TV– Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2: Episode Three
The new season of Cyberpunk 2077 animated series Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 has been released. The new series is available to stream now, on Netflix. This week, we took a look at Episode Three.
Synopsis –
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 pulls you back into Night City, where lives become entangled to the extreme. Weak, a washed-up cyberpunk legend, is now forced to live without chrome as he searches for a sense of purpose in a world that’s passed him by. Meanwhile, the deadly nomad D sets out on a path to revenge that brings him close to corpo secrets never meant to be found. Across this ten-episode standalone series, uncover a story of family, obsession, legacy — and how your lens reflects the stories of the people around you.
The first season of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners debuted on Netflix in September of 2022, to rave reviews, instantly building a devoted fanbase. It has been a long wait for those fans since the finale of the ten episode season aired nearly four years ago. That wait, however, is over. Season 2 is not a continuation of the story from the first season (and the few surviving characters), but instead focuses on a new cast of characters.
The full 10 episode season was dropped in one go onto Netflix. It would be madness (or perhaps cyberpsychosis) to try to encompass the full 10 episode season in one post, so much as we did with The Ghost in the Shell series, we are going to cover one episode per week as if it were on a weekly release schedule – after all, it’s not like everyone is gonna binge it all in one day? Right?!
Episode One introduced us to the main cast of characters, and it was a wider cast than season one. Episode Two brought some of the characters together, giving us a bit more idea of what the plot of the season was going to be, and how the characters fit in with each other.
As Episode Three opens, Roman asks a drunken D about nomad clans, who shows he is clearly haunted by the loss of his friends. King is at Maelstrom, as Talia watches on. She denies all knowledge of him as they work him over. King tries to fight them off, but his gun of choice too powerful for his cut-price chrome. They threaten to send him cyberpsycho, but Talia intervenes on the pretext that they’re supposed to be carrying out surgery on her. They blame her for getting raided by a corpo army, she draws a gun and a fight ensues. Maelstrom pretty quickly get the upper hand, but King manages to knock down one of them, retrieve his gun, and then show them he can still use it, sending Maelstrom running. So a teenage girl and a broken down old man get the better of a very dangerous street gang? A lot was done in the opening episodes to show they weren’t to be messed with, but they were run off pretty easily. In the aftermath, Talia might be showing signs of going cyberpsycho.
The man who hired King’s crew to get the chip turns out to be Avida’s husband, and hired him on her recommendation – this is two things that Avida has effectively hired King for, does she still have feelings for him, or is she playing him? There’s a whole lot of trouble going down and she seems to be connected with both sides of it. They’ve confirmed Arasaka didn’t recover it, and MaxTac don’t have it, and they believe a mysterious 3rd party somehow got hold of it.
Flashback to someone at Arasaka during the heist, trying to stop the chip, or ‘Capri’ as they call it, from being stolen using the security system. When they see the chip leaving the premises, they sneak out and grab it themselves. D and Roman are back at the unmarked Arasaka building, where the mysterious Araska employee had taken the retrieved chip to. They go around in circles, until a strange signal brings D to a specific room. The chip is plugged into a nearly dead body. D removes it, and then inserts it, which seemingly allows ‘Capri’ to take control of his body. They escape the building, leaving the mysterious Arasaka employee devastated in their wake, and a confused Roman trying to follow.
D and the entity fight over D’s meat body. The entity is wirelessly hacking things around them, and then, when realising it isn’t going to be able to force D out of his own body, leaves out into the open, and encourages D to hack too. Cars are hacked, and then assailant’s guns, the entity helping D to do it too despite his reluctance and confusion. This is a powerful entity, hacking the electric grid and creating a blackout as far as the eye can see. It seems this entity is now effectively a devil on D’s shoulder, inspiring him into causing mayhem alongside it.
Talia is at a ripperdoc clinic with King, and this scene is intercut with the mayhem that D and the entity have caused, a fleet of irate drivers chasing D and shooting at him, just pushing him to do more damage, whilst Roman can only look on. Talia is telling King that she doesn’t want his help, that she is nothing like him. Then, a large crane hook that D has caused to drop crashes down into the clinic where King and Talia are, narrowly missing them. Talia isn’t harmed, but Avida is angry at King anyway. He breaks the news to her about Talia potentially being affected by cyberpsychosis, and advises they need to get Talia to trade down the chrome. King asks about Talia’s obsession with chrome, and Avida seems to know something about that which she hasn’t yet revealed.
