Synopsis
In New Avarita, every person is born with a purpose. Once fulfilled, they are eligible for Ascent, a peaceful passing and assumed rebirth on the next plane of existence, celebrated for having left their perfect mark upon the world.
At least, that’s what the powers that be want them to believe.
When Liv Spencer’s husband reaches Ascent under more than suspicious circumstances, she doesn’t feel like celebrating—she wants revenge. Her path takes her deep into the neon-drenched streets of New Avarita’s seedy underbelly, a world filled with black-market cybernetics, synthetic drugs, and people who see Ascent for what it truly a killswitch.
Liv is soon embroiled in an anarchist plot to overthrow the ruling body of New Avarita, but the further she sinks into this world, the blurrier the line between “righteous rebellion” and “terrorism” begins to grow. With hundreds of thousands of innocent lives on the line, Liv must find a way to strike back against the fascist rule of the shadowy figures controlling New Avarita without getting flagged for Ascent herself.
Review
“The dichotomy of safety and sovereignty is a false one. There cannot be one without the other. The Algorithm seeks to take the mental load of nonessential decisions off the people of New Avartia, protecting their most important freedoms while giving them the space to strive toward their ultimate goal.”
I love this book. It is a cyberpunk dystopian sci-fi novel with magic. Sci-fi with magic? Yes magic. The magic being MJ Kuhn bro’s writing. She has written a billionaire motivated by corporate greed that wants to feed artificial paste as sustenance to all life on the planet and get rich based off it. And she has bared the billionaire’s soul so much that, even in big 2026, I cannot really hate the character. Gotta be magic.
I also love the two other main characters- Liv Spencer and Signe Remy. All three women are in different stages of aggrievance against the domed city state and we see it shift for all three as well. From the rebel coming to terms with the necessity for the authoritative government keeping the city from completely collapsing after the ecological disaster of The Fall and the high ranking corporate board member slowly realizing how they’ve gradually become complicit in atrocities by simply climbing up the corporate ladder- every flavour of the human emotion is touched upon. All three women are their own brand of fiery and it’s quite hard to choose a favourite. Currently though, Liv Spencer tops my list for uttering the following words-
“Life after thirty was a bit of a bitch.”
Not just the characters, but the world also feels very real and holds a mirror to you-will-know-which country as you read the book with the author nailing the late stage capitalism, technological overreach and especially the social stratification. New Avarita’s whole society is based on how much value each individual contributes to the goal established by 9 different mega corporations and the view that anything that is not in pursuit of said goal is idle and wasteful. Similar to Dune, I love seeing the conflict developing from both sides and how even the smaller side characters’ way of viewing the world shows the scope of all human nature. It makes the reader think and that is brilliant. The author’s style of writing is also very accessible- it is so easy to engage in that every time you pick up the book, you can’t help but go through a whole chunk of it.
Among thieves was a gritty, fast-paced, fun, dark fantasy heist with a lot of witty banter. Killswitch Protocol is all of that with the added element of everything feeling so much more real. In conclusion, if you’re a fan of the cyberpunk genre, or Frank Herbert, or Fonda Lee, you should give this book a try to come off with a new fave.
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