Infoquake
Book One of the Jump 225 Trilogy

David Louis Edelman

Average Rating 9/10 (1 Review)

How far should you go to make a profit? Infoquake, the debut novel by David Louis Edelman, takes speculative fiction into alien territory: the corporate boardroom of the far future. It's a stunning trip through the trenches of a technological war fought with product demos, press releases, and sales pitches.

Natch is a master of bio/logics, the programming of the human body. He's clawed and scraped his way to the top of the bio/logics market using little more than his wits. Now his sudden notoriety has brought him to the attention of Margaret Surina, the owner of a mysterious new technology called MultiReal. Only by enlisting Natch's devious mind can Margaret keep MultiReal out of the hands of High Executive Len Borda and his ruthless armies. To fend off the intricate net of enemies closing in around him, Natch and his apprentices must accomplish the impossible. They must understand this strange new technology, run through the product development cycle, and prepare MultiReal for release to the public - all in three days.

Meanwhile, hanging over everything is the spectre of the infoquake, a lethal burst of energy that's disrupting the bio/logic networks and threatening to send the world crashing back into the Dark Ages.

'With "Infoquake", David Louis Edelman has created a fully detailed world that's both as imaginative as Dune and as real as today's.'

Review by Paul Lappen (290212) Rating (9/10)

Review by Paul Lappen
Rating 9/10
This book takes place many years after the collapse of civilization. A group of sentient computers called the Autonomous Minds rebelled against mankind in the Autonomous Revolt. Now, Earth is dominated by bio/logics, the science of programming the human body.

The programs have names like Eyemorph 1.0, DeMirage 24.5, Poker Face 83.4b and AntiSleepStim 124.7. The average person has thousands of such programs in their bodies, courtesy of microscopic robots placed at or before birth. Natch is a master of bio/logic programming, who has risen to the top with little more than brains and sheer determination.

For many years, Margaret Surina, ancestor of Sheldon Surina, the inventor of bio/logics, has hinted about this new technology called MultiReal. She enters into a partnership with Natch and his fiefcorp to bring it to market immediately. It can take months to understand and develop a new technology, get it approved by Dr. Plugenpatch (a set of databases that constitute the quality control system), keep it away from the competitors, and then bring it to market. Natch and his colleagues have to do it in three days. The reason for the very short time frame is to also keep MultiReal away from the Defense and Wellness Council. It’s a secret and unaccountable government organization that handles all military and intelligence affairs.

This is an excellent piece of writing. Cyberpunk fans will love it. Is there such a thing as "business cyberpunk?" This is also a really good book about the mixing of business and technology. The "cyber-" part is not too technical, and this is very highly recommended.
Paul Lappen (29th February 2012)