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Midwestern Chrome
A burned-out detective trapped in a cold case finds a curious lead—the severed head of an android who cries for help in the voice of his dead wife. It has her memories. It has her personality. But is it… Elsie?
Welcome to the frayed-wire-and-spare-parts autopsy of a near-future Nebraska, lit bright by neon promises and smoldering with broken dreams. Society is high on body augmentations and self-interest and low on moral reckonings.
Harlan's cold case takes center stage in the novella Our Bird Trills Mechanical, but desperate people willing to do whatever it takes fill the pages: people like Lucian Lucky, an augment-addicted prizefighter who must decide if the cost of winning is worth the size of the purse; or Javier, a love-struck henchman who’s fallen for the niece of his violent boss.
Freaks, fighters, fixers and f&%k-ups: fortune favors the corrupt in MIDWESTERN CHROME.
Welcome to the frayed-wire-and-spare-parts autopsy of a near-future Nebraska, lit bright by neon promises and smoldering with broken dreams. Society is high on body augmentations and self-interest and low on moral reckonings.
Harlan's cold case takes center stage in the novella Our Bird Trills Mechanical, but desperate people willing to do whatever it takes fill the pages: people like Lucian Lucky, an augment-addicted prizefighter who must decide if the cost of winning is worth the size of the purse; or Javier, a love-struck henchman who’s fallen for the niece of his violent boss.
Freaks, fighters, fixers and f&%k-ups: fortune favors the corrupt in MIDWESTERN CHROME.
213 pages, Paperback
Published July 28, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
August 15, 2026
Disclaimer: I received an ebook-copy from the publisher.
This collection of cyber-noir stories explores the feelings of the artificial alongside humanity's feelings about the artificial. While androids may not be considered as important or real by the society they live in here, their feelings and struggles take front and center in some of these short stories, which I adored. In others, it's humans dealing with technology, its benefits and downfalls and in true cyberpunk fashion, how to (be) exploit(ed by) it. It is also a quite diverse collection of stories focussing on androids attending therapy, detectives solving crime, hackers, grieving grandfathers and more, and while not every piece was as standout as it could have been (there's quite a few gruff investigator pieces), all in all this collection never got boring and focussed on enough interesting topics to keep my interest. I also enjoyed that the pieces vary in length featuring some flash fiction pieces and some relatively long pieces and together they really built this cyberworld and the various characters inhabiting it.
I really liked that disability/mental illness played a role in three of the short stories, as that is something I enjoy for cyberpunk stories to focus on, but I would have liked for the body and the mind and how it can fail despite cybernetic enhancements (or because of them) to play a bit of a bigger role in general. When it did come up, I really enjoyed it!
My favorite pieces of this collection were We Struggle as We Process, A Cat Walked Across the Keyboard, #E0E0E0 Sky, Throat Like Jazz and Traced in Air.
All in all, this is a fun collection and if you're looking for some cyberpunk that focuses on class and the seedy underbelly of corporate-run towns, that deftly takes out current reality and projects a terrifying, but potential development, that focuses on the emotions of its characters and how eeking out survival is possible, while also exploring the breaking down of the physical body as payment for said survival you will certainly have a great time with this collection!
*FAV* We Struggle as We Process: Tr4v15 M0rr0w wants to find out if their feelings are genuine, so they visit a therapist. Short, but intense analysis of the un/reality of emotions. A really incredible entry into this collection.
TW: violence
Our Bird Trills Mechanical: Harlan Brandt is your typical noir detective: not really enthusiastic about his job, but he's doing what needs doing even if that means going up against much bigger fish and with a tragic past that he tries to avoid thinking about. He's forced to confront his past however when an android head talks to him in the voice of his dead wife. Really interesting examination of grief in a world where everyday survival doesn't allow for people to feel it. I enjoyed the mix of action, characterbuilding and worldbuilding a lot. If you enjoy cypernoir with heart, you will love this story.