Roman apologises to Talia for letting her down, and she lashes out by suggesting she couldn’t have her surgery because he didn’t turn up. She softens that, however, by telling him she watched his video of her, and it was pretty nova. At the end of the episode, the entity asks D if he enjoyed the mayhem they caused, but he’s pretty out of it, and then the entity finds it is stuck to D.
Much like the last episode, episode three wastes no time, pushing the story forward with every frame. We find out more about the entity, and who was trying to get it. What we don’t yet know is why – there seem to have been a number of interested parties, but all we know so far is that it can hack seemingly anything, and has a penchant for chaos. Were Arasaka keeping it contained, or is there a hope to harness its power, tame its chaos, and use it for evil purposes? With the news that Avida’s husband hired King for the heist, we can see how all the characters are inter-related, though quite how they are going to ultimately collide isn’t yet clear. Avida has information to drop about why Talia is so obsessed with body augmentation, which presumably we’ll hear about in the next episode. Three episodes in, and the season is going well, though it definitely lacks that emotional core of the first season so far. Maybe the revelations about Talia will help with that?
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 is directed by Kai Ikarashi, with character designs by Ichigo Kanno and a story written by Bartosz Sztybor of CD PROJEKT RED and Masahiko Otsuka. There are 10 episodes in total, and they were released all at once on Netflix on Tuesday 20th October.
You can watch a trailer for the series below –
Podcast – Neuronet: Petite Meller
The latest episode of the Neuronet podcast is available now. This week, host Kaden Love talks to singer/songwriter Petite Meller about her music on the soundtrack of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2.
Kaden Love is the author of the Toothsucker series of cyberpunk novels. The Neuronet podcast is available on Spotify and YouTube, released weekly on Fridays.
Book – Worst Case Scenario
Phil Stitelmann’s latest Cyberpunk novella, Worst Case Scenario, was released this week. It follows a gang of mercenaries taking on a seemingly simple job, which inevitably goes to the brown stuff.
Synopsis –
There are bad days, then there are legendary bad days.
When a veteran mercenary team accepts a corporate extraction job in Neo Los Angeles, little do they know that a routine payday is about to spiral into an absolute disaster beneath the city.
With their cover blown and every exit closing, Cole Anderson and his crew must drag a defecting scientist through corporate kill squads, lethal maintenance tunnels and toxic sewers.
Experience, firepower and vicious banter might keep them alive… But Murphy’s Law has other plans.
Worst Case Scenario opens in media res, with an introduction to the mercenary team in an unenviable situation, before taking you to the beginning of the story, two days earlier. Army veteran Cole Anderson is offered a job, infiltrating a corp, and facilitating an ‘employee transfer’ of sorts. It’s sold to him as an easy job – they have a floor plan, his team of mercenaries is experienced, and the ex-soldier knows that preparation is key. Armed with information, and a tight plan, you would expect things might actually go smoothly. Of course, they don’t. Partly because this is a cyberpunk thriller, wherein things NEVER go well. But mostly, because however well prepared you are, no matter how tight a plan you’re following, there’s one thing you can’t account for. People.
Worst Case Scenario is the third of author Phil Stitelmann’s novellas set in his Digital Gods and Fallen Angels series. His previous two novellas, Dissociation Delirium and No Future Tonight, paint a bleak picture of the cyberpunk future, with very dark themes, and a lot of brutality. Worst Case Scenario is a little bit lighter, as cyberpunk thrillers go, but there are some overriding themes that carry over despite the tone, and one of them is people. The ones you can trust, and the ones you can’t.
Worst Case Scenario is a fun, action-packed romp, as a group of experienced mercenaries attempt to carry out an extraction, from one corp to deliver to another. It’s a short and snappy story, with constant forward momentum. The characters at its heart are colourful, and there is a lot of humour in the story to accompany the breathless action. The book continues to build out the setting of Stitelmann’s cyberpunk series. The members of the mercenary team work well together, and have a strong camaraderie, but are very different in terms of skillset and background. It’s a fun way to introduce different augmentations, tech, and weapon sets. The way these are used and introduced are always interesting, with names and context given to the equipment when they’re mentioned to make the world feel authentic, whilst not bogging down the story in too much description – it is efficient world building, something that isn’t necessarily easy to get right.
One of the other elements that tie the three novellas together is a deep mistrust of corporate culture. In our present day, the actions of powerful corporations can often be dubious at best, and that is dialled up to eleven in the Digital Gods and Fallen Angels series. Employees can be considered too valuable to lose, or they can be considered entirely expendable. Neo Las Angeles is ruled by powerful corporations, with many job positions basically indentured servitude in all but name. And they take job termination deadly seriously.
Worst Case Scenario is a fun, entertaining heist story, dripping with satirical humour, whilst not compromising on the series’ scathing view of corporate culture. If you want to know more about Phil Stitelmann’s Digital Gods and Fallen Angels series, and his previous novellas, check out our Author Spotlight feature, which you can find here – https://cyberstopia.com/author-spotlight-phil-stitelmann/ You can also visit Stitielmann’s website at https://digital-gods-and-fallen-angels.com/
Worst Case Scenario is available now on Amazon Kindle.
Trailer – Karoshi
The first trailer for action thriller Karoshi was released this week. Directed by Takashi Doscher, it looks at cut-throat corporate culture in near-future Manhattan.
Synopsis –
Produced by Chad Stahelski (John Wick franchise), and written and directed by Takashi Doscher, KARŌSHI is an action-thriller set in a near-future Manhattan, where corporate loyalty and cultural tradition have reshaped everyday life. When a mysterious outsider infiltrates a powerful company after a worker’s death, he exposes the violent system hidden beneath its polished surface.
Based on what we can tell from the trailer and the synopsis, the movie is set in a dystopian-style future, where corporate culture has become significantly more cut-throat (Karoshi translates as overwork death). The near future of the city looks beautiful in the trailers, and very atmospheric. The cinematography is looking stylish, and the action that can be seen in the trailer is skillfully shot, fluid, and, importantly, well lit – quite often action movies rely a lot on dark rooms and fast cuts, so this has clearly been made with care and a sizeable budget.
Karoshi is produced by Chad Stahelski, director of the John Wick franchise, which is as close as you can get to cyberpunk without actually being. He also produced Ballerina, and is a martial artist and former stunt performer, so you know the action is going to be at the forefront, and if it is even half as well choreographed as the John Wick movies, we’re in for a treat.
The movie is written and directed by Takashi Doscher, who has previously written and directed sci-fi drama Only. It stars Teo Yoo, Isabel May, Takehiro Hira, and Giancarlo Esposito, among others.
Karoshi is scheduled for release on February 5th 2027. You can check out the trailer below.
Books – October Roundup
Over the past month, we’ve had a diverse selection of books released, from mainstream IP in the Ready Player One Graphic Novel, through cyberpunk romance, to the latest frenetic action thriller from a best selling author. We round-up all the best book releases from October, and you can check it out here – https://cyberstopia.com/books-october-roundup/
Film – Model Citizen
Sci-fi tech thriller Model Citizen was released on digital streaming in the US this week. Starring Aaron Eckhart, it follows an ex-cop whose life descends into paranoia as he fights to regain his memory, suspecting someone is watching over him.
Synopsis –
MODEL CITIZEN follows Steven Bay, a former police officer haunted by amnesia and fragments of a life he can no longer remember. Seeking treatment while working on an isolated farm, Steven finds himself trapped in an increasingly unsettling world of constant surveillance, mounting suspicion, and unexplained instincts that suggest someone is controlling far more than his recovery. As reality begins to fracture around him, Steven launches a desperate search for answers, uncovering a web of technology, manipulation, and human experimentation. With every revelation raising new questions, MODEL CITIZEN is a pulse-pounding sci-fi crime thriller where identity is a weapon, memory is a prison, and the truth may be impossible to escape.
Aaron Eckhart had a bit of a moment in the late 2000’s, starring in The Dark Knight and the ‘Fallen’ franchise, but despite obvious acting talent and charisma, it never quite panned out for him. His latest, Model Citizen, is bypassing theatrical release and heading straight to digital streaming. Model Citizen looks interesting, but does have late 2000’s vibes to it. Steven has no memories of his life before he became, we guess, the model citizen of the title. He comes to suspect all is not as it seems, discovers he is under surveillance, and it looks like ultimately the question is, is he the hero or the villain of the movie? It looks like he is maybe in some kind of Truman Show style prison, but is the situation more akin to Total Recall? We hope so, cos we’re going out on a limb posting this trailer on a cyberpunk-focused website…
Model Citizen, from Warner Bros. Entertainment, is written by Ian Arnison-Phillips, and directed by Tag Mendillo, who has no previous feature film credits as a director. The tag at the end of the trailer stated ‘Look for it on digital’, so we’re not entirely sure which platforms you can find it on… You can check out the trailer below.
Videogame – Airframe Ultra
Futuristic combat racing videogame Airframe Ultra is available now on PC, via Steam. Developed and Published Akupara Games, it sees you take on all comers in races across a variety of dystopian cyberpunk locations.
