TL;DR Review: Colorful characters inhabit a futuristic world at once familiar and fresh. A cyberpunk thriller that had me enthralled from the first page.
Synopsis:
MODIFICATIONS COME AT A PRICE.
Detective Sol Harkones is tangled in the wires of a deadly conspiracy involving defective body modifications causing permanent brain damage. A suspect is known, but something more dangerous may be lurking in the shadows.
A city plagued by waste.
Violence fills the streets.
Oblivion is within reach.
Full Review:
Falling Into Oblivion begins exactly like you’d expect from a sci-fi detective noir story: a Nox City Police Department detective with all the requisite emotional and psychological baggage hunting down a suspect wanted in a suspicious death.
But quickly, you get to see all the ways Nox City is different from its predecessors.
The world is heavily cyberpunk, with the majority of the citizenry having some sort of “modi” (cybernetic modification). In fact, our protagonist Sol is among the few “plebo” who have refused to allow modifications/augmentations into their bodies. Everyone else, though, has something odd or weird—from multi-colored and multi-functional eyes to hands that can be fired like bullets to cybernetic organs and muscles. This lends the world a wonderfully colorful touch but can also be used to lovely horror/dramatic effect in the right circumstances.
The police force is also “pay to play”. The detectives each get a pittance of a base salary which is then augmented by the bonuses they receive for solving cases. The higher the “level” (difficulty) of a case, the higher the bonus.
This is used to marvelous effect to show our protagonist’s dire situation. He owes money to everyone—and the wrong kinds of people—so solving the case quickly enough to get home to his family with money to get his debtors off their back is the driving force. Time and time again, we’re reminded just how important it is for him to get the case done, which wars with his natural diligence. He needs the money but is driven by his own conscience and morals to solve the case, which makes for a lovely internal conflict.
The neon world is futuristic and varied, with all the seedy bars, garbage-cluttered alleys, towering corporate and luxury highrises, and technologically advanced weaponry, vehicles, and personal defenses you could want. It does a marvelous job of staying true to the familiar cyberpunk worldbuilding tropes while still setting itself apart by playing in new and unique terrain.
The cast of characters around our main detective are colorful—from the straight-laced, no nonsense Lieutenant running the NCPD division to the grizzled old detective helping Sol with interrogation, from the villainous modified “Ogre” with the skull-crushing sledgehammer to the creepy-eyed lady with the pet cybernetic poison-injecting scorpion—and add a great deal of variety to the cast.
The pacing is spectacular. Never does the story have a dull moment—quiet and contemplative moments aplenty, but never dull. It’s just mystery after intrigue after twist after reveal, and it had me glued to the page to find out what came next.
Falling Into Oblivion is a short, speedy read, one that had me enthralled from the very first page. A strong narrative voice (with the right amount of cursing), a compelling mystery, and a world that felt both unique and instantly familiar—everything I want in a good cyberpunk thriller.
Fans of Altered Carbon and Blade Runner will love this book. But so will quite literally anyone who digs a fast-paced scifi murder mystery.
Colorful characters inhabit a futuristic world at once familiar and fresh. A cyberpunk thriller that had me enthralled from the first page.
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