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Club Anyone Kindle Edition
In an age of augmented reality, love is found in the most dangerous places. Stranded on Mars, megacorp programmer Derek Tobbit drowns his sorrows in augmented reality sex, only to have his drug-fueled midlife crisis hijacked by a conspiracy that threatens the solar system. It will take all his hacker skill, the friendship of a rogue AI, and the redemptive power of an impossible love to save them.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherWordFire Press
- Publication dateJune 6, 2017
- File size1559 KB
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About the Author
Product details
- ASIN : B0B5G9SZBC
- Publisher : WordFire Press (June 6, 2017)
- Publication date : June 6, 2017
- Language : English
- File size : 1559 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 325 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,725,872 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #2,963 in Colonization Science Fiction
- #3,040 in Colonization Science Fiction eBooks
- #3,663 in Cyberpunk Science Fiction (Kindle Store)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Lou is the author of cyberpunk novel Club Anyone, set in the Interface Zero world and published by Word Fire Press. He's written, edited, and developed over a million words for the adventure game industry, including the five time Ennie-nominated Razor Coast and Ennie-winning Heart of the Razor.
When not writing, Lou studies Chinese martial arts and indulges his love of all things Nordic. He's also been spotted wearing an entirely orange tuxedo at conventions, co-hosting the Iron GM show with fave collaborator writer-musician-phenom Rone Barton. Lou lives in upstate NY with two cats, his girlfriend, and (part time) two kids - not necessarily in that order.
You can learn more about what Lou is up to by visiting www.agrestasaurus.com, where you can subscribe to his irreverent blog Words Like Bullets.
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Club Anyone is an intricate, imaginative cyberpunk novel that reads an intriguing mash-up of “Total Recall” and “I, Robot” (the movie). Lou Agresta weaves a noirish conspiracy and sets it in the hyperconnected world of Gunmetal Games’ Interface Zero RPG setting. There are plenty of detective story tropes (and cliches) like shadowy criminal elements, a femme fatale (and hooker with a heart of gold), hidden allies, double agents and double-crossers that offer the noir flavor for this futuristic tale.
While the story immerses us into the intrigue almost as soon as Derek arrives on Mars, it gets bogged down in a b-story involving the breakup of his marriage back on earth, and then his romance with Natasha, the surrogate/avatar/sex worker employed by the titular Club Anyone. Agresta focuses in on those plotlines intensely during the first half of the book, to the disservice of the overarching conspiracy that Derek had be called to Mars to resolve. Derek’s prolonged drunken wallowing in self-pity and seething fury towards his wife eroded my sympathy for him a bit. Derek’s fairly passive for a main character, especially considering how he acted right out of the gate at the start of the story. Much of the things that happen in the first half happen to him; he’s doesn’t make things happen. I suppose this is due to the world where the story set. A lot of what happens happens virtually, via Derek’s “TAP,” his cerebrally implanted cybernetic interface with the world, so there’s not much actual action in the first half. Agresta gives a few nods here and there to Derek’s investigation during this section but much of it seems to be in the hands of his subordinates, Greg and Jessica, both of whom are underused. I wouldn’t have minded more clues about the treachery going on behind the scenes.
The second half of the book where things get engrossingly good, compelling, fast moving. Derek loses control of his life through intrigue and double-crosses worthy of Dashiell Hammett. He weaves in and out of peril like a cat wired on cocaine, using up at least four of his nine lives. Derek’s TAPping to battle the bad guys gets just as intense as the physical fights. The entire concept behind the catastrophe is just mind-blowing, worthy of a novel itself. The resolution to the conspiracy is thoroughly satisfying, Overall, the novel provides a fascinating and thought-provoking ride into a possible future in which humans and artificial intelligence grow more intrinsically intertwined. I hope this isn’t the only look we have into this world.
Heroic deeds of derring-do.
Corporate hell mongers.
Anxiety inducing life crises.
Bad guys that you really, really wish to see they get what's coming to them.
Software in your brain. And that's simplifying things.
Interplanteary colonization.
A.I.? Good or evil? Or a little bit of both?
A 'keerazy' romance.
All of these facets are in Lou Agresta's hot first novel, 'Club Anyone.' Mr. Agresta keeps you riveted with interesting backstory, a likeable protagonist, some weird trysts, and great prose, both figurative and otherwise, that etches vivid landscapes within the mind's eye.
This is a novel of speculative fiction and the author bases a bit of the science on actual concepts or materials that have been developed in reality. 'Club Anyone' falls in the category of 'cyber punk.' But to view the book solely under that lens is doing it a disservice. I highly recommend reading it.
An excellent tale that keeps you turning pages from beginning to end, this story feels like it could easily cozy up to something by Philip K. Dick, Arthur C. Clark, Stephen Baxter, or Terry Pratchett. More to the point, this is a story that could easily fit into PKD's own universe. To be perfectly honest, it's hard to read this and not imagine the tendrils of those two books weaving their way into this background. The influences are definitely present, if not in body, in spirit. With that said, it's not the familiarity that rings true, but rather the human interaction. While brief descriptions of the new, hyper-advertised world is entirely appropriate, it's the human moments of this book that really strike the right chords. All of the characters, even when you want to smash them right in the face with the butt of your rifle, feel real. It's their struggles, even when they feel inauthentic or confusing, that really take the wheel.
In closing, I have to say I really enjoyed this book.
Cheers,
Jaye
ATTN: This is an unpaid review.