TW: death, grief, illness, sexual violence (implied), unsanitary, violence
Behemoths of Flesh and Glass: Another investigator trying to do just one last job before getting out of the city, is tasked with figuring out a dangerous virus infecting blackmarket chips and killing people. This dives deeper into the addictive body modification aspects and who can afford it than other pieces, but feels somewhat similar to Our Bird Trills Mechanical in structure without the heart of the first piece. I wish I had taken a bit more time between those two pieces as I could have enjoyed it more then, but all in all, I did still like this and how it offered a different view into this strange haunting cyberpunk city.
TW: addiction, gore, injury, violence
Siduri Inc. Vending Machine, 334 Whitetail Ave: A very short piece about a grandfather talking with his grandkid about his first date with his wife. A sweet moment and an interesting look at generational differences in a cyberpunk world.
*FAV* A Cat Walked Across the Keyboard: A hacker of the Net finds himself taking desperate measures, when an old acquaintance brings trouble to his doorstep. Haunting ending, but a really enjoyable piece.
TW: injury, overdose
Pass the Purse to the Pugilists: A formerly augmented fighter has gotten clean, but still relies on fighting to earn his living. When he's set up to win a fixed fight, he refuses and finds himself more desperate than ever. A haunting depiction of a spiral down, predatory loans and how inescapable it can feel. I really enjoyed the depictions of relationships in this story and the care people try to show one another despite the danger and that a side character of a previous short story showed up in this one again.
TW: addiction, death, injury, murder, violence
*FAV* #E0E0E0 Sky: A short piece about how certain augments change your perception. Really interesting flash fiction piece, melancholic and touching.
Immutable Dawn: A man finds himself captured and threatened with execution for a murder his brother committed and paid with his life for. Interesting story about family, grief and revenge and how people are ground up in the games of more powerful people.
TW: death, grief, murder, violence
MirrorMirrorTM Scan Date: Budny, Piotr J. (High Risk) [05:32AM, Tuesday]: A mirror programmed to cheer people up is faced with a man, who is not at all interested in the corporate feel good platitudes. Very short, but intriguing.
TW: addiction
Something Heavy, Something Loud: An enforcer struggles with the morality of his job as he is tasked with, when he falls in love at first sight with a woman that is unattainable. Their romance is so sweet, I really adored it, but the constant threat level behind it made this a tense read, which I also liked. I especially enjoyed the inclusion of a Deaf love interest here and the care and tenderness between them.
TW: unsanitary, violence, vomit
*FAV* Throat Like Jazz: A man picks up a ringing phone on his way to the unemployment office and is offered a job. A harrowing look into the poverty in this city, the way commerce has destroyed living space, how un(and under)employed people are treated and desperate actions taken by desperate people. Constantly tense and really interesting. I especially liked how this one reflected on the changes happening in this town as technology and corporate control progresses.
TW: death, murder, suicide, violence
A Complete Collapse of Guidance Systems, Yet We Persist: A short piece full of grief, featuring lost memories and a broken down mechanical bird. Very short, but touching.
*FAV* Traced in Air: A biologist is sent to a colonized planet to investigate why the crops keep dying. The crossbreeding of the native crops and Earth's crops has created new and dangerous plants and a farmer has become infected. Terrifying transformation biology horror, but also touching.
TW: death, gore, injury
Got Wrekt: An old, terminally ill man wants to go to one last concert, but finds himself faced with the reality that the music scene as he knew it, is dead and replaced by AI. Short, but harrowing. I really enjoyed how despite how things had changed, there was still care between the old man and the bartender and how their history was explored (albeit only in passing).
This collection of cyber-noir stories explores the feelings of the artificial alongside humanity's feelings about the artificial. While androids may not be considered as important or real by the society they live in here, their feelings and struggles take front and center in some of these short stories, which I adored. In others, it's humans dealing with technology, its benefits and downfalls and in true cyberpunk fashion, how to (be) exploit(ed by) it. It is also a quite diverse collection of stories focussing on androids attending therapy, detectives solving crime, hackers, grieving grandfathers and more, and while not every piece was as standout as it could have been (there's quite a few gruff investigator pieces), all in all this collection never got boring and focussed on enough interesting topics to keep my interest. I also enjoyed that the pieces vary in length featuring some flash fiction pieces and some relatively long pieces and together they really built this cyberworld and the various characters inhabiting it.
I really liked that disability/mental illness played a role in three of the short stories, as that is something I enjoy for cyberpunk stories to focus on, but I would have liked for the body and the mind and how it can fail despite cybernetic enhancements (or because of them) to play a bit of a bigger role in general. When it did come up, I really enjoyed it!
My favorite pieces of this collection were We Struggle as We Process, A Cat Walked Across the Keyboard, #E0E0E0 Sky, Throat Like Jazz and Traced in Air.
All in all, this is a fun collection and if you're looking for some cyberpunk that focuses on class and the seedy underbelly of corporate-run towns, that deftly takes out current reality and projects a terrifying, but potential development, that focuses on the emotions of its characters and how eeking out survival is possible, while also exploring the breaking down of the physical body as payment for said survival you will certainly have a great time with this collection!
*FAV* We Struggle as We Process: Tr4v15 M0rr0w wants to find out if their feelings are genuine, so they visit a therapist. Short, but intense analysis of the un/reality of emotions. A really incredible entry into this collection.
TW: violence
Our Bird Trills Mechanical: Harlan Brandt is your typical noir detective: not really enthusiastic about his job, but he's doing what needs doing even if that means going up against much bigger fish and with a tragic past that he tries to avoid thinking about. He's forced to confront his past however when an android head talks to him in the voice of his dead wife. Really interesting examination of grief in a world where everyday survival doesn't allow for people to feel it. I enjoyed the mix of action, characterbuilding and worldbuilding a lot. If you enjoy cypernoir with heart, you will love this story.
TW: death, grief, illness, sexual violence (implied), unsanitary, violence
Behemoths of Flesh and Glass: Another investigator trying to do just one last job before getting out of the city, is tasked with figuring out a dangerous virus infecting blackmarket chips and killing people. This dives deeper into the addictive body modification aspects and who can afford it than other pieces, but feels somewhat similar to Our Bird Trills Mechanical in structure without the heart of the first piece. I wish I had taken a bit more time between those two pieces as I could have enjoyed it more then, but all in all, I did still like this and how it offered a different view into this strange haunting cyberpunk city.
TW: addiction, gore, injury, violence
Siduri Inc. Vending Machine, 334 Whitetail Ave: A very short piece about a grandfather talking with his grandkid about his first date with his wife. A sweet moment and an interesting look at generational differences in a cyberpunk world.
*FAV* A Cat Walked Across the Keyboard: A hacker of the Net finds himself taking desperate measures, when an old acquaintance brings trouble to his doorstep. Haunting ending, but a really enjoyable piece.
TW: injury, overdose
Pass the Purse to the Pugilists: A formerly augmented fighter has gotten clean, but still relies on fighting to earn his living. When he's set up to win a fixed fight, he refuses and finds himself more desperate than ever. A haunting depiction of a spiral down, predatory loans and how inescapable it can feel. I really enjoyed the depictions of relationships in this story and the care people try to show one another despite the danger and that a side character of a previous short story showed up in this one again.
TW: addiction, death, injury, murder, violence
*FAV* #E0E0E0 Sky: A short piece about how certain augments change your perception. Really interesting flash fiction piece, melancholic and touching.
Immutable Dawn: A man finds himself captured and threatened with execution for a murder his brother committed and paid with his life for. Interesting story about family, grief and revenge and how people are ground up in the games of more powerful people.
TW: death, grief, murder, violence
MirrorMirrorTM Scan Date: Budny, Piotr J. (High Risk) [05:32AM, Tuesday]: A mirror programmed to cheer people up is faced with a man, who is not at all interested in the corporate feel good platitudes. Very short, but intriguing.
