Split Second Solution

ISBN-13: 9781942146452 / Angielski / Miękka / 2016 / 244 str.

Denny Taylor

Opis

One reviewer writes: “From the opening scene I felt I was reading something like a Miyazaki masterpiece. The descriptions are so vivid that only his genius talent for animation could capture them. Just as Howl's Moving Castle takes you on a journey with both darkness and light, here there is palpable evil and fragile heroism in non-clichéd plot twists and turns. Required reading for our times.”Split is a dystopian urban fantasy set in New York City in 2022 that is now frighteningly real. In the genre of 1984 and Brave New World the novel foretells a future we do not want to live.The principal characters follow.Word: Born 2000; French/North African; Last Truth Keeper; ancient texts tattooed on her body hold keys to the future; hunted by Super Recognizers; mother killed when she was eight.X-it: Born 2000; French Creole heritage; super intelligent; father an astrophysicist; loves Word.Death: Counter to all human stereotypes; hates people dying; trans; other personas include Cat, Bat, Bowie and Gaga.Eternity: Extra-terrestrial observer; pure energy; not time bound; appears as the Old Crone and Botticelli’s Venus.Grann: Creole wise woman; ancient Truth Seeker; ready to die to protect Word.Ginger Tom: Seized power before the novel begins; consumed by idolatry of self; protected by personal militia and Super Recognizers; gaslights the public; orders purges of people and books; hunts Word because she is the Last Truth Keeper. Lunatic Eight: Includes the Freaky Geek and Posh Boy; ultra-rich predatory power mongers; destroy the infrastructure of society; lose control.Super Recognizers: Controlled by Ginger Tom and the Lunatic Eight; known as “Sick Reapers”; by 2022 Sick Reapers are in power; psychopathic obsession with capturing Word.A.I.: Artificial intelligence hostile to biological intelligence; global surveillance machines; collude with Sick Reapers in vicious endgame; can hack consciousness; hack X-it; obsessed by capturing Word.At the beginning of Split, the Sick Reapers and A.I. have seized power and captured Word. To escape being raped and killed, Word jumps into the Hudson River and Death splits the last second of her life to save her. And, it is in the last split second of Word’s life that the entire story is told.This is the first book in the Split Second Trilogy and, while the novel is an urban fantasy, the story mirrors what is happening to us in the wake of Trump’s ascendancy. The ending of Split is devastating, but there is a chance that by splitting time, X-it, Death, and Eternity will save Word, and use the secrets she protects to stop the Ginger Tom, Lunatic Eight, Sick Reapers and A.I from destroying the future for young people and the planet. Let us hope we are saved too.