Burnout

by Sean Platt, Johnny B. Truant

Cutter Dunn was born a ghost. Unchipped and unregistered, he exists as a nonperson, living off-the-grid, unrecognized by the facial recognition software built into every smart glass device that provides everyone with everything they want and need. According to the official system, he doesn't even exist.

He has the skills and out-of-the-box perspective to design the nuts-and-bolts mechanism for the next generation of driverless shipping vehicles. He's also the kind of person that a massively wealthy and corrupt corporation can exploit and make disappear. And that was their big mistake.

Because Cutter knows they can't track what they can't trace. And they won't know what he's planning until it hits them.

Burnout is a new stand-alone science fiction thriller by masters of storytelling, Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truant. If you like movies like Falling Down and Snatch, then you'll love Burnout.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Fiction

190 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 11, 2022

About the author

Sean loves writing books, even more than reading them. He is co-founder of Collective Inkwell and Realm & Sands imprints, writes for children under the name Guy Incognito, and has more than his share of nose.

Together with co-authors David Wright and Johnny B. Truant, Sean has written the series Yesterdays Gone, WhiteSpace, ForNevermore, Available Darkness, Dark Crossings, Unicorn Western, The Beam, Namaste, Robot Proletariat, Cursed, Greens, Space Shuttle, and Everyone Gets Divorced. He also co-wrote the how-to indie book, Write. Publish. Repeat.

With Collective Inkwell
Yesterday's Gone: Post Apocalyptic - LOST by way of The Stand
WhiteSpace: Paranoid thriller on fictitious Hamilton Island
ForNevermore: YA horror that reads nothing like YA Horror
Available Darkness: A new breed of vampire thriller
Dark Crossings: Short stories, killer endings

With 47North
Z 2134: The Walking Dead meets The Hunger Games
Monstrous: Beauty and the Beast meets The Punisher

With Realm & Sands
Unicorn Western: The best story to ever come from a stupid idea
The Beam: Smart sci-fi to make you wonder exactly who we are
Namaste: A revenge thriller like nothing you've ever read
Robot Proletariat: The revolution starts here
Cursed: The old werewolf legend turned upside down
Greens: Retail noir comedy
Space Shuttle: Over the top comedy with all your favorite sci-fi characters
Everyone Gets Divorced: Like "Always Sunny" and "How I Met Your Mother" had a baby on your Kindle

Sean lives in Austin, TX with his wife, daughter, and son.
Follow him on Twitter: http://twitter.com/seanplatt
 (say hi so he can follow you back!)

Reviews

[Mal Warwick · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the earliest days of the Industrial Revolution, men have struggled against the forces of automation. In English history, the first widespread outbreak of rage in the contest known as man vs. machine was the Luddite Rebellion (1811-16). For Americans, the iconic manifestation of that conflict was the mythical standoff between the African-American freedman John Henry and a steam-driven rock drill in the mid-19th century. The story is told in a classic blues folk song as well as numerous stories, plays, books, and novels. In Burnout, the science fiction writing team of Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truant brilliantly update the tale to the 21st century.

A SKILLED MECHANIC VS. AN AI
Platt and Truant’s protagonist is a gifted mechanic who matches wits with the AI piloting a driver-free truck. Jason Ruiz has grown up in a ghost settlement among “society’s cast-offs, first skirting the census and then fully ignored by it.” The community of “Amenity made its life scavenging, repurposing, getting extra lives out of objects the bigger world saw as garbage. You grew up here, and you patched what could be salvaged, and if it couldn’t be fixed, you turned the thing into something else.” At a young age, Jason proved to be supremely adept at fixing things. And that is what leads him both to the heights of success—and ultimately to his downfall.

MAN AGAINST MACHINE IN THE AGE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
As a ghost, Jason finds that few will employ him for more than brief stretches. An old man in Amenity had told him what was in store for him. “Folks are gonna look at you funny when none’a the screens read the chip you ain’t got,” the old man says. “But way things is out there, there’s no real ingenuity left. No creativity. They’re in the box, and you’re outside it. You use that brain of yours the way I know you can . . . and you’ll see. You play straight with the world, and it’ll play straight with you.” Unfortunately, as Jason finds to his chagrin, the old man was hopelessly naive about “the world’s” good intentions.