TW: addiction
Something Heavy, Something Loud: An enforcer struggles with the morality of his job as he is tasked with, when he falls in love at first sight with a woman that is unattainable. Their romance is so sweet, I really adored it, but the constant threat level behind it made this a tense read, which I also liked. I especially enjoyed the inclusion of a Deaf love interest here and the care and tenderness between them.
TW: unsanitary, violence, vomit
*FAV* Throat Like Jazz: A man picks up a ringing phone on his way to the unemployment office and is offered a job. A harrowing look into the poverty in this city, the way commerce has destroyed living space, how un(and under)employed people are treated and desperate actions taken by desperate people. Constantly tense and really interesting. I especially liked how this one reflected on the changes happening in this town as technology and corporate control progresses.
TW: death, murder, suicide, violence
A Complete Collapse of Guidance Systems, Yet We Persist: A short piece full of grief, featuring lost memories and a broken down mechanical bird. Very short, but touching.
*FAV* Traced in Air: A biologist is sent to a colonized planet to investigate why the crops keep dying. The crossbreeding of the native crops and Earth's crops has created new and dangerous plants and a farmer has become infected. Terrifying transformation biology horror, but also touching.
TW: death, gore, injury
Got Wrekt: An old, terminally ill man wants to go to one last concert, but finds himself faced with the reality that the music scene as he knew it, is dead and replaced by AI. Short, but harrowing. I really enjoyed how despite how things had changed, there was still care between the old man and the bartender and how their history was explored (albeit only in passing).
August 23, 2026
Special thanks to Tenebrous Press for the ARC copy they provided.
I have somehow found myself nearly a month after this was published coming here and posting a review that should have been posted before Midwestern Chrome was published. But be that as it may, no honest review is ever unwelcome, so come with me on a peek into a cyberpunk world that is gritty and grim with a touch of neon.
Midwestern Chrome is a bit of many things. Touching and dark, hopeful and fatalistic. All compartmentalized inside a world of chrome and tech, wires and electricity. Reading Midwestern Chrome is like existing in a world where flesh and tech can integrate, with all the messy side effects that entails.
This book is a collection of short fiction all centered in the same world, and while I haven’t been the biggest fan of short story collections of late, I have to say this splintered look at the world Michael Bettendorf created allows us as readers to experience the dirt-encrusted, wire-wrapped cyberpunk existence in a way a single character or narrative could display.
A man on a search to discover who put the recorded personality of his deceased wife into the body of an android. A boxer trying to quit tech. A tech designer who has to stop his inventions from being sold as additive properties. All of this and more is packed into Midwestern Chrome.
I became immersed in the varied narratives, and while I haven’t had the time to read as quickly as I once did, I found myself carried away by Michael Bettendorf’s narrative, and by the time I turned the last page, I wished there was more.
I have somehow found myself nearly a month after this was published coming here and posting a review that should have been posted before Midwestern Chrome was published. But be that as it may, no honest review is ever unwelcome, so come with me on a peek into a cyberpunk world that is gritty and grim with a touch of neon.
Midwestern Chrome is a bit of many things. Touching and dark, hopeful and fatalistic. All compartmentalized inside a world of chrome and tech, wires and electricity. Reading Midwestern Chrome is like existing in a world where flesh and tech can integrate, with all the messy side effects that entails.
This book is a collection of short fiction all centered in the same world, and while I haven’t been the biggest fan of short story collections of late, I have to say this splintered look at the world Michael Bettendorf created allows us as readers to experience the dirt-encrusted, wire-wrapped cyberpunk existence in a way a single character or narrative could display.
A man on a search to discover who put the recorded personality of his deceased wife into the body of an android. A boxer trying to quit tech. A tech designer who has to stop his inventions from being sold as additive properties. All of this and more is packed into Midwestern Chrome.
I became immersed in the varied narratives, and while I haven’t had the time to read as quickly as I once did, I found myself carried away by Michael Bettendorf’s narrative, and by the time I turned the last page, I wished there was more.