Synopsis –
From the rusting shipyards of Slabtown to the sleek ‘scrapers in Ellay… from the dune dens of the Ysidro edgelands to the hulking arcologies of the Texicali ZEGO zone, Airframe racers from all across Megacity West compete for fame, fortune and a chance at glory… three feet above or six feet below. You can have everything you’ve ever wanted. All you need to do is win.
From the outset, your objective in the game is merely to survive! As you begin to make kills and move up the pack, you’ll be able to unlock. new helmets and outfits, clothes. If you’re really successful, you’ll win enough parts and you can make a new Airframe. This looks like a retro-style combat racer in the style of Road Rash, but with more distinct futuristic visuals. You’ll race through diverse tracks from cutting-edge raised-track cyber cities, to run-down, dirty underground and industrial locations. There looks to be a diverse set of weaponry, and brutal action.
Airframe Ultra released on Steam for PC on November 5th. You can check out a demo version on the Steam page here – https://store.steampowered.com/app/2522120/Airframe_Ultra/
You can check out the trailer below –
Short Film – Hyperburn
This past week, director Travis DuBridges’s sci-fi short film Hyperburn was released on YouTube, courtesy of the Dust channel. The story sees a soldier trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic environment with the help of an artificial intelligence assistant.
Synopsis –
In a post-apocalyptic wasteland, a comedic, action-packed sci-fi unfolds as our hero teams up with his newly implanted A.I. companion. Together, they embark on a quest across the unforgiving desert. His first challenge? Find his team. Second? Survive the crippling boredom of the endless sand. Third? Face off against a formidable foe.
Having sabotaged an enemy spaceship, a soldier is teleported down to ground level, a barren desert. The soldier is injured, and separated from his team, his only companion an integrated artificial intelligence tactical system. The AI is curiously uninformed on the status of the rest of the team, having lost all contact – they are out of range.. The implanted AI, which is not without a sense of humour, discovers a signal, and sends him on his way.
The AI tactical system depicted is an interesting look at how artificial intelligence can advise and monitor soldiers on the battlefield. It is able to search for wireless signals and broadcasts, and evaluate the health of the user, including diagnosing injuries – this is the benefit of a biologically integrated system, as it can constantly monitor the condition of the soldier. It can also perform functions like measuring the distance for sniper shots. This is something a skilled soldier can also do by eye, but the processing power of an AI means interpretation of data can be much faster. The system in Hyperburn has a very dry sense of humour. Is this key to using AI in a collaborative way, can we as humans engage better with matching personalities? Or is this more offputting? Another benefit of an AI teammate is the potential to talk the user down when decisions are made based on emotion – the artificial intelligence can think logically, and make decisions based on percentage equations.
Hyperburn is written and directed by Travis DuBridge. It stars Travis DuBridge, Morgan Holcomb, and Matt Murphy. It is well produced, humorous, and inspires a lot of questions about how AI can be used in extreme situations. You can watch Hyperburn on YouTube, for free, below.
Dust is a curated YouTube channel of independent short films, all in the science fiction genre, and they have a wide selection of well produced, thought provoking sci-fi films, all available to watch for free. We highly recommend checking them out.
https://www.youtube.com/@watchdust/featured
Podcast – The High Tech Low Life Podcast Episode 139: Burning Chrome
The latest episode of The High Tech Low Life Podcast is available now. This week, hosts Eric and Josh cover William Gibson’s Burning Chrome.
The High Tech Low Life Podcast is a retrospective of cyberpunk fiction across all forms of media. Every episode, Eric and Josh start by talking about the real world dystopia in which we find ourselves, offer some cyberpunk related or adjacent recommendos, and then discuss a piece of cyberpunk media, sometimes joined by a guest. They have nearly 150 episodes available, and you can find The High Tech Low Life Podcast at the link below, and all good podcast platforms.
Also have another completed podcast, Johnny Mnminute, where each episode they watched one minute of the movie Johnny Mnemonic, and stripped it bare. It’s a great listen, and you can check it out below.
The High Tech Low Life Podcast also has a Patreon, which offers exclusive content and early access to episodes, which you can access below.
https://www.patreon.com/cw/hightechlowlife
They also have a channel on the Astronomica Discord server.
Comics – 04-11-26 Releases
We take a look at this week’s cyberpunk and dystopian comic releases.
REBELLION
2000 AD #2507
From the publisher –
I am The Mighty Tharg, all-powerful alien editor of this cosmically charged anthology comic!
