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The Disk Mirror Solution
Humanity has expanded into the galaxy. Our success has bred the apex predator we can never outsmart: one of us.
Tech-loving Armintor is just a week away from receiving her first cranial implant. Disaster strikes her homeworld, crushing her dreams and flinging her to a cruel technophobe planet.
Apprentice forger Redcholate works in the galaxy’s intel-hub. After a mysterious client offers her a fortune to find impossible intel, she uncovers more than she ever wanted to know.
They are both thrust into a confrontation they don’t want and aren’t prepared to survive.
Each woman realizes she alone can save humanity. Only one can be correct.
Tech-loving Armintor is just a week away from receiving her first cranial implant. Disaster strikes her homeworld, crushing her dreams and flinging her to a cruel technophobe planet.
Apprentice forger Redcholate works in the galaxy’s intel-hub. After a mysterious client offers her a fortune to find impossible intel, she uncovers more than she ever wanted to know.
They are both thrust into a confrontation they don’t want and aren’t prepared to survive.
Each woman realizes she alone can save humanity. Only one can be correct.
182 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 5, 2021
13 people are currently reading
41 people want to read
About the author
Danielle Ste. Just
15 books28 followersDanielle has been a writer ever since she discovered the excitement of new worlds inside books. She loves the expansive nature of truly great SF/F.
She is an avid reader, and also enjoys traveling, hiking and photography.
You can find out more by visiting her website.
She is an avid reader, and also enjoys traveling, hiking and photography.
You can find out more by visiting her website.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
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October 15, 2024Disclaimer: I read this as a judge for SPSFC#4, as part of Team Ground Control to Major Tom. However, the following is my own personal review and does not reflect on the teams score.
The Disk Mirror Solution seems at first to be a neat little cyberpunk but then I tried to write the synposis without any hint of a spoiler and nearly burst a blood vessel. There is soooo much going on! Okay, hopefully without spoilers, there are two women working separately to find The Butcher, a genocidal maniac who thinks nothing of killing entire planets. Arminator is removed from her home planet as a plague wipes any with a cranial implant. Redcholate is a wannabe forager who takes an extremely well paid job that could have fatal consequences. Can either stop the ultimate predator?
So why was that so hard? OK, there is a lot going on here. A LOT! The Disk Mirror solution is very cyberpunk in the vein of Neuromancer but it isn't really. It's more like a Sherlock Holmes novel, complete with one of the most exisquite twists I've read (even if you do see it coming). But it's not. It's like a lo-fi Clockwork Orange complete with degraded underclasses and a POV written in slang (which unfortunately really irritated me for a while). But then, it is its own thing and maybe comparisons aren't that useful here. Maybe, but there is a lot that can be unravelled from this book. If you can take the highly jargonistic slang, this would be a great book for a book club or discussion group. There is a lot to talk about!
The characters are interesting. Arminator really wants her cranial implant so she can join her friends in the Underworld but a weird natural plague kills all the humans on Terry's New World that has a cranial implant i.e. everyone over 12. The surviving kids are shipped off to Variegor, a planet of technophobes, that divides the population into Alphas and Betas. Arminator, in the midst of her grief, is catogorised as a Beta and subjected to various abuses. Finally, she is picked up be Twomanrie, a detective that bases all her knowledge and skills on Sherlock Holmes (god knows where she picked that up from). Twomanrie offers to tutor Arminator in her ways while patronising her to her face. Arminator is a very sympathetic character - you will want to whisk her away from all the rubbish that life has brought to her door. Twomanrie is a product of her society but there were times when I wished to do her harm. The obsession with Sherlock Holmes is a bit weird, is the context of far future sci-fi, but I guess it kind of fits. Maybe. It is a bit weird.... Redcholate is a much more sassy character who wants to improve her lot. She wants to become a forger and takes on a job where she might have bitten off more than she can chew. Redcholate's story is told mostly in slang, which although it can help the feel of the story, can become pretty irritating very quickly. It was not for me but as least it was only one POV.
The plot is fairly solid. Both POV are after The Butcher, who is one seriously mean piece of work. We slowly find out about some of their exploits and why nobody really wants to go after him. How both Arminator and Redcholate become mixed up in it is a fairly compelling tale. The worldbuilding is OK, although I would have liked a bit more detail about the various worlds. It did feel like it could have all been set on one planet.
