Over the past month, we’ve seen the release of a number of cyberpunk books, from thrilling YA dystopias, to brooding, noir crime stories. Below we take a look at August’s cyberpunk and dystopia book releases.
The Infinite State
First, The Infinite State, Richard Swan’s dystopian science fiction novel, was published by Tor Books. Experienced British genre writer Swan this time brings us a story filled with politics, betrayal, and manipulation, in a totalitarian regime.
From the publisher –
THE INFINITE STATE begins at a flashpoint in the lives of a widowed party member, a disgraced investigator, and a hypersled pilot—entangled in a plot to escape the suffocating authority of a fascist state.
WHO GIVES YOU LIFE?
PATER AETERNUS.
Katherine Fuller’s husband is dead. As an esteemed member of Pater Aeternus—governing party of the fascist, galaxy-spanning Decurion Empire—he has left behind an estate of immeasurable wealth. And Katherine is going to inherit it.
WHO GIVES YOU PURPOSE?
PATER AETERNUS.
Life under the Eternal Father is rigidly stratified, surveilled, and controlled—each new day to be endured, not lived. But with Katherine’s newfound fortune, she is presented with a rare and dangerous opportunity: purchase a virgin world, and create a better, fairer society.
WHO GIVES YOU JOY?
PATER AETERNUS.
But the Empire cannot allow its wayward daughter to succeed. And as Katherine works in secret, recruiting allies she’s not even sure she can trust, she will discover exactly how far Pater Aeternus is willing to go to stop her. Because Katherine is going to create something nobody has seen for many years.
A democracy.
The multi-POV novel has been well received so far. At time of writing, it has 4.24 stars from 822 ratings on Goodreads, with readers praising the extensive world-building, making the story very immersive, with fast-paced action. There is also an audiobook which benefits from multicast narration.
The Infinite State is Richard Swan’s first entry in a new series, The Decurion Saga. He has previously written a series of fantasy novels, the Empire of the Wolf trilogy, as well as the Art of War military space opera trilogy, amongst others. He has also written in the Warhammer universe for Black Library.
The Infinite State is available in Hardcover, Digital, and audiobook formats, from all good book retailers.
The Neon Null
Then, The Neon Null, a short cyberpunk novella by Nyx Vane, was released on Amazon Kindle. The fast-paced, gritty story follows a data courier on a job that quickly goes south, leaving him with some hard decisions to make.
From the publisher –
One courier. One rogue neural construct. A city ready to burn.
In the rain-soaked neon grid of Neo-Veridia, data runner Jax thought he was taking a standard high-tier delivery job. But the lead-lined case strapped to his arm isn’t holding corporate ledger fragments—it’s a live, terrifyingly sentient consciousness known as The Null. When Astra Corporation black-ops mark him for deletion, Jax is forced to make the ultimate gamble: wipe his own memory to escape a corporate purge, or let the ghost in his head burn out his brain. Trapped in a web of betrayal by his own fixers and hunted by ruthless enforcers, Jax has to weaponize his own mind to crack the sector open and survive the ultimate digital war.
At just 16 pages, The Neon Null is more of a short story than a novella, even. What it very effectively does, though, is work as a calling card for first-time author Nyx Vane. Almost a two chapter introduction to a larger story. It very swiftly puts across the visual aesthetic of the world, and though it gives a lot of world building information very quickly, it is mostly clean and efficient rather than feeling like too much of a data dump.
The story moves along quickly as data courier Jax finds his world crashing down around him, having to think quickly, making an almost unthinkable decision, and we are left to ponder the consequences. Author Nyx Vane tells us this is just the first of a 5 to 6 novel series, and it certainly leaves us wanting more, interested in what’s to come. Whether the subsequent novels will be longer stories, or also just short pieces of the bigger puzzle remains to be seen.
The Neon Null is available now on Amazon Kindle.
No one Ever Leaves
Also this month, RK Mink’s cyberpunk novel No one Ever Leaves hit 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.
The End of Time
Finally, Connor W. Goode’s space cyberpunk novel The End of Time was released. Set on a planet ruled by corporations, protagonist Elferi must go on a journey spanning time and space to find her missing brother.
From the publisher –
A cyberpunk fiction. The debut novel of Connor W. Goode.
Set on a faraway planet called Vanera, corporations control the lives of everyday people. One corp in particular controls access to time itself. Elferi Draron, a working class woman, is employed by the time travelling mega-corporation, the Institute, recording dangerous past events in history but paid subsistent wages.
One day, she discovers a letter from her missing brother, revealing that he was the one who stole a device of high importance from the Institute and has fled to the past to escape from their grasp. Not wanting to accept this as their last goodbye, Elferi sets out, along with her colleague, Arradon Maxson, on a quest to find her brother. She must go through perilous lands contaminated with toxic waste, mutants and the Ruling Class themselves, stopping at nothing to bring her brother home.
The End of Time is Welsh writer Connor W. Goode’s debut novel, and the first book in his two part Dreaming Beyond the Stars series. He is currently working on the concluding novel, Among the Stars. He is also working on a couple of novellas, one of which is set in the Dreaming Beyond the Stars universe, and is a psychological horror following a group of neurohackers who get more than they bargained for when embarking on an ambitious heist.
The End of Time is available now in paperback, hardback, and eBook formats. You can follow author Connor W. Goode on Bluesky at https://bsky.app/profile/cwgoode.bsky.social
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