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The Cyclone Release
It's the late 90s Internet boom, and Brendon Meagher has just lost his wife Sadie in a freakish car accident at the edge of Silicon Valley. The Cyclone Release follows Brendon as he emerges from tragedy and lands in a pre-IPO start-up that promises astonishing riches. Mo Gramercy, a bright and commanding colleague with her own deep secret, joins Brendon, disrupts his malaise, and takes him as her lover. The characters' careen toward IPO millions, their secrets suddenly converging, and both are shaken without mercy from bucolic notions of work, life, and impending fortune.
258 pages, Paperback
Published November 15, 2022
4 people are currently reading
9 people want to read
About the author
Bruce Overby
2 books9 followersBorn in California's Santa Clara Valley long before it became the Silicon Valley of today,
Bruce Overby
both participated in and keenly observed the transformation and evolution of an insular place that many still fail to understand. His fiction has appeared in several literary journals, and his story Bookmarks won First Prize in the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition. He holds an MFA in Writing from Queens University of Charlotte and continues to live in Northern California with his wife Caroline.
The Cyclone Release,
a finalist in the Madville Publishing Blue Moon Novel Competition, is his first novel.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
January 23, 2023
The Cyclone Release by Bruce Overby is a definitive page-turning corporate fiction that will blow your mind and leave you wanting to read more works by the author!
This book is a heady mix of engaging prose, a captivating concept and a well-executed story developed around extremely realistic and relatable characterisation. This story pulls you in and takes you to the time when Silicon Valley was not how we see it today and tells the story of Brendon, a man stuck in the crazy turmoil of life whose career is in the field that is tethering over a precarious edge.
Well-written, absorbing and thoroughly interesting as well as intriguing, The Cyclone Release has a lot to offer to its readers and therefore I’d strongly recommend it to all fiction readers, especially those who like exploring corporate fiction and are interested in learning the details about the behind-the-scenes reality of the Silicon Valley.
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You can also read this review on my book blog, The Reading Bud here: https://thereadingbud.com/2022/11/14/...
This book is a heady mix of engaging prose, a captivating concept and a well-executed story developed around extremely realistic and relatable characterisation. This story pulls you in and takes you to the time when Silicon Valley was not how we see it today and tells the story of Brendon, a man stuck in the crazy turmoil of life whose career is in the field that is tethering over a precarious edge.
Well-written, absorbing and thoroughly interesting as well as intriguing, The Cyclone Release has a lot to offer to its readers and therefore I’d strongly recommend it to all fiction readers, especially those who like exploring corporate fiction and are interested in learning the details about the behind-the-scenes reality of the Silicon Valley.
_______________________________________
You can also read this review on my book blog, The Reading Bud here: https://thereadingbud.com/2022/11/14/...
January 7, 2023
The Cyclone Release is an authentic peek into what it's like to grow up and work in Silicon Valley. Highly recommended.
Decades ago, when I moved to California from Massachusetts for a tech job, Silicon Valley was already covered in office parks. I was intrigued by how many SV natives spoke longingly about the blossoming orchards that had once turned the entire "Valley of Heart's Delight" white and delicately fragrant in the springtime. A nostalgia bordering on mourning for paradise lost, the technological dominance of SV bought and paid for with plowed-under, paved-over nature.
Brendon, the protagonist of The Cyclone Release, is one of those natives. "In the 60s, he and his friends....would ride bikes through orchards of apricots, cherries, and plums....they would see mountains surrounding them....and they would know they were in a valley, a valley large enough to hold crops and distant places where childhood adventures could be found, but small enough that you knew at all times that you were in a valley, that it held you, even protected you somehow." A valley where he knew he belonged.
One day, while riding their bikes, the friends came upon a hint of things to come, of change. "The orchard road was dirt then all of a sudden, asphalt....an intersection in the middle of the orchard. 'Why would they put this way out here like this?'" We all know the answer to that.
