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Touching the Void
In the Norcom Union, there are predators and prey. There is no middle ground. There is no compromise.
Xiao Mei is a normal high school girl: Naive, ambitious, and hyper-patriotic. For years, she's dreamt of bringing glory to her family by becoming the first to ascend to Full Citizenship. After all, isn’t that what all residents of NorCap want? Thing is, ya can’t become a Citizen without assimilating into the Aether Network. Can’t assimilate without the tech. When that wetware clinic opened up near Xiao Mei's school, the choice to go under the knife was really no choice at all. Now she's joined the ranks of the augmented. The future is bright, and the opportunities limitless. If she had known the hidden cost of admission into this strange new world, she might have chosen differently.
Zhang Jun is a tech cultist from deep in The Exclusion Zone. His devotion to the brutal faith that drives his every action takes him and his crew through the walls of NorCap. His mission? To hunt down and convert NorCap's emerging class of augmented Citizens for the glory of his deity and assimilation into its hallowed network. Now, he has a new target.
For Xiao Mei, it's assimilate or die. The only question is: Which side will she assimilate into?
Xiao Mei is a normal high school girl: Naive, ambitious, and hyper-patriotic. For years, she's dreamt of bringing glory to her family by becoming the first to ascend to Full Citizenship. After all, isn’t that what all residents of NorCap want? Thing is, ya can’t become a Citizen without assimilating into the Aether Network. Can’t assimilate without the tech. When that wetware clinic opened up near Xiao Mei's school, the choice to go under the knife was really no choice at all. Now she's joined the ranks of the augmented. The future is bright, and the opportunities limitless. If she had known the hidden cost of admission into this strange new world, she might have chosen differently.
Zhang Jun is a tech cultist from deep in The Exclusion Zone. His devotion to the brutal faith that drives his every action takes him and his crew through the walls of NorCap. His mission? To hunt down and convert NorCap's emerging class of augmented Citizens for the glory of his deity and assimilation into its hallowed network. Now, he has a new target.
For Xiao Mei, it's assimilate or die. The only question is: Which side will she assimilate into?
58 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 27, 2020
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About the author
Nicholas Kay
1 book3 followersNicholas Kay was born in 1986 and lives in Duluth, Georgia with his wife and daughter. His writing is heavily influenced by one question: What would be the logical extreme a society like this would go to after the apocalypse?
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 15, 2020
Well, my parting thought on this story is that it's over too soon - before it has a chance to begin, really - which speaks well to the author's ability to engage his readers. I was drawn - or maybe pushed - into this futuristic nightmare of a world, and was charmed by young Xiao Mei's teenage machinations as she purchased the latest techno gadget and wondered how she would tell her parents about this life-altering decision. This, the drive to get the latest and greatest devices on the market, seems to be timeless and it's the most believable part of the story.
The author uses over-the-top imagery, so much so that some metaphors are actually funny, and I struggled to follow the activities of the bad guys at times - what exactly was their scam? Where did they come from? The timeline is also confusing. In the end though, this was a very readable tease of a story. At eighty pages, it's so short that I thought I had missed something. If I were a betting peson, I would say this is an initial attempt, and that we might soon see a full-length dystopian novel based on the characters and storylines found in Touching the Void.
I'd be one of the first to read it.
I received an Advance Readers Copy of this book from Reedsy Discovery in exchange for my honest review.
The author uses over-the-top imagery, so much so that some metaphors are actually funny, and I struggled to follow the activities of the bad guys at times - what exactly was their scam? Where did they come from? The timeline is also confusing. In the end though, this was a very readable tease of a story. At eighty pages, it's so short that I thought I had missed something. If I were a betting peson, I would say this is an initial attempt, and that we might soon see a full-length dystopian novel based on the characters and storylines found in Touching the Void.
I'd be one of the first to read it.
I received an Advance Readers Copy of this book from Reedsy Discovery in exchange for my honest review.
January 13, 2021
It's a really good idea, but it's a little confuse. The book should have more pages (at least 100 more) to develop better characters and the plot.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews