Synopses & Reviews
A novel of prodigious scope and ambition, ablaze with imaginative energy and rendered in mesmerizing prose—complete with polar bear attacks, tsunamis, modern piracy, airship crashes, Cold War intrigue, and a djinnOn May 25, 1928 over the frozen seas of the Arctic, an airship falls out of the sky. Among the survivors is a young scientist on the verge of a discovery that will redefine physics. On October 3, 1996 through the dusty industrial towns of India's Great Trunk Road, a disgraced and disfigured female detective starts tracking a criminal syndicate whose tentacles spread from forgery to smuggling to piracy. Her life has been ruined, but she will have her revenge. On December 26, 2004 a tsunami washes up a rusting container on the island of Bali. Locked within this aluminum tomb are the mummified remains of a shipping magnate missing for 29 years, and a handwritten journal of his last days. On December 13, 2011 off the coast of Sri Lanka, a tramp steamer is seized by pirates. The captain has his wife and son aboard, and their survival depends on following the pirates' every demand. But what can they possibly want with his worn-out ship and its cargo of junk? The ship was carrying a Dead Water cargo—Dead Water is the key to everything.
Review
"It is unlikely there will be finer fiction written this year." —Guardian
Review
"A virtuoso display of imaginative plotting." —Financial Times
Review
"Deceptively readable, dizzyingly constructed . . . Ings's mad, mad world is held together to the very last page by humor, vivid depictions and a deeply compelling emotional core." —Publishers Weekly on The Weight of Numbers
Synopsis
The new novel from Simon Ings is a story that balances on the knife blade of a new technology. Augmented Reality uses computing power to overlay a digital imagined reality over the real world. Whether it be adverts or imagined buildings and imagined people, with Augmented Reality the world is no longer as it appears to you, it is as it is imagined by someone else.
Two friends are working at the cutting edge of this technology and when they are offered backing to take the idea and make it into the next global entertainment they realise that wolves hunt in this imagined world. And the wolves might be them.
A story about technology becomes a personal quest into a changed world and the pursuit of a secret from the past. A secret about a missing mother, a secret that could hide a murder. This is no dry analysis of how a technology might change us, it is a terrifying thriller, a picture of a dark tomorrow that is just around the corner. Ings takes the satire and mordant satirical view of J.G. Ballard and propels it into the 21st century.
Synopsis
Simon Ing's newest, a chilling literary dystopia for readers who love Iain Banks and J.G. Ballard Augmented Reality uses computing power to overlay a digital imagined reality over the real world. Whether it be ads or imagined buildings and imagined people, with Augmented Reality the world is no longer as it appears to you, it is as it is imagined by someone else. Two friends are working at the cutting edge of this technology, and when they are offered backing to make it into the next global entertainment, they realize that wolves hunt in this imagined world. And the wolves might be them. A story about technology becomes a personal quest into a changed world and the pursuit of a secret from the past. This is no dry analysis of how a technology might change us, it is a terrifying thriller, a picture of a dark tomorrow that is just around the corner.
About the Author
Simon Ings is a science fiction and literary author whose previous books include Dead Water and A Natural History of Seeing. He also edits Arc, a fiction magazine from the makers of New Scientist, and reviews fiction and popular science for the Guardian and the Telegraph.