could read or write. By a long and circuitous route, through mandatory journal-keeping in high school, this led to an English Writing degree in 1990, and the pursuit of a master's degree in Communications from 1990 through 1993. Taking a break from graduate school, Strickland moved to the San Francisco Bay Area - nerdvana - to pursue a career in high tech, as well as his then-girlfriend-now-wife. Six years later, after a layoff in high tech, and before the credits all expired, Strickland completed his master's degree.
Despite working in high tech, and especially during the periods of unemployment common to high tech workers, Strickland wrote, mostly for the consumption of fellow role playing gamers. He sold nothing, never had any intention of selling anything. After completing a CCNA certification in 2002 in a vain attempt to gain employment in a down economy, Strickland wrote his first novel for National Novel Writing Month, and the whole dream of being a writer began to reawaken. Strickland has two published novels, Looking Glass, and Irreconcilable Differences. More are coming.
Despite working in high tech, and especially during the periods of unemployment common to high tech workers, Strickland wrote, mostly for the consumption of fellow role playing gamers. He sold nothing, never had any intention of selling anything. After completing a CCNA certification in 2002 in a vain attempt to gain employment in a down economy, Strickland wrote his first novel for National Novel Writing Month, and the whole dream of being a writer began to reawaken. Strickland has two published novels, Looking Glass, and Irreconcilable Differences. More are coming.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 1, 2010
My second novel. Naturally I think it's great, and everyone should read it. :)
Irreconcilable Differences is about a woman named Rachel Santana. She is an agent of Interpol Covert Services. She’s thirty-six years old, married, soon to be divorced, and an experienced undercover operator. They’ve taken a digital copy of her mind and personality, and implanted it in Micki Blake, a 16 year old hacker girl from rural Kansas.The mission: Locate the dangerous new player who is prowling the rural hacker ecology. Destroy him. Take no prisoners. Leave no trace. Use Micki Blake and her life as a cover.
What this means for the copy of Rachel Santana is that she’s spending time as a sixteen year old again. She’s in high school again. Above all, she has to face some hard questions. Who am I? How did I get to be this person/ Where do I go from here? These questions and their answers are a matter of life and death.
When I tell people about Irreconcilable Differences, the question I get the most is,Why Kansas?
My wife and I used to drive a lot between Colorado Springs and Sheridan Wyoming. It’s a long, dull drive. You wind up playing games like Road Kill Bingo just to pass the time. We stopped in Douglas Wyoming. It’s a town of about 5000 people, mostly support for farming and ranching, mostly retail and medical. It’s also the home of the Wyoming State Fair.
So anyway, we stopped there at the combination gas station, convenience store, and Subway Sandwich shop, and we’re sitting there, eating our sandwiches, listening to the country music, when these two goth-punks walk in. And they were in full uniform: Leather jackets, piercings, tattoos, chains, makeup, hair, the works.
No-one batted an eyelash. Except us. We talked about them for some time once we were back on the road. They were more interesting than road kill bingo. You don’t expect to see that kind of big city culture in Douglas Wyoming. But clearly, it’s there.
That idea rattled around in my head a while, and it really took off during another long drive, to the other end of Kansas. You want to talk long, dull drives? There’s not much interesting scenery. Not even much carrion on the road. I’d been working on a followup book for Looking Glass, I was thinking about cyberpunk and thinking about how yes, cyberpunk culture and technology would penetrate even here.
I knew this. I’m from these big square states. I knew it’d be different, going more rural with it, but Cyberpunk doesn’t have to be about big urban sprawls slowly being made over in the image of Tokyo. I’ve set it in normal cities before. What hit me at that point was that cyberpunk doesn’t have to be in cities at all. By the time I got home, I had a rough idea of Micki Blake and her life going in my head, so I scrapped the novel I was working on and wrote this one instead.
Irreconcilable Differences is about a woman named Rachel Santana. She is an agent of Interpol Covert Services. She’s thirty-six years old, married, soon to be divorced, and an experienced undercover operator. They’ve taken a digital copy of her mind and personality, and implanted it in Micki Blake, a 16 year old hacker girl from rural Kansas.The mission: Locate the dangerous new player who is prowling the rural hacker ecology. Destroy him. Take no prisoners. Leave no trace. Use Micki Blake and her life as a cover.
What this means for the copy of Rachel Santana is that she’s spending time as a sixteen year old again. She’s in high school again. Above all, she has to face some hard questions. Who am I? How did I get to be this person/ Where do I go from here? These questions and their answers are a matter of life and death.
