Synopses & Reviews
Counting Heads is David Marusek's extraordinary launch as an SF novelist: The year is 2134, and the Information Age has given rise to the Boutique Economy in which mass production and mass consumption are rendered obsolete. Life extension therapies have increased the human lifespan by centuries. Loyal mentars (artificial intelligences) and robots do most of society's work. The Boutique Economy has made redundant ninety-nine percent of the world's fifteen billion human inhabitants. The world would be a much better place if they all simply went away. Eleanor K. Starke, one of the world's leading citizens is assassinated, and her daughter, Ellen, is mortally wounded. Only Ellen, the heir to her mother's financial empire, is capable of saving Earth from complete domination plotted by the cynical, selfish, immortal rich, that is if she survives. Her cryonically frozen head is in the hands of her family's enemies. A ragtag ensemble of unlikely heroes join forces to rescue Ellen's head, all for their own purposes.
Counting Heads arrives as a science fiction novel like a bolt of electricity, galvanizing readers with an entirely new vision of the future.
Review
"One of my favorite books of last year in any category, and an exemplary entry in the sci-fi genre....[A]n ambitious, sometimes brilliant and sometimes overwhelming attempt to provide a fully realized portrait of what society might be like in the 22nd century..." Dave Itzkoff, The New York Times Book Review
Review
"[A]mbitious and rambunctious....Marusek is unstintingly generous in his speculations, which are all entertainingly wild yet convincingly realistic....[A] marvelous, alternately hilarious and melancholy new world." Paul Di Filippo, SciFi.com
Review
"I haven't felt as buffeted by a book since Gibson's Neuromancer haven't felt more like I was reading something truly radical, new and exciting....[David Marusek is] practically a force of nature." Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing.net
Review
"[A]lmost certainly the most impressive and significant first novel the SF field will see this year." Gary K. Wolfe, Locus
Review
"[A]n ambitious and well-executed first novel....Counting Heads is a worthwhile and impressive debut filled with wonder and excitement." SFSignal.com
Review
"Counting Heads is full of both invention and action. It is dense and thought-provoking, and its story pulls the reader along until the very last page. Let's hope there's more where this came from." BookPage
Review
"Counting Heads is a great example of the best science fiction has to offer. The world of this book is complete and true to its own rules, down to the smallest details..." Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
Synopsis
Counting Heads is David Marusek's extraordinary launch as an SF novelist: The year is 2134, and the Information Age has given rise to the Boutique Economy in which mass production and mass consumption are rendered obsolete. Life extension therapies have increased the human lifespan by centuries. Loyal mentars (artificial intelligence) and robots do most of society's work. The Boutique Economy has made redundant ninety-nine percent of the world's fifteen billion human inhabitants. The world would be a much better place if they all simply went away.
Eleanor K. Starke, one of the world's leading citizens, is assassinated, and her daughter, Ellen, is mortally wounded. Only Ellen, the heir to her mother's financial empire, is capable of saving Earth from complete domination plotted by the cynical, selfish, immortal rich, if she, herself, survives. Her cryonically frozen head is in the hands of her family's enemies. A ragtag ensemble of unlikely heroes join forces to rescue Ellen's head, all for their own purposes.
Counting Heads arrives as a science fiction novel like a bolt of electricity, galvanizing readers with an entirely new vision of the future. It's the debut of the year in SF.
About the Author
David Marusek has spent most of the last 20 years as a graphic designer, including 11 years teaching computer graphics at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.