Entropy Angels: A Cyberpunk Thriller

by Mark Harritt

It should have been an easy job, money for information, but the fixer’s room temp and Gregor Skotta's on the run with a battle synth and bounty hunters on his trail, corpses piling up behind him. He’s being hunted through New Eden, down level through the Grind, operating on the edge, caught between loan sharks, the Guild, and a Multinational that wants him dead. "… As a setting, New Eden is fascinating. Skotta uses sci-fi tools, like enhanced combat reflexes and advanced combat armor, alongside modern-day technology like cell phones, wifi, and pistols. These elements exist in an odd sort of balance, creating an anachronistic setting that's really quite unique… All told, it's a rich backdrop that produces unique plot points and conflicts… I had a great deal of fun reading Entropy Angels. An extremely unique and detailed setting and well-executed action scenes make this book a great choice for readers who love action-packed science fiction." ViziVoir, OnlineBookClub.org “… This novel brings the kewl slang, outrageous violence, kinky sex, wild body modifications, and smug hacker smarts to a far-future environment … fun and fast enough to keep fans’ mental joysticks busy.” -Kirkus Reviews

Genres: Cyberpunk, Science Fiction

298 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 15, 2019

About the author

Don't tell me the moon is shining, show me the glint of light on broken glass. - Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

Reviews

[Dylan McNamee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Crime-noir on a space station. It took two tries to read this - the first time I feared it was going to be too much of a caricature of the genre, so stopped. Decided to try again, and glad I did! Sure it's full of tropes, but it's also got some novel (to me) observations, and the characters and world feel pretty solid. Ultimately, it was a fun page-turner and an enjoyable ride.

[Greg Jensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Impressive!

This was my first read for this author and I was impressed by the twisting plot and well developed characters. If you enjoy the cyberpunk genre then you’re in for a treat, I’ll be on the lookout for future novels by this Mark Harritt!

[Peter Inserra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal book, I love it! When I publish a cyberpunk novel I want it to be compared to Entropy Angels.

[James]

Purchased as a casual beach-read, not expecting much, but Surprisingly Good!

[Steven Mastroyin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Somewhere between a 3 and a 4. Pretty good story, but I feel like a lot of cyberpunk authors go out of their way to give so much information. I don't know if this is some way of making up for what they see as failings in William Gibson's way of explaining almost nothing. It's weird. At times this book felt a bit Dickensian in that you could almost feel it was published originally as a serial, reminders of information we already know about characters written into the narrative to remind us of things we read them do just pages ago. Most of this style is "explained" through the first person narrative acting almost like stream of consciousness, which if you are into a combination of that style with a future noir aesthetic, you will love this. And for me this made it a real page turner! Because I had to read 4 pages to get to the next plot point, yet I remained eager for the plot point, so a success there.

I prefer these things very much lighter on detail, but I still recognize the appeal of this story and characters, and I enjoyed the book.

[Gary L · Rating 4 out of 5]

A kinder gentler cyberpunk

At first this one seemed like old school cyberpunk. The protagonist is a heavily modded “BulliBoi” protector/enforcer who, unlike his peers, was martial arts trained by a Yakuza family who adopted him as an orphan. Oh, and he has a “Ghost in the Machine” girlfriend who lives in the Matrix of cyberspace and acts as his protector.

He lives on a habitat that originally served as a way station for asteroid mining shipments and staff going back and forth between earth and the Oort Belt, but has over several hundred years developed into its own society. The 26km tall facility of stacked levels serves unimaginable pleasure and luxury to Sin City tourists on the high levels, but the wage slaves live on lower levels, and the closer to the Core you get, the more society crumbles into depraved anarchy.

Where the book diverges from early cyberpunk is that our heavily modded super-hacker killing machine has a heart of gold and would do anything to save his adopted family and his neighbors from destruction. Even if that means partnering with the all-powerful Guild to stop some rogue terrorists who want to destroy the whole Habitat.

Fast-paced and with plenty of original takes on an over-chewed theme, but the Pollyanna killing machine makes it seem like the author has a problem with the anarchist heart of early cyberpunk. The genre is not intended to have heroes as sweet as this.

[Aram · Rating 3 out of 5]

An imaginative well-plotted book that leans a little too much on cyberpunk genre tropes but also somehow misses the essential politics and philosophy that are at the heart of the genre. It's a fun sci-fi book when taken on that angle instead of as a cyberpunk work, and has some cool ideas. As a read it gets especially fast moving towards the end, and in comparison it looks like the first half could have used one more edit. The result is that it feels a little short on spirit.

[Greg O'Byrne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really fun book. Hits all the notes i was looking for in a cyberpunk thriller. Had a lot of the same vibe as "Liege Killer" which is high praise because that book is awesome.

Good plot, good characters (even if you were expecting them). fun ride.

read it.