When I tell people about Irreconcilable Differences, the question I get the most is,Why Kansas?
My wife and I used to drive a lot between Colorado Springs and Sheridan Wyoming. It’s a long, dull drive. You wind up playing games like Road Kill Bingo just to pass the time. We stopped in Douglas Wyoming. It’s a town of about 5000 people, mostly support for farming and ranching, mostly retail and medical. It’s also the home of the Wyoming State Fair.
So anyway, we stopped there at the combination gas station, convenience store, and Subway Sandwich shop, and we’re sitting there, eating our sandwiches, listening to the country music, when these two goth-punks walk in. And they were in full uniform: Leather jackets, piercings, tattoos, chains, makeup, hair, the works.
No-one batted an eyelash. Except us. We talked about them for some time once we were back on the road. They were more interesting than road kill bingo. You don’t expect to see that kind of big city culture in Douglas Wyoming. But clearly, it’s there.
That idea rattled around in my head a while, and it really took off during another long drive, to the other end of Kansas. You want to talk long, dull drives? There’s not much interesting scenery. Not even much carrion on the road. I’d been working on a followup book for Looking Glass, I was thinking about cyberpunk and thinking about how yes, cyberpunk culture and technology would penetrate even here.
I knew this. I’m from these big square states. I knew it’d be different, going more rural with it, but Cyberpunk doesn’t have to be about big urban sprawls slowly being made over in the image of Tokyo. I’ve set it in normal cities before. What hit me at that point was that cyberpunk doesn’t have to be in cities at all. By the time I got home, I had a rough idea of Micki Blake and her life going in my head, so I scrapped the novel I was working on and wrote this one instead.
September 15, 2008
James R. Strickland's sophomore effort for Flying Pen Press builds on the mastery, and creative bending, of established cyberpunk conventions he so skillfully demonstrated in his debut title Looking Glass. His latest work, Irreconcilable Differences, takes us even further into his dismantled, post-collapse, North America and beyond the dystopic industrial cores and fantastic corporate techno-palaces typical of the genre and brings it to new, and equally-gritty locales; a family farm, a motor home, and, sometimes most disturbing, high school.
Along the way he introduces readers to an unlikely pair of central characters, Kansas teenager and aspiring hackergirl Michelle Marie "Micki" "Hotwire" Blake, and Inspector Rachel Santana, Interpol Covert Services, whose odd-couple, 'buddy cop' interactions provide an extra-wide window into the intricate, and all-too-believable world of 'flyover country' hacker gangs and the devastating effects of personal will magnified by asymmetric technology.
Looking Glass showed us that Strickland can do cyberpunk without resorting to a pastiche of Gibson, Morgan et. al. With Irreconcilable Differences he shows us how to take it to its next level.
Along the way he introduces readers to an unlikely pair of central characters, Kansas teenager and aspiring hackergirl Michelle Marie "Micki" "Hotwire" Blake, and Inspector Rachel Santana, Interpol Covert Services, whose odd-couple, 'buddy cop' interactions provide an extra-wide window into the intricate, and all-too-believable world of 'flyover country' hacker gangs and the devastating effects of personal will magnified by asymmetric technology.
Looking Glass showed us that Strickland can do cyberpunk without resorting to a pastiche of Gibson, Morgan et. al. With Irreconcilable Differences he shows us how to take it to its next level.
October 2, 2010
Cranks up the fast action of Looking Glass yet again, this time in an unusual location...the inside of the head of a teenage girl in central Kansas. You may be wondering "how's that gonna work?", but Strickland pulls it off in brilliant fashion. And, as before, we get a new approach to the question, "What does it mean to be human?" It's cyberpunk adventure and a coming-of-age novel all in one, and proves that, in a networked world, you don't have to be in the big city to be on the cutting edge...
April 13, 2011
Another solid cyberpunk tale from Mr. Strickland. Deftly managing dual perspectives of a jaded teen-age hacker and the battle-hardened veteran who's digitized consciousness is implanted in her brain, Irreconcilable Differences moves through the fractured landscape of a future Balkanized America menaced by corporate espionage and treachery. A worthy read.
April 15, 2009
The second book by this author and it's good, but not quite as good as the first, IMHO. The technical aspects of the writing itself tighten up, but the plotting and pacing aren't quite as good. Still good though.
October 23, 2015
Interesting cyber novel, with good strong characters and a thrilling plot. Contains intriguing explorations of how a mind would react to not having a body of it's own and how it would react to being able to truly share sensory experiences. Even better than Looking Glass.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews