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Ego Trip
Paul Anderson Fou lives the un-glamorous life of a fast food worker. He's made underachieving a profession, spending days of his life wasting away in Rackham Social VR. That's all about to change.
He's been given the opportunity of a lifetime by a woman with spiked neon hair and glowing, multicolored eyes who calls herself Dynamo.
After obtaining a full immersion VR implant worth more than the cost of his student debt, she thrusts him into Battle for Drogon, a virtual augmented reality game that manipulates what the player sees through their VR Implant.
Dynamo tells him that, with her help, he can earn a fortune through the game and fix his loser life. Paul is all too eager to jump in; but, is this game more than Dynamo is letting on?
In a city owned by a corporation state, where violating terms of service could give Paul a one way ticket to the Mind Wrecker, is trusting her worth the risk?
If you're a fan of Altered Carbon, Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell, or William Gibson, you'll love this series.
He's been given the opportunity of a lifetime by a woman with spiked neon hair and glowing, multicolored eyes who calls herself Dynamo.
After obtaining a full immersion VR implant worth more than the cost of his student debt, she thrusts him into Battle for Drogon, a virtual augmented reality game that manipulates what the player sees through their VR Implant.
Dynamo tells him that, with her help, he can earn a fortune through the game and fix his loser life. Paul is all too eager to jump in; but, is this game more than Dynamo is letting on?
In a city owned by a corporation state, where violating terms of service could give Paul a one way ticket to the Mind Wrecker, is trusting her worth the risk?
If you're a fan of Altered Carbon, Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell, or William Gibson, you'll love this series.
ebook
Published June 1, 2020
11 people are currently reading
63 people want to read
About the author
Eric Malikyte
17 books30 followersEric Malikyte is a neurodivergent author, illustrator, science communicator, and video editor. He has published works in various genres, including Lovecraftian horror, dark fantasy, and cyberpunk. He has written for YouTube channels such as TopTenz, Geographics, and Biographics. He lives in Richmond, Virginia, with his wife and two cats, where he spends his spare time exploring used bookstores, Irish Pubs, and terrorizing the neighborhood children on Halloween.
Get a free copy of Eric's cosmic horror story, The Stranger: https://BookHip.com/RRLVWXV
Get a free copy of Eric's cosmic horror story, The Stranger: https://BookHip.com/RRLVWXV
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
March 7, 2023
There's a current issue with cyberpunk that is difficult to solve, specifically that not much cyberpunk is actually punk. It's an issue that has been occurring for awhile now but the anti-authoritarian, edgy, brutal, and meaningful writing of the setting has been replaced with an aesthetic. People know the neon vistas of endless skyscrapers, the chrome body parts, and the ultraviolence but they don't really have anything to say.
Yes, megacorps bad but what is a megacorp? Is it something that people even give any thought to as a manifestation of our own reaction to late stage-capitalism. Probably not. The revolution has been bought, packaged, and sold back to us with even Lana Wachowski saying as much in the Matrix Resurrections.
I could continue this rant for some time as the resident Redneck_Cyberpunk that was my user name for a long time. I review indie cyberpunk novels by the truck load in hopes of finding some literary work of merit containing the spark of the old rebel as well as edge.
Altered Carbon was the most famous work in recent memory that, at least in the first book, felt genuinely angry about the situation and you could taste the asphalt regarding. However, much like Cthulhu is slippers, it seemed cyberpunk was now something you could children's books like You Can Be a Cyborg When You're Older (Richard Roberts) or police officers as the primary protagonists without irony (too many examples to list).
Ego Trip is a breath of vile smoke-stained air in the face. Or, to quote Billy Idol's controversial Cyberpunk album opening track, "Like a shock to the system. I feel good, well alright." It is a cyberpunk novel from the indie scene and has actual edge to it. It's nasty, vicious, and minimalist in such a way as to properly convey the utter awfulness of the setting but how dehumanizing it is to the protagonists that have allowed themselves to be eaten by it.
Best of all, it's a product of the modern era and updates the social satire as well as characterization to the modern internet culture without losing any of the bleeding edge futurism. If you feel like I'm overhyping the book, maybe, it has some flaws and won't be for everyone but it's what I wanted and feels like it was written by a legitimate punk mentality.
The premise is simple, Paul Anderson Fou is a burger flipper in the dystopian future where Neo Rackham has effectively bought law enforcement as well as the prison system. Prison labor is what the economy depends on and you're lobotomized, cyberized, and put to work for whatever fractions make you a drain on society or Neo Rackham's needs. When he's offered a chance by a beautiful girl to become a professional gamer for big bucks, he isn't smart enough to see there's some sort of scam afoot and gets caught up in a mystery that I would be criminal to point out.
Meanwhile, police are looking into the assassination of multiple corporate drones as well as homeless people in what is seemingly senseless violence for its own sake. The cops know they work for the corporates and just don't care about justice anymore. They're paid to supply grist for the mill.
What makes this book so good is weird because it shouldn't be uncommon but is, is scale. There is no saving the world, no epic overthrow of conspiracies, and no one trying to be a hero. It's a fry cook, a cop who has lost any illusions about doing the right thing, and a young woman out to simply spite someone who deserves it no matter how many bodies it takes. Keeping it to personal crime where there's no good ending to any of this makes it actually meaningful because a happy ending is impossible--just a minimum of awful for maybe one of the three protagonists.
*chef's kiss*
Yes, megacorps bad but what is a megacorp? Is it something that people even give any thought to as a manifestation of our own reaction to late stage-capitalism. Probably not. The revolution has been bought, packaged, and sold back to us with even Lana Wachowski saying as much in the Matrix Resurrections.
I could continue this rant for some time as the resident Redneck_Cyberpunk that was my user name for a long time. I review indie cyberpunk novels by the truck load in hopes of finding some literary work of merit containing the spark of the old rebel as well as edge.
Altered Carbon was the most famous work in recent memory that, at least in the first book, felt genuinely angry about the situation and you could taste the asphalt regarding. However, much like Cthulhu is slippers, it seemed cyberpunk was now something you could children's books like You Can Be a Cyborg When You're Older (Richard Roberts) or police officers as the primary protagonists without irony (too many examples to list).
Ego Trip is a breath of vile smoke-stained air in the face. Or, to quote Billy Idol's controversial Cyberpunk album opening track, "Like a shock to the system. I feel good, well alright." It is a cyberpunk novel from the indie scene and has actual edge to it. It's nasty, vicious, and minimalist in such a way as to properly convey the utter awfulness of the setting but how dehumanizing it is to the protagonists that have allowed themselves to be eaten by it.
Best of all, it's a product of the modern era and updates the social satire as well as characterization to the modern internet culture without losing any of the bleeding edge futurism. If you feel like I'm overhyping the book, maybe, it has some flaws and won't be for everyone but it's what I wanted and feels like it was written by a legitimate punk mentality.
The premise is simple, Paul Anderson Fou is a burger flipper in the dystopian future where Neo Rackham has effectively bought law enforcement as well as the prison system. Prison labor is what the economy depends on and you're lobotomized, cyberized, and put to work for whatever fractions make you a drain on society or Neo Rackham's needs. When he's offered a chance by a beautiful girl to become a professional gamer for big bucks, he isn't smart enough to see there's some sort of scam afoot and gets caught up in a mystery that I would be criminal to point out.
Meanwhile, police are looking into the assassination of multiple corporate drones as well as homeless people in what is seemingly senseless violence for its own sake. The cops know they work for the corporates and just don't care about justice anymore. They're paid to supply grist for the mill.
What makes this book so good is weird because it shouldn't be uncommon but is, is scale. There is no saving the world, no epic overthrow of conspiracies, and no one trying to be a hero. It's a fry cook, a cop who has lost any illusions about doing the right thing, and a young woman out to simply spite someone who deserves it no matter how many bodies it takes. Keeping it to personal crime where there's no good ending to any of this makes it actually meaningful because a happy ending is impossible--just a minimum of awful for maybe one of the three protagonists.
*chef's kiss*
January 29, 2023
I'm a sucker for good cyberpunk stories and well-written prose. Both are rare. Ego Trip delivers them.
Eric Malikyte writes crisp, precise prose that is very enjoyable to read, his characters are well-crafted and his dialogues realistic.
The book is written from a dual perspective. We follow Paul, a young man who gets mixed up in things way too big for him and Detective Shen, a badass cop with a cybernetic eye.
Shen is assigned to a particularly gruesome and mysterious murder case and it soon turns out that everything leads to Paul.
I preferred Detective Shen's perspective a lot. He's not only a hardboiled cop with some very unconventional methods up his sleeve but also secretly an idealist, who wishes he could help make the world a slightly better place.
Since the world in Ego Trip is everything but pleasant.
After horrible wars, the world is ruled by several mega corporations that basically treat their citizens as slaves. If you do your job and keep your mouth shut, you may live a comfortable life. If you make a mistake you'll get blacklisted and will never find another job and end up homeless. And if you commit a crime, you'll get lobotomized.
The author paints a very bleak and brutal world, but it's also as cyberpunk as anything could be.
This was a very enjoyable read and I'm looking forward to the next installment!
I recommend this book to fans of cyberpunk detective stories.
Eric Malikyte writes crisp, precise prose that is very enjoyable to read, his characters are well-crafted and his dialogues realistic.
The book is written from a dual perspective. We follow Paul, a young man who gets mixed up in things way too big for him and Detective Shen, a badass cop with a cybernetic eye.
Shen is assigned to a particularly gruesome and mysterious murder case and it soon turns out that everything leads to Paul.
I preferred Detective Shen's perspective a lot. He's not only a hardboiled cop with some very unconventional methods up his sleeve but also secretly an idealist, who wishes he could help make the world a slightly better place.
Since the world in Ego Trip is everything but pleasant.
After horrible wars, the world is ruled by several mega corporations that basically treat their citizens as slaves. If you do your job and keep your mouth shut, you may live a comfortable life. If you make a mistake you'll get blacklisted and will never find another job and end up homeless. And if you commit a crime, you'll get lobotomized.