Read
August 11, 2026My blurb for this:
Bettendorf understands, is authentic about, the pleasures of the genre and his prose, rhythmic and assured, patterned yet surprising, allows for authentic emotions to play out between between the off beats of his characters compromised existences. In Midwest Chrome Bettendorf taps into the shining, irradiated, pain underscoring each iteration of the so called 'human' condition. He shows us that between the emergence of mind and the degradation of the physical, that is to say between the virtual and actual, lies the rust and tarnish of yearning hearts.
Bettendorf understands, is authentic about, the pleasures of the genre and his prose, rhythmic and assured, patterned yet surprising, allows for authentic emotions to play out between between the off beats of his characters compromised existences. In Midwest Chrome Bettendorf taps into the shining, irradiated, pain underscoring each iteration of the so called 'human' condition. He shows us that between the emergence of mind and the degradation of the physical, that is to say between the virtual and actual, lies the rust and tarnish of yearning hearts.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
I grew up expecting a Cyberpunk-Noir future. A Maximalist tech, hyper urbanized landscape, awash in a cultural melange, moving with a post-humanist lifeblood as much analog as digital. Of course, that’s not how things have played out so far...not quite.
We exist in a strange moment in time. Those with access to resources and wealth, have decided that they can pick and choose from that pool of Cyberpunk ephemera, giving you headsets, but only for playing their games, “peripherals” up the wazoo, all tied together, but easily breakable, and typically requiring a subscription. Their Data Centers, to surveil everyone and power toxic large language models, being forced onto the landscape. Wiping out communities, reducing ecosystems to stretches of poisoned, blighted wastelands. An accelerationist move towards techno dystopia, with late stage capitalism spiraling towards a bleakness only capable with the supremacy of the profit motive.
Michael Bettendorf does not ignore this present moment we are in, instead he uses it to encourage new growth, in the speculative fiction seed bed, as saturated with microplastics and forever chemicals as it may be. Midwest Chrome is a much needed reset. It’s a reminder, perhaps for some, a re-introduction to what Cyberpunk is capable of. That Cyberpunk is something more than a title to a flashy videogame, paying cosmetic lip service to the stories, maker culture and visual media that predate it.
Traditionally, cultural trends, fashion, food etc, are said to arise from the coasts and gradually spreading inwards. Call it a 5 year cultural time dilation. Even in these later days of digital connectivity, where slang evolves faster, and trends music and fashion seem to speed by. Even now, the prevailing idea is that the rural Stretches of the Midwest will remain so. Michael’s Midwest Chrome shatters that illusion, like a pair of 5 dollar wireless headphones, smashed on the broken cement, outside a derelict K Mart.
Endless False Dawn, Perpetual Neon Twilight, this the reality that Michael writes about. The Nebraska of Midwest Chrome was a long ago over taken by the Urban Sprawl. the scabrous blooms of metal, plastic cement, metastasized and rooted deep, into a slowly disintegrating landscape. Choked with poisonous clouds and rolling dust storms from distant crumbling mountains. Even in such a place as this, people struggle to piece together lives, seek answers, and navigate a landscape of perpetually shifting moral ambiguity.
Every one of the stories Michael has written shows his deep love of Hard Boiled Detective fiction, just as much as it draws from works like Altered Carbon, Neuromancer, Ghost In The Shell and Stand on Zanzibar. People are still people, be they flesh and blood, cybernetics and metal, or something strangely in between. People are ugly, make mistakes and have a knack for getting into messy situations. This is a truth,a thread that binds the elements of Midwest Chrome together. Like a repurposed PIs briefcase, gutted and filled with rebuilt computer hardware, braided wires and digital read-outs. Jack-in with Midwest Chrome, let Michael Bettendorf show you places beyond the borders of Neo-Tokyo, mega-city one or the famous techno sprawls. See what plays out in distant future Nebraska amid the sagging ruins of the old world and the ever-lit endless topography of the new. At the end, I’m still left with one question….in the time of Midwest Chrome, does Nebraska still go all in for college sports, how many firmware updates has Cyborg Tom Osborne been through?
