The Labyrinth Key
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
In a secret war waged in worlds both virtual and real, the fates of nations depend on the definitive weapon. And that weapon is knowledge—knowledge to die for. . . .
The race is heating up between the U.S. and China to develop a quantum computer with infinite capabilities to crack any enemy’s codes, yet keep secure its own secrets. The government that achieves this goal will win a crucial prize. No other computer system will be safe from the reach of this master machine.
Dr. Jaron Kwok was working for the U.S. government to build such a computer. But in a posh hotel in Hong Kong, a Chinese policewoman sifts through the bizarre, ashlike remains of what’s left of the doctor. With the clock ticking, alliances will be forged—and there are those who will stop at nothing to discover what the doctor knew. As the search for answers intensifies, it becomes chillingly clear that the quantum computer both sides so desperately want will be more powerful, more dangerous than anyone could have ever imagined.
For in the twenty-first century, machines become gods, gods become machines, and the once-impossible now lies within reach. The key to unlimited knowledge will create the ultimate weapon of mass destruction—or humanity’s last chance to save itself. . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this busy tale of near-future virtual reality and real-life espionage, Hendrix (Empty Cities of the Full Moon) mixes Renaissance Kabbalism, quantum computing and the memory techniques of a 16th-century Jesuit priest into a narrative of secret societies and spy agencies fighting to shape the course of human evolution. The disappearance of historian Jaron Kwok in China sets the Asian superpower and America on a collision course. Kwok's college roommate and now replacement, Ben Cho, is charged by his NSA superiors with finding out what the historian discovered in the old files of a CIA China expert. Meanwhile, Hong Kong detective Lu Mei-lin ("Marilyn Lu") struggles to solve Kwok's strange vanishing act, working on the only clue left behind, a pile of nanotech ashes. Hendrix plays with the concept of labyrinths and mazes as devices that both hide and reveal. The book features abstruse speculation on memory and forgetting, on the making and breaking of secrets and the mind's ability to manipulate the quantum nature of reality. Unfortunately, the earnestness of conspiracy theory punctures the dizzying metaphysical bubbles Hendrix blows, leaving the story a bit flat. And in an infinitude of infinite universes, where everything occurs, tragedy loses its significance and sting. (Mar. 30)