After a succession of short-term projects outside Amenity, Jason lands a job at a large trucking company called Hollander Sitwell. His work as a clerk is all drudgery, but it affords him the opportunity to gain an overview of the logistics that govern the company’s work—and he devises a more efficient system that will save the business millions. The only problem is, Jason himself is the only person at Hollander Sitwell who can possibly prove the system will work. Because it requires that a skilled mechanic ride hidden in the back of a driverless truck to correct any mechanical errors that crop up along the truck’s route from Las Vegas to Montana and back. This sets up the classic bout of man against machine, and to everyone’s surprise, the man wins. But that’s only the beginning of his troubles.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Sean Platt‘s bio on Amazon reads that he “is an entrepreneur and founder of Sterling & Stone, where he makes stories with his partners, Johnny B. Truant, and David W. Wright, and a family of storytellers. Sean is the bestselling author of over 10 million words’ worth of books, including the Yesterday’s Gone and Invasion series. Originally from Long Beach, California, Sean now lives in Austin, Texas with his wife and two children.”

Amazon says (in part) that “Johnny B. Truant is the bestselling author of the Fat Vampire books, adapted by NBC/Universal in 2022 as a SyFy Channel series starring Spider-Man’s Jacob Batalon. Johnny’s other books include Pretty Killer, Pattern Black, Invasion, The Beam, Dead City, and over 100 other titles across many genres. In addition to writing novels, Johnny also writes nonfiction and co-founded Sterling & Stone. Originally from Ohio, Johnny and his family now live in Austin, Texas.” Truant works there with partners Sean Platt and David W. Wright.

[Lili · Rating 5 out of 5]

Goosebumps-raising action, a clever plot and a chilling reality-check.
If anyone had asked me before reading this if street cams are ok, I would have always answered "Of course - I've got nothing to hide!" I even consider tracking - the legal kind, mind you! - a good way to catch criminals and prove innocence, or record history.
There are a lot of conspiracy theories about everyone, everywhere and everything. Every 10 years we have a census, civilization needs statistics, and how else could you get them? And then warnings begin to rain on social media about being regimented for taxes, control, discrimination, obscure evil or just for the hell of it...
But what if the system is used for helping the corrupt get away with unspeakable evil? Then we simply need hope, a hero or an anti-hero or just Batman, balancing the fight between good and evil.

I really liked this book, it is very well written, the premise is believable and maybe even possible, and Cutter is talented, wholesome, a genius and strangely pure. Go ahead and try this, you'll like it.

[DJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh My Dog! I started to read this at bedtime
I woke to go pee about 2:30 and continued reading in hopes I would fall back asleep.
I never did. Instead I have read the whole thing.
I have finished it and I want more.
I want answers; answers to questions I have been left with.
I am grateful that I am old enough I won’t be alive when this future arrives.
It is already coming at us so fast.

I received this book free for an honest review.

[Crawforde · Rating 5 out of 5]

exciting ride

This was a very fun and fast paced read.
An original action-thriller with a bit of economics and politics thrown in.
The characters were well done, not stereotypical, well written and likable.
This is more of a relaxing and entertaining read than is usual from these authors, less is asked of the reader than usual, but I recommend it.
Also, make sure you have some time available, it pulls you in quickly and hard enough that it’s probable you will read the whole book in one sitting.
Enjoy

[Denise · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great story because it gives us an idea where we could be headed if we keep on allowing everything to become digital, including our currency. Cutter is a "ghost"- no, not a dead dude come back to haunt a house. This type of ghost is one that the government can't track because he has no digital identity. Not just a guy with no smart phone and no bank account, but one who has no chip embedded in his body that allows everyday transactions to occur. He can't work any conventional job, he can't order food at a restaurant, he can't even walk into a store because the doors won't auto-open for him. He lives in a town that is populated with old shipping containers that the ghosts have made into makeshift housing. On his deathbed, his grandfather makes him promise that he will go out and explore the country like the old man did in his youth. Not easy to do when you don't really exist, but Cutter agrees to do it. Then one day he gets hired by Hollander Sitwell and everything changes...

I was given an advanced copy of this book by the author. My review is voluntary.

[Sandra Burns · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent!!!

A group of people, living off the grid, make a living any way they can. One such person, a man, was a truck driver. He got hired at a company, that wanted driverless trucks. To go from the terminal to various locations. This man, made it possible.
The company, however, was not honest. They never paid him, and tried to kill him.
The rest of the book, is ways to get the company back, for what they did to him, and his friends .

