Today, RK Mink’s cyberpunk novel No one Ever Leaves hits Kickstarter. A hard-boiled cyber-noir in an unusual setting, it tells the story of a world-weary fixer investigating a mysterious disappearance in an underwater city.

From the publisher –

Ceylon City lies deep beneath the oppressive weight of an endless alien ocean. It’s a decaying, neon-lit tomb of tunnels and domes whose inhabitants were long ago forgotten by the rest of humanity.

Leon Chandra is a cynical Fixer who knows the one truth of Ceylon: No one ever leaves. He avoids his past and the crushing inevitability of fate by running jobs for shady clients on the illicit fringes of the city. That is, until Remi LaRue, a spitfire mechanic with grease under her nails and desperation in her eyes, corners him with a blackmail scheme he can’t walk away from.

Her sister is missing, taken by the city’s dark underbelly. To find her, Leon and Remi must descend into a labyrinth of seedy clubs and corporate rot, peeling back the layers of a deadly conspiracy that threatens to shatter a society on the brink. They’ve found the one thing dangerous enough to kill for: A ticket off world.

When we meet Leon, he seems to be a man of few scruples, taking on whatever jobs are offered his way, regardless of the morality of them. When Remi walks into his life, and asks him to find her missing sister, he does not initially take on the job for altruistic reasons. Ceylon is an underwater city, on a planet long abandoned by its overseers. Leon would love to leave, and thinks the case could lead to his ticket off-planet.

As the investigation goes on, however, he takes a more personal interest in the case, and begins to make his own sacrifices. RK Mink does a very good job of showing this arc, of portraying this character journey from self-centered cynic to selfless hero very effectively. No One Ever Leaves is very much in the cyberpunk noir tradition – it has the reluctant hero, it has the woman who walks into his life and causes him to change, and it has the investigation that has him pounding the streets, and walking straight into trouble. 

It’s refreshing, too, that the setting isn’t your average neon-soaked cyberpunk city. Yes, it is that, but the location of it, under the sea within a protective dome, lends an extra dimension to it, and it’s no gimmick. This setting is interwoven into the story, it is at the very core of character motivations. Just don’t think too much about the practicality of it all.

In terms of narrative, as you might have been able to tell, it is nothing massively groundbreaking, following a traditional structure in the tradition of old noir movies, and characters like Philip Marlowe. But it is told well, offers plenty of twists, and having a ‘hero’  as flawed as Leon, failing at many turns, is a lot more interesting than an action hero gunning down his enemies a half dozen at a time.

The Kickstarter campaign for No One Ever leaves goes live today, 25th August. Reward tiers on the Kickstarter include ebook and audiobook formats, as well as a special, hand-signed hardback launch edition. The audiobook is Narrated by Harley Roberts, is expected to be around 6 hours in length, and you can check out a sample on the Kickstarter page. All editions also include digital extras exclusive to the Kickstarter Launch.

You can check out the Kickstarter at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rkmink/no-one-ever-leaves-a-cyberpunk-noir-novel, and you can watch a trailer for the book below.