The Song of Synth
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2.0 • 1 Rating
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
Williams Burroughs meets Philip K. Dick in this dystopian drug-fueled novel set in the not-so-distant future.
Synth is a drug able to induce hallucinations indistinguishable from reality. But it’s brand new, highly addictive, and more than likely dangerous. Even the dealers peddling the pills don’t know what long term effects the drug will have on its users. For Markus Olsen, Synth offers an easy escape to his crumbling life. Markus, an ex-hacker, has been caught red-handed, and while his friends were sent to jail for thirty years, Markus decided to cooperate, agreeing to lend his services and particular criminal expertise to Viborg City’s secret service, aiding the oppressive state power he’d been fighting to break in exchange for his relative freedom.
But Markus’ past as an anarchist comes back to haunt him, in the form of a credit card with no account but an seemingly unlimited balance as well as the discovery of a mysterious novel in which he is a main character. How much of his reality is being produced by Synth? How disconnected from real life has Markus become? Forced to face his past and the decisions he’s made, Markus must decide to choose between the artificial comfort of his constructed life and the harsh reality of treason and the struggle for freedom.
Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Doubinsky's dark, drug-soaked fable will remind American readers of Philip K. Dick, though a more apt progenitor may well be the great Serbian fantasist Zoran ivkovic . The tale occurs in an alternate near-future Eurasia where various city-states teeter in an uneasy state of not quite war. Markus is a former hacker and dilettante revolutionary who was captured by Viborg City security. He's avoided jail for a decade by hacking for the government. He is also addicted to Synth, a drug that provides unbelievably real hallucinations. One day the security officers capture someone who's carrying an untraceable credit card and an e-reader containing The Potemkin Overture, a novel heretofore unknown to Markus that portrays him as a revolutionary hero. As Markus investigates, the line between reality and hallucination blurs, and he soon flees Viborg City for Samarquand. There he meets Saran, a beautiful scientist who is doing research on Synth addiction possibly a coincidence, possibly not. Markus, Saran, and the novel's other major characters are well drawn and convincing. At once gritty and dreamlike, somber and sexy, this is a powerful tale of guilt, addiction, and self-discovery.
