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Code Beast
In the near future, Kalsari Jones is hooked on the Vexworld, a global mixed-reality network accessed through neural implants. As his addiction grows, he is plagued by sentient hallucinations and an urge to strip the flesh from his bones. At his lowest ebb, he must also face his latent digisexuality, an erotic attraction to artificial intelligence. Seeking answers, he meets Ingram Ravenscroft, a cult leader who claims a treatment for digisexuality. Smitten, Kalsari allows his brain to be rewired, only for the operation to leave him with unwanted telepathic powers. Lost in inner space, Kalsari angers a band of rogue AI who’ve escaped the Vexworld and are seeking refuge in the time-sinks of the fourth dimension. Battling the shapeshifting bots before they can enslave his mind, he discovers the shocking truth about his virtual obsessions—and Ravenscroft’s hidden role in the story of his life.
- GenresScience Fiction
356 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 30, 2023
10 people are currently reading
57 people want to read
About the author
Simon Sellars
14 books68 followersSimon Sellars is a writer and editor based in Melbourne, Australia. His latest novel is CODE BEAST (Wanton Sun, 2023), a semi-sequel to his cult theory-fiction classic, Applied Ballardianism: Memoir from a Parallel Universe.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 18, 2023
“The first stage is infection…”
It’s been five years since Simon Sellars' Applied Ballardianism slipped into our world, and now he’s back with Code Beast. Sellars himself refers to his latest book as “a quasi-sequel to Applied Ballardianism,” but if you think that this novel is just a rehash of his first long-form piece, you couldn’t be more wrong.
Code Beast is the dark imagining of a not-too-distant future, where Augmented Reality is the mass drug of choice; mainlined directly to the ‘recipient’ via technology which is still in its infancy. Highly addictive, it is pure cerebral crack, but just like shooting up with dirty needles, using the new tech comes with risks. Flaws open ruptures, and it’s so very easy to lose your footing when you’re caught between worlds.
Our anti-hero, Kalsari Jones, isn’t the most likeable of ‘leading men,’ but he is relatable. A flawed human being trying to escape from himself in a world which is as full of glitches as he is.
It’s clear from reading Code Beast that Sellars has undertaken a lot of research, and harbours a phenomenal internal databank of literary, cultural, and Pop knowledge. Through the various characters, we’re exposed to Cronenbergian Body Horror, Ballardianesque Paranoid Architectures, and landscapes that George Miller would be proud of. But although the novel is a ‘wild ride,’ it is also pensive, melancholic. Forcing one to contemplate upon how we reach out to technology more and more in order to connect, especially with loved ones lost, and periods of our lives to which we can never physically return. It reinforces, for me, that we are all ghosts in the making.
Code Beast takes the reader on an intense ride through worlds that have yet to, and may never, manifest, but as we prepare to slide into the second quarter of the 21st century, the Vexworld is looking tantalisingly close at hand. Alongside the fear (from many) of the rise of AI, lies its many potential possibilities, especially VR and AR. More and more people are seeking to leave this moribund world and dive deeper into virtual vistas. I, myself am already excavating them! Simon Sellars', Code Beast has arrived just as humanity is reaching a pivotal point. We brought the Anthropocene upon ourselves; how long will it take before we bring the ARthropocene into existence?
With this in mind, I’ll be keeping my copy of Code Beast close to hand, for, maybe, it isn’t just a twisted tale, but is something much darker, a cautionary plea from a future which has already begun to manifest…
It’s been five years since Simon Sellars' Applied Ballardianism slipped into our world, and now he’s back with Code Beast. Sellars himself refers to his latest book as “a quasi-sequel to Applied Ballardianism,” but if you think that this novel is just a rehash of his first long-form piece, you couldn’t be more wrong.
Code Beast is the dark imagining of a not-too-distant future, where Augmented Reality is the mass drug of choice; mainlined directly to the ‘recipient’ via technology which is still in its infancy. Highly addictive, it is pure cerebral crack, but just like shooting up with dirty needles, using the new tech comes with risks. Flaws open ruptures, and it’s so very easy to lose your footing when you’re caught between worlds.
Our anti-hero, Kalsari Jones, isn’t the most likeable of ‘leading men,’ but he is relatable. A flawed human being trying to escape from himself in a world which is as full of glitches as he is.
It’s clear from reading Code Beast that Sellars has undertaken a lot of research, and harbours a phenomenal internal databank of literary, cultural, and Pop knowledge. Through the various characters, we’re exposed to Cronenbergian Body Horror, Ballardianesque Paranoid Architectures, and landscapes that George Miller would be proud of. But although the novel is a ‘wild ride,’ it is also pensive, melancholic. Forcing one to contemplate upon how we reach out to technology more and more in order to connect, especially with loved ones lost, and periods of our lives to which we can never physically return. It reinforces, for me, that we are all ghosts in the making.
Code Beast takes the reader on an intense ride through worlds that have yet to, and may never, manifest, but as we prepare to slide into the second quarter of the 21st century, the Vexworld is looking tantalisingly close at hand. Alongside the fear (from many) of the rise of AI, lies its many potential possibilities, especially VR and AR. More and more people are seeking to leave this moribund world and dive deeper into virtual vistas. I, myself am already excavating them! Simon Sellars', Code Beast has arrived just as humanity is reaching a pivotal point. We brought the Anthropocene upon ourselves; how long will it take before we bring the ARthropocene into existence?
With this in mind, I’ll be keeping my copy of Code Beast close to hand, for, maybe, it isn’t just a twisted tale, but is something much darker, a cautionary plea from a future which has already begun to manifest…
May 8, 2023
Simon Sellars new book is a wild ride into an immersive realm where “shattering glimpses of psychotropic futures” dance along to the antics of a code beast: “I thought I was an astral voyager studying the physical plane, but in hindsight I was a psychopath on training wheels, itching and bleeding for the Vexworld to be born.” It’s like reading P.K. Dick, J.G. Ballard, and Thomas Pynchon while riding a roller-coaster down a surreal tunnel that never ends. What I enjoyed most is the energy of it all. It’s one of those books you’ll either love or hate depending on your current psychopathy. After I finished it I had to wonder if I’d ever left Vexworld. Am I still there? Are you there? Are we there? Read it, and find out…
June 23, 2023
Amplified cursed video game hyperstition. All the speculative conspiracies of tech derailments are here blended in a seductively horrifying horizon this novel left me longing to explore. Highly recommended.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews