Cog
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
In a futuristic world where personalities can be downloaded at will, who’s a girl to trust?
The Ryder family is at the top of the corporate elite. Father Geren Ryder heads up a global wireless hologram company with his son, Wills Ryder, a capable second, while daughter, Nicholle, is curator at an art museum. But when a dark stranger shows up, it sets off a chain reaction that puts Geren into a mysterious coma while Wills disappears with $50 billion from the family business. Worse, Geren’s will specifies that he be taken off life support after fi ve days. Just as Nicholle is trying to pick up the pieces, she becomes the target of an assassin and has to go on the run.
With only a few days to save her father and keep the company from going under, Nicholle reaches back into the darkest part of her history, to the only person who could possibly help her. But the price is steep. Once she goes back, can she escape her past a second time?
"…at its core, Cog is a classic story of family dysfunction with some James Bond-esque thrills and rather groovy technology thrown in. But it is so much more…"
—The Compulsive Reader
"Cog has an interesting plot, believable characters, and is smoothly-written. What more could you ask from a debut novel?"
— Mike Resnick, Nebula and Hugo Award-winning author of 100+ novels, collections, anthologies and nonfiction books
"Cog, the delightful new novel by K. Ceres Wright, combines fantastic characters and wonderful pacing with a cutting-edge futuristic setting. A wonderful read, Cog raises important questions about just where we, as a society, are heading. Ms. Wright’s unique and vibrant voice gives her story depth, poignancy, and humor. Highly recommended!"
—Rachael Pruitt, award-winning author of The Dragon's Harp
"K. Ceres Wright has created a cyberpunk world of glittering vitality and characters who breathe life, love, and passion with every page of polished prose. Wright is a truly remarkable writer light years ahead of other first-time novelists, and one whose future work is sure to be enjoyed."
—Mary SanGiovanni, Author of The Hollower Trilogy and Thrall
"The author has done a good job creating a believable future society…"
—Booklist
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Wright's uneven debut is set in a future where medical nanites patrol human bodies and consciousness transfer is on the horizon. The story opens with a bang: Perim Nestor, the bastard son of Geren Ryder, head honcho of corporate giant American Hologram, has just revealed himself to Ryder and his heir-apparent son, Wills. Ryder hires Nestor on the spot, but before you can say Who shot JR?" Ryder suffers a mysterious ailment that leaves him comatose and Wills disappears among rumors of embezzlement. To the rescue rides Ryder's daughter, Nicholle, erstwhile drug addict and current art curator, who finds herself matching wits with Thia, a ruthless government operative. Wright moves the plot along nicely with occasional stumbles; scenes of extremely capable people engaging in high-stakes tactical negotiations come across as overly simplistic. Nicholle is a well-drawnheroine although it's never made clear how she became adept enough at combat to hold her own against trained assassins and dangerous drug dealers but most of the characters are two-dimensional, and Thia, whom Wright seemingly wants us to like, is too casually lethal to be endearing.