[Frode · Rating 2 out of 5]

The authors take a crack at digital money and people so used to automation that they don’t really think for themselves. Their dependence on the system has robbed them of individual thought and initiative. However, a few folks are uncredentialed and live outside the system. They are referred to as ghosts. They are quite marginalized and live in impromptu housing made primarily from cast off containers. These folks are handy and get by using the so-called junk that the rest of society has thrown away.

There is a hero and a villain. The hero is Cutter Dunn. The villain is a mega corporation that has subverted the system. These folks collect data and use it for their own betterment. Cutter runs afoul of the corporation. He works for them briefly and makes a great improvement for their transportation section, but then he is fired without pay. Cutter is a ghost, so he has little recourse, but he knows too much, so the corporation goes after him. It gets personal, and Cutter along with three friends strikes back.

Cutter’s abilities to make things from junk is a bit of a stretch at times. He is creative, no doubt, and daring as well, but he comes off as a superhero. Well, it is fiction.

There is a twist at the end, and the finale gives meaning to the title of the book. The characters are flat, and there is far too much off color language to suit me.

[Eric Flint · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was an interesting book, fun to read.
It's a future where nearly every one has a chip to do all business and all access to the web. Major corporations run things, cars are automated, currency almost all digital, and the little person has no power, basically.
But there are also those who are outcasts, never having had a chip implanted. They can't access banking systems, can't live in cities as they have no chip to interact, and essentially are forced to live in cast off shipping containers and pick thru dumps. Think the slums of India and the garbage heap dwellers. Most commerce is done thru swaps, with some cash available.
But being an outcast doesn't mean people are not smart or unskilled. This is a story of one man and his journey to interact with the chipped society. He has mechanical skills and abilities have been lost in the main stream. He ends up working for one of the major corporations and innovates major improvements in how trucking can be done by this corporation. But in the end, he's dumped, and all the digital money he's earned but can't readily access is stolen from him.
The company becomes his target for revenge. It's quite a tale, with a fully realized dystopia in the making. I enjoyed it very much, seeing how the main character could pull off his scheme.
Definitely read it for a great tale.

[Rosemarie · Rating 5 out of 5]

What happens when you give someone a well-deserved chance, he makes you ridiculously successful and then you try to screw him out of what he's been promised and earned? Burnout explains what happens. Cutter Dun's story is compelling and you root for him all throughout. He's a little naive, not surprising considering where he comes from, very clever and wants to do the right thing by everyone, expecting the same thing back. Only thing is, the futuristic world he's ventured into doesn't believe in dealing fairly, and when he learnt that lesson, he wants payback, big time!

Set in the not-too-distant future where unchipped people are unrecognizable by the technology that controls everything, Burnout highlights the many current stories of the many undocumented global citizens, the lives they lead and the misfortune that befalls them, simply because someone feels like giving them that end of the stick. It's a brilliantly-written story that I thoroughly enjoyed and recommend for those readers who love to cheer for the good guys and anyone interested in sci-fi. You won't regret picking up Burnout.

[Case Face · Rating 3 out of 5]

Davids disarm their Goliaths…

Not at all what I was expecting, but short enough to make me want to plow through, and find out how this near future, neo-capitalist’s versus off-the-grid blue collar workers (ghosts) ends. Chock-full of references to the impending rise of cryptocurrency, booming vehicle automation, and depletion of privacy in a world rife with Real ID, facial tracking technology, and drone cameras everywhere becoming the norm.

“When dependence on technology ultimately turns us all into hapless day workers bending to the will of corporate elitists manipulating the government to alter the trajectory of their quarterly financial gain…only the truckers can save us.”

[Dana Granville · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the future, there isn't paper currency, you just have a balance of ducats and electronic proof that you have this money. However, there are people that refuse to live this way and they're called ghosts because they have, essentially, no electronic footprint. Cutter Dunne is a ghost, though he pioneered a driverless transportation system for a big corporation and then they cut all ties with him and he wants revenge. Very short book, if you can call it that. The ending seemed a bit rushed, but after the first chapter where I was totally confused as to what was going on, it was interesting enough.

[Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was checking out books on NetGallery when I saw this one. Seeing the cover, reading the description, I decided to give it a go! I will admit I thought it was about actual ghosts, realizing first chapter in that ghosts held a different meaning.

The world today is a messed up place, and sadly I can imagine it becoming a society like this. Or maybe it already has and my eyes just don't see it.