pre-order here: https://tinyurl.com/midwestchrome
We exist in a strange moment in time. Those with access to resources and wealth, have decided that they can pick and choose from that pool of Cyberpunk ephemera, giving you headsets, but only for playing their games, “peripherals” up the wazoo, all tied together, but easily breakable, and typically requiring a subscription. Their Data Centers, to surveil everyone and power toxic large language models, being forced onto the landscape. Wiping out communities, reducing ecosystems to stretches of poisoned, blighted wastelands. An accelerationist move towards techno dystopia, with late stage capitalism spiraling towards a bleakness only capable with the supremacy of the profit motive.
Michael Bettendorf does not ignore this present moment we are in, instead he uses it to encourage new growth, in the speculative fiction seed bed, as saturated with microplastics and forever chemicals as it may be. Midwest Chrome is a much needed reset. It’s a reminder, perhaps for some, a re-introduction to what Cyberpunk is capable of. That Cyberpunk is something more than a title to a flashy videogame, paying cosmetic lip service to the stories, maker culture and visual media that predate it.
Traditionally, cultural trends, fashion, food etc, are said to arise from the coasts and gradually spreading inwards. Call it a 5 year cultural time dilation. Even in these later days of digital connectivity, where slang evolves faster, and trends music and fashion seem to speed by. Even now, the prevailing idea is that the rural Stretches of the Midwest will remain so. Michael’s Midwest Chrome shatters that illusion, like a pair of 5 dollar wireless headphones, smashed on the broken cement, outside a derelict K Mart.
Endless False Dawn, Perpetual Neon Twilight, this the reality that Michael writes about. The Nebraska of Midwest Chrome was a long ago over taken by the Urban Sprawl. the scabrous blooms of metal, plastic cement, metastasized and rooted deep, into a slowly disintegrating landscape. Choked with poisonous clouds and rolling dust storms from distant crumbling mountains. Even in such a place as this, people struggle to piece together lives, seek answers, and navigate a landscape of perpetually shifting moral ambiguity.
Every one of the stories Michael has written shows his deep love of Hard Boiled Detective fiction, just as much as it draws from works like Altered Carbon, Neuromancer, Ghost In The Shell and Stand on Zanzibar. People are still people, be they flesh and blood, cybernetics and metal, or something strangely in between. People are ugly, make mistakes and have a knack for getting into messy situations. This is a truth,a thread that binds the elements of Midwest Chrome together. Like a repurposed PIs briefcase, gutted and filled with rebuilt computer hardware, braided wires and digital read-outs. Jack-in with Midwest Chrome, let Michael Bettendorf show you places beyond the borders of Neo-Tokyo, mega-city one or the famous techno sprawls. See what plays out in distant future Nebraska amid the sagging ruins of the old world and the ever-lit endless topography of the new. At the end, I’m still left with one question….in the time of Midwest Chrome, does Nebraska still go all in for college sports, how many firmware updates has Cyborg Tom Osborne been through?
pre-order here: https://tinyurl.com/midwestchrome
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
The book is a collection of cyber-noir short stories. Most of the stories are set in a futuristic Nebraska, where people are decked out in biotech modifications that range from pleasurable highs to various skills and “upgrades” that mostly focus on brutality and survival in a world controlled by corporations and run by black market tech dealers and crime bosses.
While the stories have some overlapping characters, the common thread is the city, which is a character itself. From the Midnight Bazaar to the vending machines that will dole out anything from your next meal to a 3D printed gun, the little grimy details create a world that, though brutal, feels lived in.
I spread the book out over a few weeks, reading a story every other night, and every time I curled up with it, I felt like I was stepping into a cozy cafe, the rain pouring down. I can’t explain how such dark stories felt cozy in a way that doesn’t make me sound insane, but it probably has something to do with the familiarity of the tales. It hits all the notes of the cyberpunk genre – the tech addiction, the bio-tech, the large corps controlling every aspect of your life, but it’s written in a way that feels fresh. Bettendorf doesn’t just use mental health issues, addiction, and the driving personal desire for a better life as a fond, but actually allows his characters to explore these issues. But even though the stories address these topics, they never seem to dwell cerebral on them – they are the lived physicality of mental health in a world that breeds addiction. The stories bleed emotion without ever being sappy or heavy-handed.