There is a lot more than could be discussed about this book but that mother of all twists keeps lurking in the background! It's a very quick read and the pace of the story is good. I would suggest reading it yourself and then you can try to explain it without spoilers :) The sequel is already out so I will be diving in to see what happens after that dramatic reveal and where the author takes it next.
The Disk Mirror Solution seems at first to be a neat little cyberpunk but then I tried to write the synposis without any hint of a spoiler and nearly burst a blood vessel. There is soooo much going on! Okay, hopefully without spoilers, there are two women working separately to find The Butcher, a genocidal maniac who thinks nothing of killing entire planets. Arminator is removed from her home planet as a plague wipes any with a cranial implant. Redcholate is a wannabe forager who takes an extremely well paid job that could have fatal consequences. Can either stop the ultimate predator?
So why was that so hard? OK, there is a lot going on here. A LOT! The Disk Mirror solution is very cyberpunk in the vein of Neuromancer but it isn't really. It's more like a Sherlock Holmes novel, complete with one of the most exisquite twists I've read (even if you do see it coming). But it's not. It's like a lo-fi Clockwork Orange complete with degraded underclasses and a POV written in slang (which unfortunately really irritated me for a while). But then, it is its own thing and maybe comparisons aren't that useful here. Maybe, but there is a lot that can be unravelled from this book. If you can take the highly jargonistic slang, this would be a great book for a book club or discussion group. There is a lot to talk about!
The characters are interesting. Arminator really wants her cranial implant so she can join her friends in the Underworld but a weird natural plague kills all the humans on Terry's New World that has a cranial implant i.e. everyone over 12. The surviving kids are shipped off to Variegor, a planet of technophobes, that divides the population into Alphas and Betas. Arminator, in the midst of her grief, is catogorised as a Beta and subjected to various abuses. Finally, she is picked up be Twomanrie, a detective that bases all her knowledge and skills on Sherlock Holmes (god knows where she picked that up from). Twomanrie offers to tutor Arminator in her ways while patronising her to her face. Arminator is a very sympathetic character - you will want to whisk her away from all the rubbish that life has brought to her door. Twomanrie is a product of her society but there were times when I wished to do her harm. The obsession with Sherlock Holmes is a bit weird, is the context of far future sci-fi, but I guess it kind of fits. Maybe. It is a bit weird.... Redcholate is a much more sassy character who wants to improve her lot. She wants to become a forger and takes on a job where she might have bitten off more than she can chew. Redcholate's story is told mostly in slang, which although it can help the feel of the story, can become pretty irritating very quickly. It was not for me but as least it was only one POV.
The plot is fairly solid. Both POV are after The Butcher, who is one seriously mean piece of work. We slowly find out about some of their exploits and why nobody really wants to go after him. How both Arminator and Redcholate become mixed up in it is a fairly compelling tale. The worldbuilding is OK, although I would have liked a bit more detail about the various worlds. It did feel like it could have all been set on one planet.
There is a lot more than could be discussed about this book but that mother of all twists keeps lurking in the background! It's a very quick read and the pace of the story is good. I would suggest reading it yourself and then you can try to explain it without spoilers :) The sequel is already out so I will be diving in to see what happens after that dramatic reveal and where the author takes it next.
October 13, 2023
Tech loving or tech hating?
This is a story about two young women, Armintor and Redchocolate, searching for the most ruthless, violent and bloodthirsty, genocidal criminal the galaxy has ever known: The Butcher.
Armintor is rescued after everyone on her planet with cranial implants is killed and is brought up in a technophobic community that took in the surviving refugees. She searches under her mentor, a legendary detective who's 'mentor' is the fictional Sherlock Holmes and talks about him as her source material, for The Butcher and solve the greatest crimes. Redchocolate is a technophiliac who has to have anything and everything to do with technology. She had a drive and urge to find The Butcher and be the greatest tech forger ever.
The author builds a really good universe that is able to take the reader far and wide across different societies. Her passion and drive is clear throughout the story. Though the story sums up nicely at the end ready for the next book, there are certain choices made on writing style that made one aspect of the story quite difficult for me to read and enjoy.
This is a story about two young women, Armintor and Redchocolate, searching for the most ruthless, violent and bloodthirsty, genocidal criminal the galaxy has ever known: The Butcher.
Armintor is rescued after everyone on her planet with cranial implants is killed and is brought up in a technophobic community that took in the surviving refugees. She searches under her mentor, a legendary detective who's 'mentor' is the fictional Sherlock Holmes and talks about him as her source material, for The Butcher and solve the greatest crimes. Redchocolate is a technophiliac who has to have anything and everything to do with technology. She had a drive and urge to find The Butcher and be the greatest tech forger ever.
