Systems

by W.T. Quick

When Joshua Tower awakens from a coma to find that his wife has been murdered and he is being stalked by sadistic high tech killers, it seems that his days must be numbered. But whoever is hunting him picked the wrong man, as they discover when Josh reaches deep into a past he'd hoped to forget, and uses the tools and techniques he hoped he could leave buried there to turn the hunters into prey. You'll be up all night, riveted by this tale of betrayal and revenge in a cyberpunk classic reissued by the author himself, without DRM.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Cyberpunk

232 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 28, 1989

About the author

W.T. (William Thomas) Quick, a native of Indiana, lives in the Bayview neighborhood of San Francisco. He is the author of twenty-eight novels, including the seminal cyberpunk cult hit DREAMS OF FLESH AND SAND (in which he invented The Matrix), the best-selling prehistoric thriller THE LAST MAMMOTH, a series of six novels entitled QUEST FOR TOMORROW co-authored with William Shatner, dozens of shorter works of fiction, and several screenplays for film and television.

Quick also writes under the pseudonyms QUENTIN THOMAS, SEAN KIERNAN, AND MARGARET ALLAN

Reviews

[Kevin Phyland · Rating 3 out of 5]

Josh Tower is a Datahunter in early 21st century San Francisco when an accident in a laser-guided taxi kills his wife and unborn son. Josh is severely injured and hospitalized for a long period but his memories of the crash have not returned. When he is released he returns home and comes to a week or so later having apparently been on a huge bender and destroying his home and its contents - including all his computer equipment. Roused by an old military buddy, Foster, he must flee as it turns out the accident wasn’t an accident and whatever the hell he stumbled on in his computer has made him a priority target of global forces. With nobody to trust, in desperation he contacts his nurse from hospital (another broken human being who lost a spouse) and together they try to find out just what is going on and why somebody on Luna is buying up Consort stock (the company running the guided transport system). W. T. Quick has written an entertaining, if violent, techno thriller and you will be willing the morally ambiguous Tower on to his resolution, which involves murder, mayhem and betrayal.

[Lee A. Smith]

Very Entertaining

Great rear. However I read on an iPhone and there were no breaks between paragraphs. It took a while to get used to it, but overall it had me hooked. The paragraph issue is the only reason it did not get 5 stares. I will buy other books by this author.

[Foxtower · Rating 1 out of 5]

I like to try out new authors on occasion, and since my favorite bookseller has quite a few of Quicks’ books on hand I tried one. It Quickly became apparent this book would Quickly become my last Quick book. I noticed first the four other novels advertised in the front that Quick had had written with the same main character. Always a bad sign! Yet I gave Quick a chance, even though it soon became apparent that the science was ridiculous, like the main character.

Quick did Quickly engage me with action. I thought perhaps he would be similar to Clive Cussler, who while afflicted with the same repetitive characters and lack of originality can at least complete an entertaining story. Alas it wasn’t so. Halfway through I figured out who the “bad guy” really was, and as the story deteriorated I was hoping the bad guy would put the main character out of my misery. Unfortunately the main character survived to Quicks’ futile attempt at a clever ending that being consistent with the science rendered the entire book pointless.

Even the editor didn’t take Quick seriously. While often many better authors first books may contain a typo when publishers won’t risk too many resources on a new author, this editor didn’t care that Quicks’ fourth book contained several typos.

[Vilmibm · Rating 1 out of 5]

The synopsis on the back of the book is laughably misleading; this is a pointless book about chauvinism and violence. It's hardly even mil sf; it reads like a 12 year old boy playing with soldier toys. I'm totally fine with violence, but the stuff in this would be better off (and more entertaining) in a shlocky action movie.

Definitely not worth your time.

The one salvageable part of the story is the fine corporate intrigue that motivates the plot but is only actually handled for a page towards the end. I felt throughout that there were good ideas at the periphery of this story but they are completely steamrolled by all the painstakingly detailed combat and gore.