Candle
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4.3 • 4 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Currie Culver is about fifty-five years old, in good health, living in a comfortable retirement in the Rockies with his wife. In the wake of the Meme Wars that swept the planet two generations before, Currie, his wife, and almost everyone on Earth have in their minds a copy of One True, software that grants its hosts limited telepathy and instills a kind of general cooperation.
In his younger days, Currie hunted "comboys"--people who had unplugged from the global net in order to evade One True, and who hid in wilderness areas, surviving by raiding the outposts of civilization. Now Currie is called back into service to capture the last comboy still at large, a man who calls himself Lobo. With his high tech equipment, thoroughly plugged into the global net, Currie sets out to bring Lobo in.
Instead, Lobo captures Currie, and manages to deprogram him. Thrown back on the resources of his own intelligence, courage, and wisdom for the first time in twenty-five years, Currie finds himself in a battle of minds with his captor . . . with results that will change the lives of everyone on Earth.
In the best tradition of John W. Campbell and Robert A. Heinlein, Candle is a novel about individualism and society that will leave readers breathless, arguing, and demanding more.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In a multitextured narrative that explores issues of free will and of the virtues and dangers of forced utopia, Barnes (Finity) portrays a world in which humanity is linked like a computer network under the "One True." The victor of the devastating war of the Memes--computer viruses able to operate in mind and machine alike--One True is working toward rebuilding Earth and keeping all of its humans happy. Through a program called Resuna, which is installed in individual brains, One True allows anyone to download the experiences and talents of anyone else. Resuna also keeps bad feelings and memories from harming its host. Living outside this overly happy society are the "cowboys," who operate under their own free wills until they are caught and "turned" to One True. Barnes's protagonist, Currie Curtis Curran, was once a cowboy hunter. His final hunt was disastrous, however, ending in the death of members of his party as well as of his quarry--or so he thought. When the elusive cowboy once again appears on One True's radar, Currie is sent after him but is himself captured. The cowboy shuts down Currie's Resuna and, with it, his link to One True. He then shows the hunter the parts of his mind that he has been missing. Much more than a simple parable in tribute to freedom, Barnes's new novel will continually have readers questioning who is in control and who is in the right. Creative science; the creepiness inherent in the phrase "let overwrite, let override," which allows Resuna to take complete control of a person's mind; the complexity of Currie's character; the futuristic slang that sparkles throughout--all add up to a full, rich vision of the future, albeit one compressed expertly into 240 pages.