For me, the gritty male-detective POV common to cyberpunk naturally leads to misogynistic writing. Which is why I was delighted by the lead novella in Midwestern Chrome featuring the head of woman. Can’t describe the naked flesh of a woman if she’s all head, can you? The story put me at ease, opening my mind for the possibilities in this book.
It’s been about two weeks since I finished this collection, and I still find myself thinking about it daily, wondering exactly what made it so good. Honestly, I can’t put it into words beyond reading it felt like an experience.
While the stories have some overlapping characters, the common thread is the city, which is a character itself. From the Midnight Bazaar to the vending machines that will dole out anything from your next meal to a 3D printed gun, the little grimy details create a world that, though brutal, feels lived in.
I spread the book out over a few weeks, reading a story every other night, and every time I curled up with it, I felt like I was stepping into a cozy cafe, the rain pouring down. I can’t explain how such dark stories felt cozy in a way that doesn’t make me sound insane, but it probably has something to do with the familiarity of the tales. It hits all the notes of the cyberpunk genre – the tech addiction, the bio-tech, the large corps controlling every aspect of your life, but it’s written in a way that feels fresh. Bettendorf doesn’t just use mental health issues, addiction, and the driving personal desire for a better life as a fond, but actually allows his characters to explore these issues. But even though the stories address these topics, they never seem to dwell cerebral on them – they are the lived physicality of mental health in a world that breeds addiction. The stories bleed emotion without ever being sappy or heavy-handed.
For me, the gritty male-detective POV common to cyberpunk naturally leads to misogynistic writing. Which is why I was delighted by the lead novella in Midwestern Chrome featuring the head of woman. Can’t describe the naked flesh of a woman if she’s all head, can you? The story put me at ease, opening my mind for the possibilities in this book.
It’s been about two weeks since I finished this collection, and I still find myself thinking about it daily, wondering exactly what made it so good. Honestly, I can’t put it into words beyond reading it felt like an experience.
August 20, 2026
This book threw me back to the time I first picked up a '2000AD' comic. Steel spires, blistering neon streets and folk just trying to get by through whatever technological trickery they can.
An anthology of short stories and one truly excellent novella, Michael Bettendorf has brought together a futuristic world that still holds on to what it means to be human - the essence of cyberpunk. Every piece is unique but with a throughline of soon-familiar businesses, brands and those constantly chirping vending machines, but with very different scenarios to be fought through. The novella in particular stayed with me, as I turned the pages late into the night to see just why the protagonist had been led to what is apparently his late wife's head... this is detective noir with silver fittings, and I loved it. Also it would make an amazing comic-book.
I actually wish some of the shorter tales were fleshed out a little more, and it'd be great to see a full-length novel set in this world. The author has proved he can absolutely hold a strong plot with a relatable (if downtrodden) hero, and I'm keen to see him flex his cybernetic wings.
Another new author (to me) that I'll be looking up for more!
Thankyou to Tenebrous Press for the advance copy.
An anthology of short stories and one truly excellent novella, Michael Bettendorf has brought together a futuristic world that still holds on to what it means to be human - the essence of cyberpunk. Every piece is unique but with a throughline of soon-familiar businesses, brands and those constantly chirping vending machines, but with very different scenarios to be fought through. The novella in particular stayed with me, as I turned the pages late into the night to see just why the protagonist had been led to what is apparently his late wife's head... this is detective noir with silver fittings, and I loved it. Also it would make an amazing comic-book.
I actually wish some of the shorter tales were fleshed out a little more, and it'd be great to see a full-length novel set in this world. The author has proved he can absolutely hold a strong plot with a relatable (if downtrodden) hero, and I'm keen to see him flex his cybernetic wings.
