Cyberpunk
Date Published: 01-27-2022
Publisher: Black Rose
Welcome to Berlin. Population: desperate. In the throes of the climate crisis the green tech pioneers are king, and if you aren't willing to be their serf then you're surplus to requirements.
Carbon credit for sleeping on the job. That's the offer a dreamtech puts to Mara Kinzig, and she jumps on it. After all, the city ain't getting any cheaper.
Then somebody changes the deal while she's dreaming in the tank.
Now Mara has a body on her hands, an extra voice in her head, and the law on her tail. Only the Vanguard, a Foreign Legion of outcasts seeking an alternative path in the dust between the city states, might be able to help her figure out what went wrong. First, though, she'll have to escape the seething streets of Berlin alive.
What is the hardest part
of writing your books?
Getting them
published. It’s funny when I tell someone I finished writing a novel; they usually
say “Congratulations! When’s it coming out?” Uh, I don’t know. After I spend six
solid months accumulating rejections and then accept the first miserable offer
thrown my way? Yes, that’s it. That’s when it’s coming out, dear friend.
What songs are most
played on your iPod?
I don’t worship at the altar of Apple,
but if we turn to Spotify (those benign supporters of artists), my most-played
for this month would be the new FKA Twigs album, Koreless, Molly Nilsson,
Burial, Alice in Chains and probably a load of Mastodon.
Do you have critique
partners or beta readers?
My brother is my main beta reader.
Keep it in the family, you know. He’s really the only person I trust to be
brutally honest, and he’ll tell me outright when something is so bad it needs
to be torn up and burned and cast to the four winds. Then I have a couple of
secondary beta readers for when my brother has weeded out the most embarrassing
stuff.
What book are you
reading now?
Um, Zeno’s Conscience and Don Quixote,
both of which make me sound intolerable. Zeno
is quite a handful, but it has aphorisms in there that make me stop and stare
at the page. Quixote is actually
genuinely funny – I just read a chapter where Cervantes just lists books he
hates and has a bishop throw them in a fire. How nice to be able to air your
artistic grievances in that way.
How did you start your
writing career?
Oh, with a bang. I bought a ton of
fireworks and painted myself blue, then stood on top of my building in downtown
Berlin and screamed at people through a megaphone that I was embarking on a
journey as a writer. In the slightly truer version, I sat down one day and
wrote 800 words, and then the next day I wrote 800 more, and the day after that
I wrote another 800. And so on.
Tell us about your next
release.
I mean, Reality Testing is the only release on
the cards, and it’s out now. I don’t know if you know Neil Sharpson – he wrote
the excellent When the Sparrow Falls,
which was published by Tor Books – but he calls it “A tough-as-nails shot of
adrenaline-laced, Gibson-esque cyberpunk, set in a decaying future where the
corporatocracy has sacrificed humanity to reverse the ecological hell they
themselves created. Highly recommended for fans of the genre.” So let’s just stick
with that.
About the Author
Grant Price is the author of three novels: Static Age (2016), By the Feet of Men (2019) and Reality Testing (2022).
He has lived in Berlin, Germany, for too long.
Contact Links
Instagram: @mekong_lights
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