Welcome back, my Squaxx, to your weekly dose of Thrill-power, delivered straight into your brains courtesy of my coterie of hardworking creator-droids. This week, we have a scrotnig one-off Azimuth story from regular collaborators Dan Abnett & Tazio Bettin, setting up the next stage of the epic story when it returns in 2027, alongside the ongoing Judge Dredd, Durham Red, Herne & Shuck & Ghosted!
As we barrel into November, it gives my Betelgeusian noggin a minor spin to realise that we’re just approximately one and a half months away from the seasonal Thrillsplosion that is the 100-page Xmas issue, a zarjaz end-of-year blow-out that’s been the tradition now for an incredible twenty-seven years! Where were you when Prog 2000 landed in 1999?
Regardless, it’s the highlight of many an Earthlet’s year, and I don’t think it’s too early to recommend that you engage those anticipation circuits now, Terrans, as I start revealing what will be contained in Prog 2513 over the coming weeks.
As ever, it’ll be guaranteed ghafflebette!
2000 AD is a British science fiction comic book, which has been publishing for nearly 50 years 1977, famed for its dark British humour, and satirical and subversive stories. The jewel in the crown is Judge Dredd, a dystopian cyberpunk icon, whilst The Fall of Deadworld is a kind of an alternative history prequel series about Judge Dredd enemy Judge Death. Meanwhile Mega-City 2099 stories serve as a more traditional prequel.
DEVIL’S DUE PUBLISHING
CIRCUITS SEDUCTION REVENGE #1
From the publisher –
An all-new quarterly ongoing series! In 2050 A.D., Earth has survived the AI singularity and settled into a strange new equilibrium: futuristic metropolises under mandatory logdowns, cities reserved for sentient survivors of a deactivated AI consciousness, and breakaway communities living like it’s still 1985. This new cyberpunk saga merges the worlds of the previous Circuits: Seduction-Revenge one-shot and The Encoded, as a mysterious rogue pleasure android wreaks havoc on the trillionaire class, forcing them to turn to an equally dangerous artificial life-form to stop her.
A new comic series that originally funded on Kickstarter, merging their worlds of the previous Circuits: Seduction-Revenge one-shot and The Encoded series. It follows a rogue pleasure android who wreaks havoc on the trillionaire class, forcing them to turn to an equally dangerous artificial life-form to stop her.
TITAN
BLADE RUNNER: TOKYO NEXUS – DIE WITH HONOR #1
From the publisher –
Alura shows the Kalanthia traitor, who is head of the Cheshire bootleg Replicant program, photos of Stix and Mead, realising they are still alive, he panics and demands she kill them. Alura refuses until Uldren makes good on his promise of delivering bootleg Replicants as promised. Later, she summons Stix and introduces him to the ‘Borealis Team’ — a three-Cheshire Replicant team who are all clones of the original Aurora Team who served with Stix on Kalanthia. He is ordered to lead them on a mission to hunt down and kill Madame Nomura.
Meanwhile, Mead, still believing that Stix is the killer of Sayo — Nomura’s daughter, steals his Cheshire ID card and breaks into Cheshire HQ in search of evidence and witnesses the brutal mass assassination of the Yakuza sub-bosses by a second Cheshire Replicant kill team led by Lerna, who is linked to Alura via one of the two surviving Aurora Yokes.
Titan Comics’ series of Blade Runner comics has been keeping the franchise alive since their first series, Blade Runner 2019, was published in, yes, 2019. Set in the same canon as the 1982 Blade Runner movie, and Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049, this is a new set of issues in the Tokyo Nexus series. The new Blade Runner series, Blade Runner 2099, premieres on Amazon Prime Video on November 25, 2026.
INDEPENDENT
THE PATROLMAN BOOK ONE
From the publisher –
In a London fallen to gang control, sealed off from the rest of the world, retired super criminal Theo Deviant is bored.
Corrupt corporations run the city, trading with the rest of the world, offending his anarchist instincts.
Theo realises the only person able to restore London and bring down the Lord Mayor, the enigmatic figure controlling the gangs, is the Patrolman.
But the vigilante nemesis is dead, killed by Theo’s own hand.
So it’s now up to him to train a new Patrolman and take the city back…
Having funded on Kickstarter, but still open for late pledges, The Patrolman was created as part of the 20th anniversary celebrations of Time Bomb Comics. The story is set in an alternate London ruled by a corrupt Lord Mayor, and the corporations under his influence. After his greatest nemesis, The Patrolman, is killed, a replacement is handpicked to be trained, in order to carry on the ongoing fight. The issue will contain 52 full colour pages, and you can see the available reward tiers on the Kickstarter page – https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/timebomb/the-patrolman-book-one
AVALON #1
From the publisher –
Set in the year 3164, AVALON takes place in a megacity-state built from what was once the United States and all of Europe, a vertical sprawl of neon, rain, and body modification. Humanity has entered a transhumanist age run by consumerism, and the key to immortality lies in cloning Consciousness.
