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Dumpshock Forums _ General Gaming _ The Digital Plague
Posted by: imperialus Jun 6 2008, 03:35 PM
I'm not sure if anyone read or enjoyed Jeff Sommers http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316021725/ref=pd_cp_b_1?pf_rd_p=317711001&pf_rd_s=center-41&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0316022101&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0RR4Q346WE0ZWZ7HXDZ3 but he's come out with a sequel http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Plague-Avery-Cates/dp/0316022101/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196611501&sr=1-2. I'm only a few pages in, but I'm pretty psyched. I really enjoyed Electric Church, it was probably the best 'new' Cyberpunk book I've read in a long time.
It nails all the classic Cyberpunk tropes. The vast majority of society is being ground into the dust by a massive and all powerful 'system', no megacorps but that's ok, the System Security Officers are scary enough. Avery is a foul mouthed anti-hero, constantly running for his life. There's a computer geek, cybernetics, and lots and lots of shooting people in the face (though not always for money).
Posted by: Sticks Jun 6 2008, 10:23 PM
Yep i'd second that, some good ideas for running a lone gunman character, very much the little man placed in events beyond his control
Posted by: Backgammon Jun 6 2008, 11:22 PM
Oooh, thanks for the heads-up. That'll be the next books I get.
Posted by: imperialus Jun 7 2008, 12:03 AM
Read the Electric Church first if you haven't. Big chunks of Digital Plague won't make sense if you don't.
Posted by: Velocity219e Jun 7 2008, 08:19 AM
so people rate 'electric church' ? kept looking at it thinking it looked interesting but never grabbed it
just had a hankering for some cyberpunk noir stuff and chewing down the Takeshi Kovacs trilogy from Richard Morgan, mhhh violence.
Posted by: imperialus Jun 8 2008, 10:02 PM
Like I said, it's good new cyberpunk. Is it as cool as the first time I read Snowcrash? No, probably not but I've read Snowcrash several time, and probably every other classic CP book out there. Electric Church and Digital Plague are new, they still have all the classic tropes but they're updated for 2008 without the odd anachronisms that the 80's generation of CP authors had. Like Sticks said Avery Cates is a really cool 'lone gunman' style character, though in the second book he does have a larger crew.
Just a taste (from page 9)
I lit my ciarette and sent a cloud of blue smoke into the dirty air. I turned and started walking for the hover, the kid acting as a crutch.
"We're going to crack some heads," I said. "Get Pick on the horn and start him digging into the grapevine. Send someone over to Marcel and buy out a contract for information, have him get the word out, a million yen to anyone who gets us next to whoever the fuck did this." Marcel, fat and lazy on his throne in his ancient hotel, hadn't moved under his own power in years and thought way too much of himself, but he could get shit done, for the right price. "Take a fucking headcount and let me know if anyone's out of place. Glee and I are going to do our bad-cop worse-cop routine and milk some of my straight contacts. Reach out to whatever System Pigs like taking our money and see if they have any information. Let New York know that Avery Cates is fucking pissed off, and things are going to get hot."
If that isn't the start of an epic run, I don't know what is.
Posted by: Synner667 Jun 8 2008, 11:58 PM
Fabulous stuff !!
I like Peter F Hamilton's Greg Mandel, for a nicely done UK cyberpunk setting [and is, at least partly, the inspiration for what I run].
Posted by: Sticks Jun 9 2008, 03:02 PM
Cool, thanks Synner, i aint read any of Hamiltons stuff yet, will have to give it a second look, always looking for UK Cyberpunk stuff. 
Posted by: Velocity219e Jun 11 2008, 08:19 AM
I like Peter F Hamilton's Greg Mandel, for a nicely done UK cyberpunk setting [and is, at least partly, the inspiration for what I run].
Aye the Greg Mandel trilogy is awesome, given that I actually live in the county where its set too its even more fun
wierd fact of the day, while Peter F Hamilton was writing the Nights Dawn trilogy he lived about 300 meters from my house
(I've moved since then, and I imagine so has he since I couldn't resist putting notes through his door reading 'More Greg!')^^
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