Afterglow

Glow #2

by Tim Jordan

Tim Jordan returns with the hotly-anticipated sequel to his mind-bending 2021 debut, Glow

Six months after the events of Glow, a nanotech plague sweeps the Earth, taking control of its victims’ senses and feeding them false realities, slowly taking control of individuals, corporations, and whole societies as it stretches across the globe.

Between the plague and the reforming of the pre-Nova-Insanity internet, humanity is communicating again, but the renewal of those connections allows an old danger to resurface: a supernova device so large and powerful, it could annihilate the entire planet.

Genres: Science Fiction, Cyberpunk

400 pages, Paperback

Published May 24, 2022

About the author

Tim grew up in Essex, England. Traumatized as a toddler by older brothers and the cover art of Brian Aldiss’ Space, Time and Nathaniel, he grew up with an abnormally active imagination. After discovering Tolkien and mentally devouring the world’s supply of fantasy fiction, he moved on to Science Fiction and has been an avid fan since. Tim loves to hike, play guitar, electronic music, and draw terrible pictures. He also writes software and is particularly fascinated by artificial intelligence and hopes to one day create an artificial mind that will replace his own and do all his work. Until then, he lives and works in Florida with his non-artificial-wife, pet computers and imaginary dogs.

Reviews

[Sipping Tea With Ghosts · Rating 3 out of 5]

I cannot in good faith say that this is a bad book. As a lover of the first book, adoring the worldbuilding and concepts presented by the wonder-drug known as Glow, this eventual read of the sequel was much more of a struggle than I could have ever predicted. I can't recall the last time I've read something of a series that made me question if I still even liked the installment that originally hooked me.

So don't be like me and wait on reading this if you're curious, because After Glow doesn't seem to ever have a summary of events from before and just kind of goes at lightspeed introducing new characters and concepts to the post Nova-Insanity world. The first half of this book left me feeling confused and disconnected from the world I had half a recollection of - we have some returning characters like Rex, Del, Gale, The Sisters, etc. but they're on such drastic trajectories from the get-go, it's a little hard to really gauge their personalities again. In fact, it feels like every character in this isn't so much a person, as they are a struggle to represent. We have some new POV characters such Casima, Keller, Jorben and Stellos but I'd say only Casima and Keller have anything of interest. It was actually this cute couple aboard a far off cargo ship that got me through the first half, due to their nice dynamic and a ticking time bomb element regarding one familiar killer they run into.

With these new characters comes new concepts in the world, and once again, Tim Jordan is a spectacular builder of sci-fi concepts. While I did struggle in the first half due to the blistering pace of complex factions, technologies and so on, I did come around to all of the madness by the end. I won't argue if that's good or not, so I don't blame anyone for finding it exhausting. Overall, I think my main issue besides being lost for a long time is the character work. Rex felt much more interesting in the first book, Del has moments at the end but is mostly a dubious force, and I could not give less of a damn about Jorben. The faction he's a part of is brilliant but I feel like the spokesman on the Convolvers could have literally been improved by anyone else - hell, even a puppy.

So yes, I'm torn on this one - when things finally clicked, I devoured the last 170 pages. That doesn't excuse the first half though, and I have a feeling this would have only been slightly improved if my read of Glow was months ago instead of at least a year or so. I didn't think Glow would get a sequel considering how it ended, and I was wrong. The ending of Afterglow gives me a similar feeling, but a little more definitively. I'm ok with being wrong though and preparing for maybe an Everglow.

[Daniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

This review originally published in Looking For a Good Book. Rated 2.0 of 5

The nanotech drug Glow is everywhere.

Rex remains in hiding as he's still recovering from his addiction. Every day is a different challenge. But there are bigger problems to face – a new alliance threatens the balance of power in the world again, and a dangerous enemy from Rex's past tracks him down.

Is it really possible that Rex is the cure for the plague? Or is he, more likely, the root of humanity’s downfall? Rex must decide if he really is a prophet... or just a coward.

I did not care for the first book but I had received the second book to review before I'd started Glow. I decided to give it some time and come to this book fresh and I was really, really intent on giving this a good read and hoped it would enjoy it more.

Unfortunately, I did not.

As I noted in the review of the first book, this does not feel new or fresh. Science fiction and drugs have been a pretty common idea. Philip K Dick was a master of this, and more recently (like ten to twelve years ago), both Amanda Bridgeman and Ferrett Steinmetz published some awesome drug-themed scifi with the same publisher.

Mostly I felt the book was overwritten. Good god it took a long time to have every single thing explained and going from Point A to Point B just took much longer than it needed to.

The characters were not interesting or relatable.

There's a kernel of an idea here that works. The concept is sound and the world is sound and very Blade Runner-like to me. But what happens in the world and who it happens to, didn't interest me.

Looking for a good book? Afterglow by Tim Jordan is wild scifi on a drug trip. It's a bit too heavy on concept and not detailed enough in execution to work well.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.

[Cee Sturdy]

(Received an ARC through NetGalley in exchange for a review)

After being approved for this book I realized that, while I had the first book in the series, I hadn't read it yet, which meant that I had to bum-rush through both books ASAP, which may have colored my opinion a bit. With that said, both books were great, with maybe the first one edging out this one a tad. The book propels itself forward on the strength of its human, post-human, and non-human characters, even when the story lags a little bit toward the middle.

[Annarella · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was sure I read Glow but I didn't. I cannot compare this book to the previous and sometimes was a bit confused as I think I didn't catch some references to the previous book.
That said it's well written, entertaining, and I liked the world building.
More to come after I've read Glow.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

[Marc Hilton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the time reading both books from the Glow series

[tia]

Please tell me why I was even more confused