Nico is a Runner, a mercenary who moves small, precious cargo through Avalon’s underworld without asking questions. Her partner Epsy, a brilliant hacker, guides her through the city’s alleys and bridges from the chair. When a routine run descends into chaos, the pair uncover secrets that could change the trajectory of humanity and put them in the sights of Hale Atlan, the CEO of the centuries-old Atlan Industries and a woman who will stop at nothing for immortality.
Already fully funded on Kickstarter, but still open for late pledges, Avalon is a vast, vertical megacity-state, and is a combination of the former United States and Europe. POV character Epsy, a pragmatic altruist, is a hacker, and is effectively the support agent for her girlfriend, loudmouth Nico. Nico is a runner, specialising in transporting illicit packages through the vast megacity, whilst avoiding the attention of the large corporations that rule Avalon. You can get on board on the Kickstarter page –
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/apollocitycomics/avalon-1-0
THE FOUR ORPHANS #2
In the year 3000 AD, a sinister global organization known as The Bureau rules the world. Their ultimate weapon wasn’t a bomb—it was an absolute erasure. Using advanced technology, The Bureau successfully wiped the entire existence, historical triumphs, and global contributions of the Arab and Islamic civilizations from human memory.
Today, the world has no memory of the grand legacy that shaped the course of human history. The Bureau has replaced reality with a false narrative that minimizes the significance of an entire people on the world stage.
But deep in the shadows, four orphans—Qusai, Idris, Chaima, and Zahra—have discovered the truth.
Equipped with rogue tech and burning determination, they wage a secret war to uncover these secrets and expose them to the world. With every piece of history they reclaim, the population awakens. Memory is power. And they are determined to build a brand new future.
The continuation of a cyberpunk superhero comic rooted in identity, lost history, and futuristic rebellion, The Four Orphans #2 is currently funding on Kickstarter with a number of different reward tiers including physical and digital versions, as well as bundles including issue #1. Issue #1 is also available on YouTube as a 1-hour English-subtitled Motion Comic adaptation here – https://youtu.be/ijWyPwmDf10?si=2x29cYZ_0uVGp4cW
You can find the Kickstarter page here – https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/610pro/the-four-orphans-2-stolen-history-cyberpunk-comic/description
Book – No One Ever Leaves
RK Mink’s cyberpunk novel No One Ever Leaves is now available on Amazon. 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.
No One Ever leaves originally funded on Kickstarter, and is now available via Amazon in Kindle and audiobook formats. The audiobook is Narrated by Harley Roberts, and is around 5 hours in length. You can watch the original Kickstarter trailer for the book below.
Boardgame – Cyberpunk TCG: Welcome to Night City
The official Cyberpunk Trading Card Game, Welcome to Night City, was officially released this week. This Cyberpunk TCG originally funded via Kickstarter in April, and is now officially available from retailers.
From the publisher –
Build your crew. Earn your legend.
In Cyberpunk Trading Card Game, you’ll put together the ultimate edgerunner crew with characters from across the franchise, pitting them against your opponent as you fight to become a Night City legend. Featuring stunning, custom artwork, Cyberpunk TCG is designed for trading card players, avid collectors, and fans of the Cyberpunk franchise alike.
The Cyberpunk 2077 TCG is a two-player competitive game, in which you are the leader of your edgerunner crew, made up of legends from your favourite Cyberpunk 2077 characters. In order to become a Night City Legend, you will need to take on jobs, named Gigs in the game. You must amass the majority of Gig dice, and secure them for a whole turn. You do this by playing cards to deploy your personnel, equip them with gear and augmentations, and strategically employ Programs.
As you play, you will grow your reputation, gaining access to more powerful gear and abilities in the process. However, your opponent will be attempting to do the same. This is a game of conflict, and you can attempt to take on your Rival’s Gigs if they have better potential rewards. In order to prevail, you will need to Secure Gigs, earn Eddies, and beat your opponent to the title of Night City Legend!