Most of The Cyclone Release is spent in that changed world during the dot-com boom of the 90s. The pressure cooker world of start-ups and a feverish certainty that if you put in enough hours and spent nights sleeping in your cubicle, you’d strike it rich when your company’s IPO hit.
Brandon rejoins this world at Janela Software months after he had retreated following the shock of his wife’s accidental death. A time when he didn’t feel that he belonged anywhere. The author’s pacing in spinning out the reveal to Brandon about who and what was involved in the accident is perfect.
Brandon’s Silicon Valley is well-described – so many familiar landmarks and streets that allowed me to “see” where the action took place. The action inside the walls of Janela Software mirrored my work life so accurately in places I’m sure my blood pressure went up a few points: when Brendon became a temporary pariah because he unwittingly went to a meeting he wasn’t supposed to be in; the manic focus on “the release” – the massive effort getting everything ready for launch, the hopeless feelings brought on by pre-launch setbacks and panics, and the exultation and celebration when The Cyclone Release actually happened.
Throughout, we see Brendon’s outsider feelings gradually fade. A shared sense of stress and purpose led to a real sense of community, of people supporting people. Eventually, Brandon felt that he was where he belonged, mentally and physically.
In the end, the Janela IPO was successful and Brandon found a house in an unspoiled enclave of Silicon Valley, “surrounded by an orderly, magnificent orchard...sweeping down the hillside, leaves of light green and blossoms of white and pink blossoms.” Paradise regained. At a cost.
Decades ago, when I moved to California from Massachusetts for a tech job, Silicon Valley was already covered in office parks. I was intrigued by how many SV natives spoke longingly about the blossoming orchards that had once turned the entire "Valley of Heart's Delight" white and delicately fragrant in the springtime. A nostalgia bordering on mourning for paradise lost, the technological dominance of SV bought and paid for with plowed-under, paved-over nature.
Brendon, the protagonist of The Cyclone Release, is one of those natives. "In the 60s, he and his friends....would ride bikes through orchards of apricots, cherries, and plums....they would see mountains surrounding them....and they would know they were in a valley, a valley large enough to hold crops and distant places where childhood adventures could be found, but small enough that you knew at all times that you were in a valley, that it held you, even protected you somehow." A valley where he knew he belonged.
One day, while riding their bikes, the friends came upon a hint of things to come, of change. "The orchard road was dirt then all of a sudden, asphalt....an intersection in the middle of the orchard. 'Why would they put this way out here like this?'" We all know the answer to that.
Most of The Cyclone Release is spent in that changed world during the dot-com boom of the 90s. The pressure cooker world of start-ups and a feverish certainty that if you put in enough hours and spent nights sleeping in your cubicle, you’d strike it rich when your company’s IPO hit.
Brandon rejoins this world at Janela Software months after he had retreated following the shock of his wife’s accidental death. A time when he didn’t feel that he belonged anywhere. The author’s pacing in spinning out the reveal to Brandon about who and what was involved in the accident is perfect.
Brandon’s Silicon Valley is well-described – so many familiar landmarks and streets that allowed me to “see” where the action took place. The action inside the walls of Janela Software mirrored my work life so accurately in places I’m sure my blood pressure went up a few points: when Brendon became a temporary pariah because he unwittingly went to a meeting he wasn’t supposed to be in; the manic focus on “the release” – the massive effort getting everything ready for launch, the hopeless feelings brought on by pre-launch setbacks and panics, and the exultation and celebration when The Cyclone Release actually happened.
Throughout, we see Brendon’s outsider feelings gradually fade. A shared sense of stress and purpose led to a real sense of community, of people supporting people. Eventually, Brandon felt that he was where he belonged, mentally and physically.
In the end, the Janela IPO was successful and Brandon found a house in an unspoiled enclave of Silicon Valley, “surrounded by an orderly, magnificent orchard...sweeping down the hillside, leaves of light green and blossoms of white and pink blossoms.” Paradise regained. At a cost.