Well written, quite the adventure! I thank NetGallery, the authors and publisher for the chance to read it. Totally out of my normal read.

[Mary Good · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed it enough to finish it, but it just didn’t grab me. Interesting society, though. Ghosts are people who live on the fringes of society and don’t exist because they’re not in any database or any other electronic means of ID. Main character goes roaming from a off grid community. In his roaming, he does make some friends and seriously pisses off a major corporation that rules the whole country.

[Ed Lawrence · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very prophetic story.

This story describes a future that we will easily enter if we are not careful. It is already happening: the targeted and tailored advertising, the personal data mining, cash becoming less accepted, the government's prying eyes and ears, the constant surveillance. While technology can make life easier, it can also make it a living hell.

A great (and scary) read!

[Tony Ellis · Rating 5 out of 5]

WARNING: This review contains spoilers.

Another excellent read from Sean and Johnny. I liked the way they told the story as part of an interrogation and the misdirection of the way the story ended. Excellent writing and great enjoyable reading.
Brought up issues that are the concern of everyone going forward.

[Jaime Andrews · Rating 4 out of 5]

So much fun! I got real anxiety during the action scenes in this book: a dystopian tale where big business meets Stephen King's Maximum Override. I loved this! Four instead of 5 only cuz it was a little bit of a slow start for me and some of the technical stuff confused my brain. 😛 Platt & Truant: there's a reason why they're some of my go-to authors. ⭐

[Maria do Socorro Baptista · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uma distopia que nos remete não somente ao fim do mundo como o conhecemos, mas nos coloca diante da possibilidade de estarmos vivendo neste mundo. Afinal, são muitos os invisibilizamos em nossa sociedade contemporânea. A questão que se impõe é: o que acontecerá se os invisíveis decidem reagir? Muito bom.

[Mark Zodda · Rating 2 out of 5]

While the story flowed and the writing in a sense was good, I found that the story didn't all fit together and frankly lots of the plot elements didn't make much sense. Generally a pretty quick read that hit some potholes early on and never fully recovered. There were elements that show promise for the future, but not enough to satisfy me right here and now.

[Doug Yonce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although the book was outside my usual choices, I found it to be quite entertaining withe plenty of action to keep the plot turning and moving rapidly. I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley and the publisher and voluntarily provided an honest review.

[Kenneth G. Rogers, Jr. · Rating 5 out of 5]

They Did It Again

Truant and Platt have put out a truly amazing book that anyone who is familiar with their work should read (and anyone else who is not). I can only hope that they decide to make this a series, because it left me wanting more.

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read for a thriller

Liked the book and its reference to socio-economic disparities that also truly exist in the real world. I liked the ingenuity of the design, kind of Mad Max like!

[gloria marquardt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good storyline.

Really not for me. Too technical means very slow in spots. It took me a long time to get into it but I kept getting pulled back out. My mind just doesn't run that way.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Little guy pushes back

Interesting backdrop of what a cash less commerce leads to for social consequences. Reader will have to accept some far out inventions from junk trucks. Difficulty for me to relate to main character, seemed only wanted vengeance and social recognition.

[David Durrant]

A very different dystopian novel.

A likeable and credible hero. A disturbingly feasible scenario where big business actually, if covertly, runs the country. Will the little man win ?

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

This could happen

An interesting combination of people and events that could almost be taken from the news today. A few determined people against a big and powerful company. A great story.

[Michele Huber · Rating 5 out of 5]

This started slowly then built up to a climax! I couldn't believe it was over...I really liked the premise and hoped to get to know some of the supporting characters a bit better. This needs a sequel!

[Sharon Hendrix · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very unique story!

I had in mind where this tale was going to go…and it certainly turned me on my ear!
Very intriguing characters, very interesting the way the authors built this strange world. I wouldn’t mind reading more!

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't get past the first half of this book. It just didn't grab or sustain my interest. It was a little more hard core Sci fi than I expected.

Nevertheless, thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this ARC. This is my honest review.

[Jefrois · Rating 1 out of 5]

.
.
No idea what the FOKK I am reading!

WHAT IS THIS EVEN ABOUT????

This book stinks for me.

I wish I could give it MINUS 200,000 stars….
.
.

[Louis Bone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Entertaining ... Scary even when viewed in today's contexts of mass and prevailing surveillances. Definitely worth the time to read and peruse.