To play, you need a set of six dice (d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20) and a deck of Cyberpunk TCG cards. You can buy one of two Welcome to Night City Starter Sets, each containing a fully playable, 40-card deck with 3 Legends and a full set of 6 dice, everything you need to play. You can also buy booster packs to unlock a wide variety of new characters, gear, and gigs, each pack containing 12 cards, with rarities including: Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic Rare, Secret Rare, and Iconic Rare (Alt-Art Treatments).
The Cyberpunk TCG Welcome to Night City set packs and boosters are available now from all good retailers. The follow up set, Edgerunners: Burn Bright, is set for release in Spring 2027. There are a lot of great videos showcasing the game on the Cyberpunk TCG YouTube channel, but the brief How To Play video below is a good place to start.
Film – Kill/Save
This week, Kill/Save was released to watch, for free, on Plex in the UK. The movie revolves around a cutting edge virtual reality world, a woman that goes missing within it, and her boyfriend’s desperate attempts to get her out.
Synopsis –
When simulation becomes as real as reality, how will you know where you are?
In a locked-down megacity where reality is optional, a lonely programmer risks his mind to rescue his girlfriend from a virtual prison — only to face a truth that challenges the very meaning of salvation and free will.
Martin is a programmer who creates virtual worlds, with the help of an artificial intelligence assistant. He lives a lonely existence, living and working in a tiny flat in a futuristic city in the midst of a long-term lockdown. His solitude is interrupted when his AI helper arranges for a home share with a mysterious woman. The two soon become involved in a relationship, but have differing ideas on the value of spending time in virtual worlds – she likes the escape from reality that total immersion offers, whilst he is distrustful of the corporations running the technology, and thinks it is better to stay connected to the real world. One day, having been given trial use of an experimental, cutting edge immersion pod, his girlfriend enters the virtual world, and doesn’t come back out again. Martin has no way to disconnect her, so is faced with a dilemma – should he immerse himself in the virtual world in order to pull her back out?
With virtual reality and the metaverse yet to really catch on in our present world, Kill/Save asks some interesting questions about what the future could hold for the technology. We know there are people who get perhaps a little too involved with videogames, particularly online games. If those worlds begin to feel more real, with haptic technology that allow the sensations to feel close enough to reality, are we at risk of losing people completely to worlds in which they have more control. As life gets continuously worse out here, what’s stopping them from going deeper in there? Kill/Save ups the ante by setting the story within a long-term lockdown due to a virus. If you can’t venture outside, what choice do you have but to venture online?
The movie also brings up tricky subjects like online relationships. If you have a real world partner, and embark on an online relationship, most people would generally consider that cheating. What if that relationship is with an NPC, though? Artificially intelligent romantic partners are something that has become a part of our world now, and these questions are already being asked. The possibilities of more intense physical exchanges with these ‘partners’, though, muddies the waters even more.
Kill/Save shows the effects this kind of jealousy can have on a relationship, and the consequences. It also looks at the potential dangers of trusting corporations to run these virtual environments, and the virtual characters we encounter, where romantic feelings can be exploited, and the potentially confusing line between reality and virtuality can be used to trick us. The movie also has some fun online sequences – as the main character investigates his girlfriend’s online whereabouts, he is forced to encounter NPCs who are not necessarily inclined to help him in his quest, allowing for some Groundhog Day-like shenanigans as he has to use trial and error in order to learn the best path through opposition to get to his goal.
Kill/Save is directed by Den Kryuchkov, who co-wrote the screenplay alongside Olga Loyanich. The film stars Matt Testro, Stephanie Gil, and Eric Goode, amongst others. It is available to watch now, for free, on Plex in the UK. It is scheduled for release to streaming in the US on November 17th. You can check out the trailer below.
Book – Foreign Bodies
Sawyer Rowe’s dystopian sci-fi novel, Foreign Bodies, was released this week. Set in a dystopian future city divided into three rings, its protagonist, Lark, finds her world turned upside down when rogue androids attack her homestead.
Synopsis –
THEY SAY THE CITY IS SAFE. THEY SAY THE WORLD IS DEAD.
Five years after banished androids killed her father, eighteen-year-old Lark Elliot knows better: beyond the fences, where the birds call in warning, the Wilds are dangerous—and alive.
But scavenging means survival, so she counts to keep the panic at bay. Drinks to dull her father’s words. Then a battered stranger appears at the boundary.
He is not dead. He should be. His wounds heal impossibly fast, and when he wakes, he remembers nothing. All he has is a word branded into his skin:
NERO
When Lark’s uncle vanishes, her refusal to lose the last of her family means trusting Nero—and questioning everything she knows to be true. Because people are disappearing. They won’t return the same.
In the City of Cobalt, surviving might be worse than death.