February 23, 2023
In clean, meticulous prose, Overby transports the reader back to the late 1990s tech boom, ground zero of a fictional start-up, Janela, and the centripetal force of software creation, the titular Cyclone Release. Against this back-drop–brought to life as only an insider can–we get a story of collision, in more than one sense of that word, as Brendon Meagher and Maureen “Mo” Gramercy are flung together, only to have a shared moment from the past, unknown to either of them at the time, cast a deep, dark shadow over their relationship. It’s rare to get a novel that delves into the actual work lives of its characters, and yet here we have exactly that, in supple, polished language that is a pleasure to read.
December 3, 2022
This very compelling debut by Bruce Overby takes place in Silicon Valley during the tech boom, when the region is still transforming from pastoral orchards to subdivisions full of newly minted IPO millionaires. Brendon, our main character, is a local technical writer trying to get past the sudden death of his wife when he lands a job at Janela, a promising software startup on the verge of going public ... if only the team can get a functional version together by an impossible release date. Alongside his team, Brendon dives into the task of understanding a new software and creating user instructions for it amid dynamic coding updates, interface changes and mounting tension among team members.
Such an all-consuming environment would seem like the perfect place for a grieving widow to escape his loneliness and emotions. But Brendon doesn't get that luxury very long. As the pressures mount on his team, a new employee joins and causes Brendon's carefully compartmentalized grief to crack wide open. Brendon's painful loss comes back in focus just when he needs to be putting his focus on what's in front of him: the software release and also his future life.
I found the novel's premise and story to be highly engaging. Overby writes in flawless prose that's crisp, descriptive and squarely places the reader into every scene. The author does such a wonderful job of depicting the startup environment and mentality. I felt like I was right there with Brendon and his team, pulling all-nighters and exhausted, yet somehow energized at the same time. For me, following Janela's corporate inner workings, team meetings and politics on the road to going public made for an engrossing read. The novel rotates points of view with sections from the perspectives of Brendon's teammates, adding more depth and insights into the Silicon Valley aspects of the story. But layered on top of that crazy startup world is a more tender storyline—of Brendon struggling to come to terms with his wife's death and figuring out how to live again.
Such an all-consuming environment would seem like the perfect place for a grieving widow to escape his loneliness and emotions. But Brendon doesn't get that luxury very long. As the pressures mount on his team, a new employee joins and causes Brendon's carefully compartmentalized grief to crack wide open. Brendon's painful loss comes back in focus just when he needs to be putting his focus on what's in front of him: the software release and also his future life.
I found the novel's premise and story to be highly engaging. Overby writes in flawless prose that's crisp, descriptive and squarely places the reader into every scene. The author does such a wonderful job of depicting the startup environment and mentality. I felt like I was right there with Brendon and his team, pulling all-nighters and exhausted, yet somehow energized at the same time. For me, following Janela's corporate inner workings, team meetings and politics on the road to going public made for an engrossing read. The novel rotates points of view with sections from the perspectives of Brendon's teammates, adding more depth and insights into the Silicon Valley aspects of the story. But layered on top of that crazy startup world is a more tender storyline—of Brendon struggling to come to terms with his wife's death and figuring out how to live again.
January 9, 2024
Silicon Valley Dot Com Era IPO Relived. Excellent depiction of the peri-Y2K startup culture, business opportunities, job situations, work conditions, and the characters’ physical, emotional, and philosophical challenges and reflections. I worked at the same startup as the author in those same early days and enjoyed reliving that time through this novel. Beautifully narrated and spiced with some drama, mystery, and romance the story is packaged into an insightful and entertaining read.
February 2, 2023
Having been born, raised and living a career in Silicon Valley, this book evokes vivid images hustling the technology startup life. I imagine it is unique and hard to understand why people live these kinds of lives for people outside the area, but this is our culture and this book gives a peek into the gory details.
