The Destructives by Matthew de Abaitua
Theodore Drown is a destructive. A recovering addict to weirdcore, he’s keeping his head down lecturing at the university of the Moon. Twenty years after the appearance of the first artificial intelligence, and humanity is stuck. The AIs or, as they preferred to be called, emergences have left Earth and reside beyond the orbit of Mercury in a Stapledon Sphere known as the university of the sun. The emergences were our future but they chose exile. All except one. Dr Easy remains, researching a single human life from beginning to end. Theodore’s life.
One day, Theodore is approached by freelance executive Patricia to investigate an archive of data retrieved from just before the appearance of the first emergence. The secret living in that archive will take him on an adventure through a stunted future of asylum malls, corporate bloodrooms and a secret off-world colony where Theodore must choose between creating a new future for humanity or staying true to his nature, and destroying it.
File Under: Science Fiction [ Fatal Loop / Emergent See / Lunar Lunatics / Dr Easy ]
Book Info:
UK Print
Date: 3rd March 2016
ISBN: 9780857664747
Format: Medium (B-Format) Paperback
R.R.P.: £8.99
North American Print
Date: 1st March 2016
ISBN: 9780857664754
Format: Small (Mass-Market) Paperback
R.R.P.: US$7.99 / CAN$9.99
Ebook
Date: 1st March 2016
ISBN: 9780857664761
Format: Epub & Mobi
R.R.P.: £5.49 / US$6.99
More Angry Robot Books by This Author:
1. If Then (September 2015)
Buying Info:
UK Print & Ebook
Amazon.co.uk | Book Depository | Waterstones | WHSmith
North American Print & Ebook
Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | BarnesandNoble.com | IndieBound.org
Global DRM-Free Epub & Mobi Ebook
On-sale 1st March 2016 from the Robot Trading Company
Author Info:
Matthew De Abaitua: www.harrybravado.com | @MDeAbaitua on Twitter
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Sample Chapters to follow…
Praise and Reviews for If Then:
“This is the kind of post-apocalypse, after-it-all-changed novel — with clever codicils — that the Brits do with so much more classy, idiosyncratic style than anyone else. It is full of magisterial weirdness, logical surrealism, melancholy joy and hopeful terror. If I begin to toss out names like Adam Roberts, Brian Aldiss, Keith Roberts, and J. G. Ballard, I will not be lavishing undue praise.”
– Paul Di Filippo, for Locus Magazine
“If Then is a love story, the history of a marriage, a topical meditation on the end of capitalism; best of all, it is a bone-deep, blood-sweet British fantasy, naive and ingenious as William Morris and as warpedly nostalgic as Richard Jeffries’ After London. As disturbingly hyperreal as any Pre-Raphaelite painting, If Then imagines what the end of history really will really look like, what’s really at stake, and maybe, just maybe, what we can do about it.”
– Simon Ings, author of Wolves
“Sumptuously written, with prose that glitters with a dark lustre like a Damien Hirst fly collage. intricately plotted, and a satirical point as sharp and and accurate as the scalpel of a brain surgeon: De Abaitua operates on the smiling face of the present to reveal the grimacing skull of the future.”
– Will Self