The author builds a really good universe that is able to take the reader far and wide across different societies. Her passion and drive is clear throughout the story. Though the story sums up nicely at the end ready for the next book, there are certain choices made on writing style that made one aspect of the story quite difficult for me to read and enjoy.
October 18, 2023
Marvellously Strange!!!
Wow! This novel is so delightfully quirky, so deliciously odd, so wonderfully twisty, I think I'll always remember it. It is remarkable in that it has shades of many other wee-known tales, and yet it is so strikingly unique.
Woven into this tapestry of wonders are hues of Sherlock Holmes, Brave New World (with the categorisation of humans into Alphas and Betas), Snow Crash (with the avatars and the virtual world) and the Matrix (with a virtual reality more real than the actual.) Also it exists in a universe with interplanetary travel, spaceports and multiplanetary civilisations.
The book portrays two young women. Firstly, Armintor, whose dream is to receive a cranial implant that will allow her to keep up with her classmates, but, at 12, she's one year too young. Then, a plague infects and kills all the people in her civilisation who have the cranial implant. She is sent to another (crueller) society that classifies people into (intelligent) Alphas and (stupid) betas. She is diagnosed as a Beta and violently abused and enslaved by the Alphas for several years (working as a dishwasher). Finally she is taken in by a world-famous detective "Alpha", Twomanrie, who both nurtures and patronises her. The reader is led to really relate to Armintor. Her plight and prolonged abuse are profoundly moving.
Then, there is Redcholate. Whilst Armintor's chapters are crystal clear and hauntingly written, I thought the techno-slang that Redcholate's chapters are part-written in was confusing and unnecessary (which is why I could not give the book five stars.) And I had some difficulty with the techno-jargon (though I did get used to it) and sometimes following what was going on. That said, the feisty Redcholate is indomitable in her quest to catch galactic serial killer "the Butcher". She is sent on this mission by an avatar styling herself "Dr Watson" and must get hold of intelligence from an enigmatic secret agent known as "the Forger". In this universe, meeting in person is deemed rather old-hat, and bodies are relegated to the status of "meatsacks" into which one rarely "unjacks".
I enjoyed this story because it was also thought-provoking, both about the impact (especially since the pandemic) of technology and virtual reality, but also of the ways our own society has very recently classified human beings, and still classifies human beings (e.g. by race or sex), into something not too different from the alphas and betas.
I am very keen to explore further works by this author, as I really think this is a highly intelligent and memorable work.
Wow! This novel is so delightfully quirky, so deliciously odd, so wonderfully twisty, I think I'll always remember it. It is remarkable in that it has shades of many other wee-known tales, and yet it is so strikingly unique.
Woven into this tapestry of wonders are hues of Sherlock Holmes, Brave New World (with the categorisation of humans into Alphas and Betas), Snow Crash (with the avatars and the virtual world) and the Matrix (with a virtual reality more real than the actual.) Also it exists in a universe with interplanetary travel, spaceports and multiplanetary civilisations.
The book portrays two young women. Firstly, Armintor, whose dream is to receive a cranial implant that will allow her to keep up with her classmates, but, at 12, she's one year too young. Then, a plague infects and kills all the people in her civilisation who have the cranial implant. She is sent to another (crueller) society that classifies people into (intelligent) Alphas and (stupid) betas. She is diagnosed as a Beta and violently abused and enslaved by the Alphas for several years (working as a dishwasher). Finally she is taken in by a world-famous detective "Alpha", Twomanrie, who both nurtures and patronises her. The reader is led to really relate to Armintor. Her plight and prolonged abuse are profoundly moving.
Then, there is Redcholate. Whilst Armintor's chapters are crystal clear and hauntingly written, I thought the techno-slang that Redcholate's chapters are part-written in was confusing and unnecessary (which is why I could not give the book five stars.) And I had some difficulty with the techno-jargon (though I did get used to it) and sometimes following what was going on. That said, the feisty Redcholate is indomitable in her quest to catch galactic serial killer "the Butcher". She is sent on this mission by an avatar styling herself "Dr Watson" and must get hold of intelligence from an enigmatic secret agent known as "the Forger". In this universe, meeting in person is deemed rather old-hat, and bodies are relegated to the status of "meatsacks" into which one rarely "unjacks".
