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Jan. 19th, 2023 10:37 pmUnto the Godless What Little Remains is the most cyberpunk book I've read a long time, and a very successfully modern take on the genre -- I started to write here 'it feels deeply embedded in classic cyberpunk style while successfully incorporating contemporary concerns,' but, I mean, let's be real, the contemporary concerns are classic cyberpunk concerns, William Gibson and friends were already stressed about AI and data leaks and brain hacks and corporate media manipulation on a grand scale. I can't think of anything in this book that would be really out of place in an 80s cyberpunk, which I guess is what I mean about the successful melding: it feels neither dated nor ... reverse-dated ....?
Anyway. In a future Lisbon that's post-information-semi-apocalypse, a young man named Liverloin who is addicted to injecting himself with variant personas has been romantically pursued by the sentient Internet; unfortunately he's just not into her like that. This young man is also being pursued, less romantically, by Agent Stevly, one of many agents hooked into an enormous crime surveillance AI, who once upon a time was a professional internet disinformation troll in a happy lesbian marriage.
The novella bounces between Liverloin, Agent Stevly, and Liverloin's tight-knit weird friend group, all of whom are tied in somehow with the mystery of How We Got Here and also Why The Internet Is In Love With This Guy Who's Just Some Guy. As is often the case for a.) cyberpunk and b.) novellas, the Big Idea work is stronger than the character work -- Liverloin's actual non-internet love interest in particular is a little bit The Girl in a way that's also very classic cyberpunk -- but if cyberpunk is your jam this one does really land the vibe imo.
Anyway. In a future Lisbon that's post-information-semi-apocalypse, a young man named Liverloin who is addicted to injecting himself with variant personas has been romantically pursued by the sentient Internet; unfortunately he's just not into her like that. This young man is also being pursued, less romantically, by Agent Stevly, one of many agents hooked into an enormous crime surveillance AI, who once upon a time was a professional internet disinformation troll in a happy lesbian marriage.
The novella bounces between Liverloin, Agent Stevly, and Liverloin's tight-knit weird friend group, all of whom are tied in somehow with the mystery of How We Got Here and also Why The Internet Is In Love With This Guy Who's Just Some Guy. As is often the case for a.) cyberpunk and b.) novellas, the Big Idea work is stronger than the character work -- Liverloin's actual non-internet love interest in particular is a little bit The Girl in a way that's also very classic cyberpunk -- but if cyberpunk is your jam this one does really land the vibe imo.
