Silicon Burning

by Thomas McCaughley

London has been upgraded. So have its nightmares.

The year is 2045. Almost 30 years have passed since a devastating nuclear terrorist attack on London.

Mother Mind - an advanced artificial intelligence created by the Virtualife Corporation - now monitors British Citizens 24/7. The boundaries between machines and humans have blurred. The gap between rich and poor has widened. The human race is diminishing and cybernetically-enhanced Transhumans are growing rapidly.

The flames of rebellion are rising though; spurred on by an enigmatic hacker group known as Spiritform. But, after successfully infiltrating Virtualife’s network, one of Spiritform’s members falls victim to Jack-21; a prolific serial killer that has been terrorising the Transhuman population of London.

Now, Virtualife hires Arthur Wells – a cyborg private investigator and former cyberwarfare specialist – to retrieve the data stolen by Spiritform, before the secrets within are decrypted and revealed to the world. But little does he realise that he’s falling into a deep corporate conspiracy and a whole new interpretation of a cat and mouse game.

Pick this up at your peril- you will not be able to put it down once you start reading.

Get Your Copy of Silicon Burning Right Now.

Genres: Cyberpunk

590 pages, Paperback

Published December 15, 2017

Reviews

[Ailyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received the book for a fair review, all my opinions are my own. First up, the background of the story is eerily realistic. Sort of paying homage to George Orwell's 1984, I admire the sheer effort of the world building in Silicon Burning. Then of course, comes the characters, and the premise of the story. What makes it to believable, is that we are living it now, and any time we might be living in a world like the book.
Of course, being the first book of the series, the debut author Thomas probably needs to tighten up the story, and kill a few more people to allow readers to have a breather. Otherwise, impressive first instalment.
here's to a better 2nd book.

[R.C. Mulhare · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not your parents' cyberpunk novel.

I'm a long time fan of cyberpunk literature and film (my user name almost everywhere on the Internet is "MatrixRefugee", cribbed from the Wachowski's Matrix franchise), so I jumped at the chance to read and review this book. I admit, in recent years, I'd moved on from cyberpunk, since I'd noted an emotional disconnect in a lot of the lit produced by Western authors. But this one rise to challenge that problem, creating something that is philosophically compelling, thoroughly entertaining, and emotionally satisfying. We get to know the characters as people, affected not just economically and socially but on a personal, existential and teleological way.

There are places where the writing can feel a bit derivative (One character at first glance seemed like a thinly-disguised version of Major Motoko Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, and a pair of AI kids made me think of Haley Joel Osment's character in Kubrick/Spielberg's A.I.: Artificial Intelligence), but the writing is so heartfelt, the settings and landscape are so immersive and intricate, and the character relationships are so engaging, that the tale rises above this.

The world portrayed in this novel is so engaging and real, like a forecast of how our own world could develop into a credible cyberpunk world, how the technologically advanced world you expect from an old school cyberpunk novel could emerge from our increasingly wired and connected society. It managed to bring old school cyberpunk (ie, characters rebelling against the man) and post-cyberpunk (characters who work for the man on their own terms or are the man) into an interesting, engaging mix. It's not a world that I can say with certainty that I'd like to live in, but I enjoy visiting through this novel. As cliche as it sounds, I can't wait to read the volumes to follow in the projected trilogy, and I want to spend more time following these characters (a visionary software engineer turned billionaire with a strong conscience, a noirish detective with cybernetic enhancements, a no-nonsense Brit cop with a troubled girlfriend [One of the most accurate portrayals of a character with depression and refreshingly free of the kind of romanticism that some people try and apply to mental illness]) and follow them through all the twists and turns that their strange world leads them through, and find out where the corporate intrigue leads to

[Brittany · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was impressed with the technology in the book. All the characters seemed to have some enhancements to make their bodies robotic. Contact lens implants ... and that was the least modified person. One of the characters was a cyborg! How often is one of the leading characters a kick-ass female cyborg? There were also AI's, avatars, and armor suits. One of the characters was a replica of a dead young woman. It was definitely a glance into what could be.

What made the book so compelling for me was the topic. At this point, we are going through a time when everyone is being hacked, their identity stolen, and the government is watching everyone. This plot is not far-fetched at all.

The book doesn't just focus on one or two characters. We meet a handful of them. In my opinion, there are pros and cons to this approach. At times there is too much going on and it is hard to focus on just one. On the other hand, it is way cool to have so many different perspectives.

The author could have spent a little more time on editing. This doesn't necessarily take anything away from the material. The presentation would just be better.

Overall I would definitely continue the series. I can't wait to see what happens next.

[Nora Michel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is set about 30 years in the future, in a time when the government watches everything that it's citizens do in order to "protect" them. The police are after a serial killer that is going after people that have technological implants. The book follows a few important characters as they try to catch the killer and secure classified data that a large corporation does not want to fall into the hands of the public. This book is the first in a series, although I'm not sure how many total will be included in the series.

I really enjoyed this book. The detail that the author put into describing the science and technology used within the book makes everything seem plausible and realistic. It is clearly evident that the author put a lot of time and effort into researching these details. The book was mostly well written and it was easy to understand what was going on. The characters all had quite a bit of depth to them, even the AIs.

At first, I was a bit put off by the cover of the book because it made it seem more like a sci-fi comic book, but almost as soon as I started reading, that notion disappeared. There were a few typos and editing mistakes throughout the book, especially at the end, but nothing that I couldn't look past. Some of the technological and scientific descriptions seemed to get a bit lengthy and, at times, hard to follow.

Overall, I thought this book was a great sci-fi book. It was detailed, engaging, and kept me guessing. I will definitely be reading the second book, since the first one left a few questions unanswered. I would highly recommend this book to anyone that likes to imagine what our future might be like.