Another new author (to me) that I'll be looking up for more!
Thankyou to Tenebrous Press for the advance copy.
Review of advance copy received from Author
In a city where freedom is an illusion, and everything is a commodity, all shouted in bright neon, can solace be found? Midwestern Chrome is a visceral trip through a near-future city where towering high rises control everything and everyone beneath them. Michael Bettendorf's antiheroes fight to prove they're human in a world that's trying to forget that they are. Whether the endgame is to maintain their individuality, help people in need, or get glorious revenge, Bettendorf's flawed, relatable characters are here for the battle, and they're gonna scrap. He lays this all out with brilliant, hard-hitting action, deft scheming, and a genuine grittiness that leaps off the page. This collection lays bare a gritty underbelly alive with body tech, Blade-Runner-esque midnight bazaars, drug and tech addiction, and loathsome bosses. Ultimately, a future that feels startlingly relatable and real. Amid the dark subject matter, these stories carry an underlying message of hope: As long as we keep helping each other, they haven't quite won.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
A lot of people might compare this collection to Blade Runner, but they'd be overlooking the sleazy, grimy nature of late 80s/90s cyberpunk movies, to which Midwestern Chrome felt more akin to. If you've seen and enjoyed such gems as Split Second, Nemesis, Johnny Mnemonic, or Class of 1999 you'll know what I'm talking about. These are movies where the world has quite obviously gone to hell, and is in a rush to get beyond it to what's underneath, which likely isn't much better... such is Midwestern Chrome.
Bettendorf strips out the misogynistic undertones of yesterday's neo-noir writing, slaps it in the face a few times to wake it out of its technology-induced stupor, infuses it with modern-day enlightenment, and then slams it back on the page like a chest-hypo of Narcan. The end result? Some of the finest cyberpunk horror one can possibly read.
Getchu a copy of this, and maybe a trenchcoat, some glowing teeth, some brass knuckles, and have yourself a good time.
Bettendorf strips out the misogynistic undertones of yesterday's neo-noir writing, slaps it in the face a few times to wake it out of its technology-induced stupor, infuses it with modern-day enlightenment, and then slams it back on the page like a chest-hypo of Narcan. The end result? Some of the finest cyberpunk horror one can possibly read.
Getchu a copy of this, and maybe a trenchcoat, some glowing teeth, some brass knuckles, and have yourself a good time.
Review of advance copy received from Author
As a fan of noir and detective stories, I had so much fun reading Midwestern Chrome! It's like Raymond Chandler and Philip K. Dick put their heads together. I was fascinated and troubled by these interconnected visions of a tech-addled near-future Nebraska. Lots of inventive ideas about our uncertain future here, and a great mashup of genres!
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August 24, 2026Gritty, cyberpunk in a dystopian city told through stories within the same bleak universe.
I enjoyed it, although I felt the collection could've been shorter since some of the stories sounded like one another.
I enjoyed it, although I felt the collection could've been shorter since some of the stories sounded like one another.
July 31, 2026
Five stars for those delicious PKD vibes.
I never knew I needed midwest cyberpunk in my life this badly.
I never knew I needed midwest cyberpunk in my life this badly.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
This collection of neon-drenched, interconnected, cyber-noir stories left me wanting more.
Bladerunner meets Cyberpunk 2077, we follow along as the characters navigate a tech-dystopia full of androids and black market neural enhancements. Bettendorf does a stellar job of pulling the reader in and leaving you abandoned with questionable characters and a host of emotions.
Funny, sad, romantic, heart-wrenching, Midwestern Chrome is not one to skip.
Many thanks to Tenebrous Press for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.
Bladerunner meets Cyberpunk 2077, we follow along as the characters navigate a tech-dystopia full of androids and black market neural enhancements. Bettendorf does a stellar job of pulling the reader in and leaving you abandoned with questionable characters and a host of emotions.
Funny, sad, romantic, heart-wrenching, Midwestern Chrome is not one to skip.
Many thanks to Tenebrous Press for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.
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