The sequel to Infoquake builds on the setting and situations established in that novel. It’s a couple of centuries from now and technology has become smaller and more personal, including nanotechnology implanted directly into the human body. As with all new technologies, the uses to which it is put are not necessarily those which were originally foreseen. The protagonist, Natch, has made a breakthrough that could potentially change the world, and he’s been fighting a battle against organizations that sort of blend government and private industry and which seek to control the shape of the future. Although he foiled the opposition in the first book, thanks to some very unusual strategies, his enemies aren’t about to let things go that easily. Since they cannot crush him openly, they opt for a clandestine operation to undermine the company Natch controls from within. The stakes are more than just the financial rewards possible. There is a possibility that the human race could experience a form of freedom previously impossible, but also the chance that they could fall under a tyranny more insidious and irresistible than ever. I suppose you could call this cyberpunk because it’s very much about the interface between people and technology, but it’s also a very perceptive speculative look at how the human potential might be enhanced, or crippled, by its own creations. I look forward to the third book in the trilogy.

As a reminder: MultiReal will be hitting the stores in late July. (In the meantime, you can pre-order on Amazon.)

The book cover for Indian Larry: Chopper Shaman here has no relation to any of these book reviews. I just stumbled upon it while Googling and found it amusing. Tell me Indian Larry isn’t the coolest guy on the planet. Go ahead, tell me. No, I don’t believe you. You’re lying.

Now, the new reviews:

Graeme Flory of Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review recently reviewed The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Volume Two, and called my story “Mathralon” one of his two favorites in the collection. “George Mann’s second collection of science fiction makes for some enthralling reading of other worlds and the people who inhabit them,” says Graeme. “…My favourite stories were Dan Abnett’s ‘Point of Contact’ and David Louis Edelman’s ‘Mathralon’, two tales that leave the reader in no doubt as to how cold and lonely our universe can be.”

Not really a review, but the Antiaging Wellness Blog uses Infoquake as a starting point for a brief essay about biological programming. “In reading through the programs used in Infoquake, it is hard not to ask oneself, are these not the very mechanisms that the body is designed to control itself, through our hormonal and neurological pathways.”

Don D’Ammassa apparently long ago posted a capsule outtake review of Infoquake, which I completely failed to notice at the time. Says Don: “Lots of interesting speculation and a plausible and interesting plot. I found the prose a bit awkward from time to time but not so much that it significantly interfered with my enjoyment of the story.”

Some Amazon reviewer apparently has been using his copy of Infoquake as a makeshift Frisbee. Says Ray A.R. “Abe” in his 1-star review: “This is one of two supposedly highly rated books I read lately that were completely awful. I read the whole thing but wished I’d stopped after the third time I threw the book across the room. Take out the technojunk and this is nothing but a subpar novel, weak on character, weak on plot. Suffice to say I’ll never read another thing written by this awful author.” FYI, the other highly rated book that “Abe” disliked was Pat Rothfuss’ The Name of the Wind.

Continuing my bad streak of reviews on the Barnes & Noble page for Infoquake, Karmen Roth echoes Abe’s sentiments about the book: “Very unoriginal, poorly written and chock full of junk technotalk that serves no purpose. By the end, there wasn’t a single character I cared about and the story didn’t seem to go anywhere.” To which I say: Oh yeah? Well, wait until you read MultiReal. It’s even more unoriginal, more poorly written, and every single word is junk technotalk that not only serves no purpose, but actively finds out your purpose and sabotages it.