AND SOMETIMES, THE ENEMY LOOKS LIKE FAMILY.
Protagonist Lark lives a pretty meagre existence. Cobalt, the city at the heart of Foreign Bodies, has a distinct divide, and Lark lives on the neglected outer ring. No electricity, no support from the centre, no hope. She, along with her community, gets by by scavenging from the wilds, then world outside of the fence, where the trash from the centre is dumped. They’re called the wilds for a reason, however, and are plagued by malfunctioning androids that pose a murderous threat.
When a mysterious stranger is discovered, injured and suffering from amnesia, there is inevitable suspicion. Before he is able to regain his memory, and his past can be puzzled out, there is a massive android attack, and then Lark’s home, and her world, collapses around her. This sends her off into an adventure where she discovers that those closest to her haven’t been completely open and honest about her past, or their present.
Foreign Bodies begins like a fairly standard dystopian YA story. Lark is a teenager living a hard life, far removed from the comfortable and wealthy on the other side of the fence. When her status quo changes, she is forced into an adventure of self-discovery, but then it becomes clear this isn’t the usual journey of hope. Usually, the protagonist would learn how to use their natural skills, pick up some new tricks, and become an unstoppable force that instills fear in the hearts of her oppressors.
Foreign Bodies, however, is a much more down to earth, ‘realistic’ story. Lark is an alcoholic. Not a functioning alcoholic that takes down her enemies with a smirk and a quip. She is a very troubled teenage girl who is ill-equipped for the position that events have forced her into. She has little real family left, and her ‘found’ family, her friends and those she is pressed into working alongside, have chosen not to fully trust her to play her part. She is young, inexperienced in the threats they are facing, and unlike the heroes of some fantastical adventures, her past and her emotions prove to be as much a barrier as they are her motivation.
When people aren’t honest with Lark, she gets upset. When she gets upset, she drinks. As you can imagine, this doesn’t endear her to those around her, and they do not necessarily treat her with the understanding, forgiveness, and support she needs. This makes her journey considerably more difficult, and it makes her character so much more relatable. As she muddles through her new existence, trying hard to make the right decisions in her struggle to find the truth, there’s no easy route. No miraculous happenstances that facilitate her success, no mysterious mentor figure there to tell her exactly what she needs to know, and what she needs to do. Like in real life, there is no simple blueprint, and the pieces do not easily fall into place.
The plot at the heart of Foreign Bodies is relatively ‘standard’. The poor, maligned masses struggling against the corrupt rich. Twists and turns, revelations that shock the main characters just as they think they’ve uncovered the true nature of the threat, and a bit of will they/won’t they romance. But that’s not really what Foreign Bodies is about. The plot is there, and it is interesting, but this story is about the characters. Their flaws, their relationships, and their bitter struggles to get past the flaws hampering their progress. It has something real to say about what it is to be human, and the difficulty and suffering it brings. Dystopian YA is back, but it is now a lot deeper and complex.
Foreign Bodies is Book One, and as yet there is no release date for Book Two. It is available now in both paperback, and ebook formats. Check out www.sawyerrowe.com for more details.
PODCAST – HOSTS IN THE SHELL EPISODE 76: Comic Book Artist Jim Hobbs
The latest episode of Hosts in the Shell is available now. This week, hosts Jon Richter and Matt Adcock talk to comic book artist Jim Hobbs.
The Hosts in the Shell podcast is a cyberpunk podcast where Jon and Matt discuss the genre’s greatest work, often alongside a notable guest, and they have over 50 episodes available. You can find the Hosts in the Shell podcast at the link below, and all good podcast platforms.
As well as being podcasters, Jon and Matt are also authors with cyberpunk related titles amongst their novels.
You can find out more about Jon’s work here –
You can find out more about Matt’s work here –
www.completedarknessnovel.com/
CYBERSTOPIA – Discord
Cyberstopia now has a Discord server! Please join us and build a community for cyberpunk and dystopia discussion. We have sections for all the latest news, channels for discussion of The Ghost in the Shell series, as well as upcoming shows like Edgrerunners 2, Blade Runner 2099, and Neuromancer, as well as an author section with a number of cyberpunk authors talking about their work, giving updates on your current projects, etc… It’s a great place to hang out.
https://discord.gg/purcXCnXzE
For more of the latest news on cyberpunk and dystopia media, stay tuned to Cyberstopia here on the website, and across social media. If you have a Cyberstopian project or release, or there’s something you think we should be covering, please let us know here in the comments, on your social media platform of choice, or on the Contact page at www.cyberstopia.com
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