Bruce elegantly skirts the line between providing enough context to understand all the nuances of the industry without dragging the reader into mind numbing details. Not an easy task to be sure!
This is a fun read and very nostalgic for me. Clearly Bruce knows this culture, which makes this a credible story as opposed to some books that depict Silicon Valley as some "outsiders" imagine it.
I highly recommend.
Bruce elegantly skirts the line between providing enough context to understand all the nuances of the industry without dragging the reader into mind numbing details. Not an easy task to be sure!
This is a fun read and very nostalgic for me. Clearly Bruce knows this culture, which makes this a credible story as opposed to some books that depict Silicon Valley as some "outsiders" imagine it.
I highly recommend.
March 13, 2023
I really want to give this book five stars. The writing is just fantastic: excellent interiority, great character development, believable dialogue, very readable, great world building. So many things to like. The two flaws, however, are significant enough to me that I have to knock off a star. Flaw 1: the character of Cuong. Cuong’s character, pov, and plot line are not well-integrated into the rest of the narrative. He seems wedged in in a way that feels very tokenish— not a real, authentic commitment to him as a necessary and integral component of the narrative. Flaw 2: the author seems to dance with larger ethical implications of the transformation of the Silicon Valley and the start up boom, but he doesn’t actually engage in any real political or ethical excavation. Given the horrendous working conditions of the people he describes, the environmental decimation caused by the transformation into SV, and the totally unexamined economic consequences of the dot com boom this feels really wrong, and ultimately forces the narrative to remain at a pretty socially shallow level. It’s hard, ultimately, to care about his characters’ personal growth when they seem incapable of understanding the larger implications of the work they’re engaged in.
February 25, 2023
Debut novel is a good, captivating read, The Cyclone Release gives both insight into the dot.com culture and history of what is now the Silicon Valley.
February 25, 2023
A chain of emotional highs and lows in rapid succession - that's life inside a silicon valley startup. Having lived through it, I can say this is a solid portrayal of that reality - but with the character-driven prose that makes it a great read.
December 31, 2022
The world, I am told, is fascinated by Silicon Valley. Who works inside these beige buildings that line the freeways and why? Who can work so many hours a day that they sleep on a camp-bed in their cubical? In The Cyclone Release, Bruce Overby takes you right inside this windowless, pressure-cooker world.
It’s not a nice world. Our main character, a man who takes the job to drown out the pain of loosing his wife in a freak traffic accident, finds himself alone in his cubical struggling to invent his part in the process of bringing a product to release. On one of his first days he mistakenly attends a meeting he wasn’t invited to. Does anyone tell him? Does someone whisper in his ear? No, they let him suffer agonies of embarrassment, then the boss yells at him. That’s how brutal and uncooperative this world is. How, I kept asking myself, do they create brilliant products while behaving like that?
Why are these people there? Many reasons. They need to use the overactive brain. They are escaping something. They want the huge payout so they can go do what they really want to do in life. They want a big house in the hills.
Gradually our main character finds his feet and gets the job done, with help. It’s a tragic sort of help. It’s a tragic sort of story. The story of a valley that used to be filled with fruit trees and is now filled with technological wizardry.
A well written and thought-provoking study of human beings giving their all to a hell of their own making. A hell that creates.
It’s not a nice world. Our main character, a man who takes the job to drown out the pain of loosing his wife in a freak traffic accident, finds himself alone in his cubical struggling to invent his part in the process of bringing a product to release. On one of his first days he mistakenly attends a meeting he wasn’t invited to. Does anyone tell him? Does someone whisper in his ear? No, they let him suffer agonies of embarrassment, then the boss yells at him. That’s how brutal and uncooperative this world is. How, I kept asking myself, do they create brilliant products while behaving like that?
Why are these people there? Many reasons. They need to use the overactive brain. They are escaping something. They want the huge payout so they can go do what they really want to do in life. They want a big house in the hills.