The author paints a very bleak and brutal world, but it's also as cyberpunk as anything could be.
This was a very enjoyable read and I'm looking forward to the next installment!
I recommend this book to fans of cyberpunk detective stories.
July 5, 2020
If you are looking for a well-paced cyberpunk thriller, this is it. The right amount of character development and action is interlaced within and between the two subplots, coming together nicely in the end.
The world-building here is handled quite well. There are no laborious info dumps, but rather the reader is given layers of the world as the plot unfolds. I especially enjoyed how VR gaming is presented. Instead of a novel that is simply some characters playing a VR game, we are shown the effects of the VR game world on the real world and the real lives of the characters, which for me is much more interesting.
I am looking forward to the next in the series.
The world-building here is handled quite well. There are no laborious info dumps, but rather the reader is given layers of the world as the plot unfolds. I especially enjoyed how VR gaming is presented. Instead of a novel that is simply some characters playing a VR game, we are shown the effects of the VR game world on the real world and the real lives of the characters, which for me is much more interesting.
I am looking forward to the next in the series.
July 15, 2020
Ego Trip is the latest book by Eric Malikyte, an established science fiction author with an interest in both cyberpunk and the paranormal. The book opens by throwing the reader into an investigation where a cybernetically enhanced body is discovered by Shen and a team of investigators. The book then switches to the point of view of a young man, Paul, and alternates between viewpoints.
Paul is a fast food worker who is seduced into playing a popular VR game to earn EXP (an alternate currency) by a domineering woman, Dynamo. What begins as a simple game sends Paul on the ride of his life as he’s drug unknowingly into a rebellious underworld.
The book takes place after World War III when corporations developed sovereignty, ruling based on profit instead of ethics. It’s a world of flying cars and environmental destruction, a world where gender can be swapped out as easily as an oil change. Those who strike out against the corporate system end up being mind wrecked and turned into zombie-like slaves – a source of free labor, or simply discarded. As Paul's virtual activities come to have real world consequences, should he trust more his enemies or his allies?
Paul is a fast food worker who is seduced into playing a popular VR game to earn EXP (an alternate currency) by a domineering woman, Dynamo. What begins as a simple game sends Paul on the ride of his life as he’s drug unknowingly into a rebellious underworld.
The book takes place after World War III when corporations developed sovereignty, ruling based on profit instead of ethics. It’s a world of flying cars and environmental destruction, a world where gender can be swapped out as easily as an oil change. Those who strike out against the corporate system end up being mind wrecked and turned into zombie-like slaves – a source of free labor, or simply discarded. As Paul's virtual activities come to have real world consequences, should he trust more his enemies or his allies?
February 1, 2024
Paul is working at a corporate fast food joint, wondering where he went wrong in life. That is until Dynamo shows up. The rudest customer ever, and yet she has this amazing confidence of flirting with Paul while at the same time angering his jerk of a boss. The Neo Rackham corporation owns this city, and if your social status isn't with them, then you're against them. Which means the difference between living large or barely living. For whatever reason, Dynamo seems to like Paul and tells him he can change his life by playing a game. The Battle of Drogon is the biggest VR game out there, and if you're really good, you can make bank. So Paul accepts Dynamos' proposal, but what will it actually cost him in the end? This is cyberpunk all the way from the attitudes to futuristic tech that would make Philip k. Dick forget all about his dreams of electric sheep. Enjoyed this a lot. Reminded me of the novels of Shadowrun, very action-packed, and as I said before, a whole Lotta attitude! Got this as an ARC from an indie giveaway, but this review is all mine.
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June 10, 2020Hello all you beautiful people, let me ask you a question. What would you do, if someone give you a chance to change your life? Would you grab it? Would you abandonthe safety of your life no matter how pathetic it was? Paul needs to answer this very questions to himself when one day beautiful woman stands in front of him in fast food restaurant he works. It was a tough day and tough life. He made a decision, but was it worth the time? This book shows us a vision of future with megabuildings, flying cars, plasma guns and a city, jobs, even life owned by the corporation. All this is delivered to us with nice package of characters you can love or hate, and story i am gonna remember for long and will return to as soon as i will have a chance
May 4, 2023
The best science fiction is always about people. Sure, technology can abound and the world can be remade to fit the story, but at the end of the day good sci-fi is always about the people involved. And Malikyte is good at creating people. Especially people who have no qualms about exploiting the technology in their neon-drenched wonderlands. And as the crushing blows of that exploitation slowly dawn on you, the general sense of foreboding evolves first into malaise then to shock then to the general notion that maybe hunting Pokémon on your phone was only the beginning of how weird, wonderful, and wicked the future is going to become.
Read the full review on my blog
Read the full review on my blog
July 20, 2020
A brilliant beginning of the Neo Rackham series, I loved it and want more!!!
September 15, 2023
Kept me engaged and guessing. Great introduction into Neo Rackham and can't wait to see where this goes!
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews