Double the Punk – Two New Releases – Ghost of the Neon God and The Escher Man

I have not one, but two books coming out this year. Which makes me appear incredibly productive, but it’s all an illusion, as you will see. The books:

Ghost of the Neon God is a novella set in Australia. I pitched it as Mad Max meets Johnny Mnemonic. I’ll link to the blurb in this article, but in short it’s about two petty crooks steal the wrong thing from the wrong woman. It has everything you’d expect, given the pitch: the neon-lit streets, the gritty underworld of the dark city, a desperate flight across the Australian desert, cybernetically enhanced assassins, dirty cops, and advanced tech with the potential to destroy the world. All the good stuff.

But, like all proper cyberpunk, it has (I hope), some deeper thematic issues that matter to me, and to the subgenre. Poverty, staggering inequality, the unchecked power of a corrupt elite, and that spark of human rebellion that refuses to be extinguished, despite the encroaching darkness.

It started as a short story, published in Interzone in 2017 (under the slightly-different title, ‘Ghosts of the Neon God’). I then decided to come back to it with a second short story (taking place immediately after the end of the first), which was published as ‘A Vast Silence’ in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 2021.

Then I added a third part (‘Oondiri’) which was longer than the first two combined, and I thought fuck it, let’s make this a single work. This is what is known is the business as a ‘fix-up’ manuscript. You take a previously-published shorter work (or in my case, several), and rework it into a longer piece.

It’s harder than it sounds. One minor difference, or oversight, or necessary change in the second story, for example, has a ripple effect throughout the manuscript. But it’s done and edited (a multitude of times), and I’m proud of it. While most of my work is set in Southeast Asia – in part because of the decade I lived there – and I love immersing myself (and you) in that part of the world, I am glad to finally have a longer work set in my home country. Australia does not get enough love as a cyberpunk setting.

Ghost of the Neon God will be published June 24, 2024.

The Escher Man is set in Macau. It takes place five years after the events of 36 Streets, and some characters cross over, but I consider it a stand-alone novel. Yes, Linh Vu is back, though not as the protagonist.

The cover is truly, madly, deeply spectacular. Might be my favourite, for any of my works, of all-time (a title held up until now by 36 Streets) (note that the cover quote from Adrian is a placeholder, no-one has read the book yet). They tell you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, and while as a metaphor I agree with the sentiment, the literal interpretation is precisely the opposite: readers almost always judge a book by its cover, and I don’t blame them. We’re so overwhelmed with distraction – social media and streaming and news and apps and authors touting their new releases – that readers simply don’t have a choice but to judge a book by its cover. Most particularly if it’s from a relative unknown, like me.

So: thank Christ I have such awesome art as an entry point to my work. Or, to be more accurate, thanks to Julia Lloyd, the human artist who created it.

I started this book in 2014, and perhaps one day I’ll give a full accounting of its chequered history over the past ten years, but that day is not today. Suffice to say it could never quite find the right home, and was trunked. I treated it as a lesson learned, as another step towards the goal of publication.

But after the critical success of 36 Streets, I pulled The Escher Man from oblivion of my hard drive, reworked it heavily, and came up with something a publisher wanted. The final edits (from the publisher) are still to come, and after seeing this cover I’m eager to get stuck in, to bring this new tale to the reader.

The current blurb, which will be improved by publication, tells you the following:

Endel ‘Endgame’ Ebbinghaus is a violent man, a street-level enforcer for a drug cartel. Or is he? In The Escher Man, nothing is as it seems. Friends, enemies, the past and the present, all become blurred in a world where memory manipulation has become the weapon of choice for powerful corporations.

From the gaudy, glittering demimonde of Macau, to the war-torn, steaming streets of northern Vietnam, Endel must fight to save his family, his life, and the fading memory of the man he once was.

I think that’s a pretty good taster of what to expect in the novel. The world of 36 Streets is about to get deeper, darker, bloodier, and bigger.

The Escher Man will be published on 17 September, 2024.  

The vagaries of the publishing industry, and my writing process, means that they both ended up coming out this year. Like I said, my productivity is an illusion.

Can’t wait? Well, you can partially satisfy your craving by pre-ordering now. I’ve put links in the body of this article, but you can also click here for The Escher Man (here if you’re Australian). And here for Ghost of the Neon God (and here if you’re Australian).