Gradually our main character finds his feet and gets the job done, with help. It’s a tragic sort of help. It’s a tragic sort of story. The story of a valley that used to be filled with fruit trees and is now filled with technological wizardry.
A well written and thought-provoking study of human beings giving their all to a hell of their own making. A hell that creates.
November 21, 2022
Silicon Valley in the 90s - We all heard the rumors, but what was it really like to be in the heart of a start-up and a release during that time?
The author drops the reader in the middle of not only the extreme circumstances of the corporate world but also the tragedy of the main character, who is mourning the sudden death of his wife in a freak accident. Brendon is a tech guy in all sense of the word. While he is a tech writer, his brain function is very similar to the variety of engineers he tries to deal with on a daily basis. As Brendon has emerged back into work months after his wife's death, he is immediately submerged in the all-consuming world of the start-up company, Janela, as it is mid-creation for its latest software release. Janela is set to change the way businesses handle their end of life inventory and that connection was not lost on this reader as Brendon is also trying to deal with his wife's end of life.
The story is rounded out with a variety of characters, from the stern yet approachable Gerhard to Chuck, who is trying to survive and maintain a future life with his wife, to Charlie, whose personality is sometimes larger than life. A twist, although inevitable, did not distract but merely added another level to the complexity of endurance the characters were experiencing.
The tech language needed for descriptions is there but kept at a degree that most novices will still easily be able to get into the story. This is drama at a high level and yet some (with a wink) may think it is Historical Fiction – except for those of us who remember.
The author drops the reader in the middle of not only the extreme circumstances of the corporate world but also the tragedy of the main character, who is mourning the sudden death of his wife in a freak accident. Brendon is a tech guy in all sense of the word. While he is a tech writer, his brain function is very similar to the variety of engineers he tries to deal with on a daily basis. As Brendon has emerged back into work months after his wife's death, he is immediately submerged in the all-consuming world of the start-up company, Janela, as it is mid-creation for its latest software release. Janela is set to change the way businesses handle their end of life inventory and that connection was not lost on this reader as Brendon is also trying to deal with his wife's end of life.
The story is rounded out with a variety of characters, from the stern yet approachable Gerhard to Chuck, who is trying to survive and maintain a future life with his wife, to Charlie, whose personality is sometimes larger than life. A twist, although inevitable, did not distract but merely added another level to the complexity of endurance the characters were experiencing.
The tech language needed for descriptions is there but kept at a degree that most novices will still easily be able to get into the story. This is drama at a high level and yet some (with a wink) may think it is Historical Fiction – except for those of us who remember.
December 31, 2025
I thoroughly enjoyed this work. It was a great insight into the workings of the world of startups. One usually only hears about this unique world, but Overby brought it to life. The hectic pace, the emotional and physical toll, and even the philosophical debate on whether all the glory and gains are worth the sacrifice play out on every page once the protagonist is onboarded and becomes an integral part of the company. A wonderful book indeed, and I hope Overby considers a follow up work and expands this universe both in breath and in depth.
December 12, 2022
A terrific read!
I tore through the pages of this venture into the heart of 90’s Silicon Valley, grieving along with the central character Brendon Meagher’s loss of his beloved wife in a tragic accident, and rooting wildly—as the secrets surrounding that accident unfold—not only for his financial and career success, but also for a second, unexpected, chance at love.
I tore through the pages of this venture into the heart of 90’s Silicon Valley, grieving along with the central character Brendon Meagher’s loss of his beloved wife in a tragic accident, and rooting wildly—as the secrets surrounding that accident unfold—not only for his financial and career success, but also for a second, unexpected, chance at love.
August 16, 2024
Few novels are convincingly set in the work environment, but here we have a recently widowed protagonist who after a period of mourning re-enters the workforce by joining a Silicon Valley start-up. Overby knows the territory, obviously--the details of the technical writing for a software release and the stress and intense energy of a young software company--and his main characters are instantly likable. Very well done.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews