Infomocracy
Book One of the Centenal Cycle
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4.1 • 51 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Read Infomocracy, the first book in Campbell Award finalist Malka Older's groundbreaking cyberpunk political thriller series The Centenal Cycle, a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Series, and the novel NPR called "Kinetic and gripping."
• A Locus Award Finalist for Best First Novel
• The book The Huffington Post called "one of the greatest literary debuts in recent history"
• One of Kirkus' "Best Fiction of 2016"
• One of The Washington Post's "Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of 2016"
• One of Book Riot's "Best Books of 2016 So Far"
It's been twenty years and two election cycles since Information, a powerful search engine monopoly, pioneered the switch from warring nation-states to global micro-democracy. The corporate coalition party Heritage has won the last two elections. With another election on the horizon, the Supermajority is in tight contention, and everything's on the line.
With power comes corruption. For Ken, this is his chance to do right by the idealistic Policy1st party and get a steady job in the big leagues. For Domaine, the election represents another staging ground in his ongoing struggle against the pax democratica. For Mishima, a dangerous Information operative, the whole situation is a puzzle: how do you keep the wheels running on the biggest political experiment of all time, when so many have so much to gain?
Infomocracy is Malka Older's debut novel.
THE CENTENAL CYCLE
Book 1: Infomocracy
Book 2: Null States
Book 3: State Tectonics
PRAISE FOR INFOMOCRACY
“A fast-paced, post-cyberpunk political thriller... If you always wanted to put The West Wing in a particle accelerator with Snow Crash to see what would happen, read this book.” —Max Gladstone, author of Last First Snow
"Smart, ambitious, bursting with provocative extrapolations, Infomocracy is the big-data-big-ideas-techno-analytical-microdemoglobal-post-everything political thriller we've been waiting for." —Ken Liu, author of The Grace of Kings
"In the mid-21st century, your biggest threat isn’t Artificial Intelligence—it’s other people. Yet the passionate, partisan, political and ultimately fallible men and women fighting for their beliefs are also Infomocracy’s greatest hope. An inspiring book about what we frail humans could still achieve, if we learn to work together." —Karl Schroeder, author of Lockstep and the Virga saga
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Older's sparkling debut, the first full-length novel from the novella-focused Tor.com imprint, serves as both a callback to classic futurist adventure tales by the likes of Brunner and Bester and a current examination of the power of information. In the (slightly implausible) future, most of the world is part of a massive democracy divided into "centenals" of 100,000 people. Governments are global and overlapping, and each centenal decides which government to belong to. A worldwide organization known as Information manages elections and attempts to keep governments' campaign promises in check; the governments themselves range from corporate ones such as PhilipMorris to more traditional ones with names like Liberty and Policy1st. Ken, a Brazilian of Japanese descent who works for the Policy1st government, is attempting to research non-Policy1st centenals that might be willing to change governments in the upcoming election. After he learns of a potential conspiracy involving the election, he ends up working with (and falling for) Information agent Mishima. Older creates a fascinating future world and populates it with a wide variety of characters with believable and interesting motivations. She also throws in some great action scenes and nifty technology. This intriguing thought experiment is perfectly timed to leave readers pondering the meaning of voting and representative government in the run-up to the 2016 elections.