I enjoyed this story because it was also thought-provoking, both about the impact (especially since the pandemic) of technology and virtual reality, but also of the ways our own society has very recently classified human beings, and still classifies human beings (e.g. by race or sex), into something not too different from the alphas and betas.
I am very keen to explore further works by this author, as I really think this is a highly intelligent and memorable work.
October 29, 2021
I’ve read a few of Ste Just’s books and have always been impressed by how well she blends humor with fantastic story-telling and distinctive characters. The Disk Mirror Solution is a great example of this.
The characters jump off the page. The technology is both cool and mundane—I’m not sure how Ste Just did that, but it works really nicely! Like the characters are annoyed by their amazing space age tech, LOL. The ‘future feel’ of the multi-world-verse is solid, and the settings on each of these worlds is unique, distinctive, and breathtaking.
Despite the title, which is great and should have been a clue to me (heehee), I didn’t see the Sherlock Holmes connection coming, but I loved it. I loved that Ste Just spread that Homesian ‘personna’ across a few characters, and I love the complex puzzles she wove into the story to make the whole story feel like a space-age mystery.
In terms of a spoiler-free summary of the plot, I’d say if you pick this book up, expect to travel across the galaxy searching for a killer while also working on a far more personal puzzle. Expect to meet a broad cast of colorful characters at each stop. Expect twists and turns.
Definitely recommended.
The characters jump off the page. The technology is both cool and mundane—I’m not sure how Ste Just did that, but it works really nicely! Like the characters are annoyed by their amazing space age tech, LOL. The ‘future feel’ of the multi-world-verse is solid, and the settings on each of these worlds is unique, distinctive, and breathtaking.
Despite the title, which is great and should have been a clue to me (heehee), I didn’t see the Sherlock Holmes connection coming, but I loved it. I loved that Ste Just spread that Homesian ‘personna’ across a few characters, and I love the complex puzzles she wove into the story to make the whole story feel like a space-age mystery.
In terms of a spoiler-free summary of the plot, I’d say if you pick this book up, expect to travel across the galaxy searching for a killer while also working on a far more personal puzzle. Expect to meet a broad cast of colorful characters at each stop. Expect twists and turns.
Definitely recommended.
October 9, 2023
A cyberpunk world where nothing is as it seems...
…including the main character. This split-timeline novel traces the present and past of a devastated woman turned information broker – but key parts of her tale remain obscure until the very end. The story shifts between three principal planets – a new colony with a deadly secret, a technophobic world under the sway of what amounts to a totalitarian cult, and a gritty cyberpunk paradise where the real action takes place in digital worlds.
My main gripe is that just one or two characters other than the MC have much in the way of a developed personality, and while colorful, some of the cyber creations seem a bit derivative.
…including the main character. This split-timeline novel traces the present and past of a devastated woman turned information broker – but key parts of her tale remain obscure until the very end. The story shifts between three principal planets – a new colony with a deadly secret, a technophobic world under the sway of what amounts to a totalitarian cult, and a gritty cyberpunk paradise where the real action takes place in digital worlds.
My main gripe is that just one or two characters other than the MC have much in the way of a developed personality, and while colorful, some of the cyber creations seem a bit derivative.
October 12, 2023
Clever.
It took me a while to get into this book because it's told in slang, so jargon-heavy that's it's almost a dialect; however, the unfamiliar terms are appropriate, given that this is a story set in the far future with technology we can only dream off.
This novel is also a mass up of styles including noir detective, sci-fi, and young-person-against-the-world.
I got hooked by the back story of the main character. That's when I began to care enough about her to want to know how events turned out for her.
The settings are vivid and interesting, but the plot...I'm glad I stuck to it, because this is a very clever, fun book.
It took me a while to get into this book because it's told in slang, so jargon-heavy that's it's almost a dialect; however, the unfamiliar terms are appropriate, given that this is a story set in the far future with technology we can only dream off.
This novel is also a mass up of styles including noir detective, sci-fi, and young-person-against-the-world.
I got hooked by the back story of the main character. That's when I began to care enough about her to want to know how events turned out for her.
The settings are vivid and interesting, but the plot...I'm glad I stuck to it, because this is a very clever, fun book.
October 6, 2022
Fun book that explores the interfaces of humanity and technology in a distant future. Was getting 3-4 stars from me until — wow! The surprise of the last 20% of this book bumped it right up to 5 stars! Loved it.
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