Infinite Detail: A Novel

A LOCUS AWARD FINALIST FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL

A timely and uncanny portrait of a world in the wake of fake news, diminished privacy, and a total shutdown of the Internet.


This program includes a bonus interview between the author and journalist Brian Merchant.

BEFORE: In Bristol's center lies the Croft, a digital no-man's-land cut off from the surveillance, Big Data dependence, and corporate-sponsored, globally hegemonic aspirations that have overrun the rest of the world. Ten years in, it's become a center of creative counterculture. But it's fraying at the edges, radicalizing from inside. How will it fare when its chief architect, Rushdi Mannan, takes off to meet his boyfriend in New York City-now the apotheosis of the new techno-utopian global metropolis?

AFTER: An act of anonymous cyberterrorism has permanently switched off the Internet. Global trade, travel, and communication have collapsed. The luxuries that characterized modern life are scarce. In the Croft, Mary-who has visions of people presumed dead-is sought out by grieving families seeking connections to lost ones. But does Mary have a gift or is she just hustling to stay alive? Like Grids, who runs the Croft's black market like personal turf. Or like Tyrone, who hoards music (culled from cassettes, the only medium to survive the crash) and tattered sneakers like treasure.

The world of Infinite Detail is a small step shy of our own: utterly dependent on technology, constantly brokering autonomy and privacy for comfort and convenience. With Infinite Detail, Tim Maughan makes the hitherto-unimaginable come true: the End of the Internet, the End of the World as We Know It.

1128680278
Infinite Detail: A Novel

A LOCUS AWARD FINALIST FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL

A timely and uncanny portrait of a world in the wake of fake news, diminished privacy, and a total shutdown of the Internet.


This program includes a bonus interview between the author and journalist Brian Merchant.

BEFORE: In Bristol's center lies the Croft, a digital no-man's-land cut off from the surveillance, Big Data dependence, and corporate-sponsored, globally hegemonic aspirations that have overrun the rest of the world. Ten years in, it's become a center of creative counterculture. But it's fraying at the edges, radicalizing from inside. How will it fare when its chief architect, Rushdi Mannan, takes off to meet his boyfriend in New York City-now the apotheosis of the new techno-utopian global metropolis?

AFTER: An act of anonymous cyberterrorism has permanently switched off the Internet. Global trade, travel, and communication have collapsed. The luxuries that characterized modern life are scarce. In the Croft, Mary-who has visions of people presumed dead-is sought out by grieving families seeking connections to lost ones. But does Mary have a gift or is she just hustling to stay alive? Like Grids, who runs the Croft's black market like personal turf. Or like Tyrone, who hoards music (culled from cassettes, the only medium to survive the crash) and tattered sneakers like treasure.

The world of Infinite Detail is a small step shy of our own: utterly dependent on technology, constantly brokering autonomy and privacy for comfort and convenience. With Infinite Detail, Tim Maughan makes the hitherto-unimaginable come true: the End of the Internet, the End of the World as We Know It.

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Infinite Detail: A Novel

Infinite Detail: A Novel

by Tim Maughan

Narrated by Joe Sims, Marisa Calin

Unabridged — 9 hours, 34 minutes

Infinite Detail: A Novel

Infinite Detail: A Novel

by Tim Maughan

Narrated by Joe Sims, Marisa Calin

Unabridged — 9 hours, 34 minutes

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Overview

A LOCUS AWARD FINALIST FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL

A timely and uncanny portrait of a world in the wake of fake news, diminished privacy, and a total shutdown of the Internet.


This program includes a bonus interview between the author and journalist Brian Merchant.

BEFORE: In Bristol's center lies the Croft, a digital no-man's-land cut off from the surveillance, Big Data dependence, and corporate-sponsored, globally hegemonic aspirations that have overrun the rest of the world. Ten years in, it's become a center of creative counterculture. But it's fraying at the edges, radicalizing from inside. How will it fare when its chief architect, Rushdi Mannan, takes off to meet his boyfriend in New York City-now the apotheosis of the new techno-utopian global metropolis?

AFTER: An act of anonymous cyberterrorism has permanently switched off the Internet. Global trade, travel, and communication have collapsed. The luxuries that characterized modern life are scarce. In the Croft, Mary-who has visions of people presumed dead-is sought out by grieving families seeking connections to lost ones. But does Mary have a gift or is she just hustling to stay alive? Like Grids, who runs the Croft's black market like personal turf. Or like Tyrone, who hoards music (culled from cassettes, the only medium to survive the crash) and tattered sneakers like treasure.

The world of Infinite Detail is a small step shy of our own: utterly dependent on technology, constantly brokering autonomy and privacy for comfort and convenience. With Infinite Detail, Tim Maughan makes the hitherto-unimaginable come true: the End of the Internet, the End of the World as We Know It.


Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Maughan conducts a masterclass in the thrill and contradictions of counterculture, the uses and abuses of networks, the ways that capitalism can bend and flex to adapt, until, suddenly, it breaks. This is a stunning debut.” —Cory Doctorow

"Says something important and thought provoking about such hot-topic issues as privacy, the interconnectedness of the world’s population, and class structure; but, thanks to Maughan's rigorously developed characters and his ability to tell a compelling story, the book is never preachy. A seriously good page-turner with plenty of meat on its bones." —David Pitt, Booklist

“Maughan’s dynamic, sprawling, post-postmodern cyberpunk debut . . . is an energetic novel about civilization as it races toward the ultimate overload.” —Publishers Weekly

"The characters are compelling, and it’s worth reaching the end just to find out how Maughan wraps up this Byzantine puzzle box. An original and engaging work of kitchen-sink dystopia." —Kirkus Reviews

"Infinite Detail is the new required reading for the future's next fifteen minutes. A sobering, often frightening look at the implications of the networked world. Riveting, sinister and deeply human." —Warren Ellis, author of Normal

“Deft and jolting as an EMP, Infinite Detail is a worryingly credible ghost story about our electronic lives.” —Lauren Beukes, author of The Shining Girls

“A singular speculative debut, Infinite Detail asks crucial questions about the nature of our relationship to technology. A lively and provocative novel particularly equipped for the challenges of our moment.” —Jeff VanderMeer, author of Borne and the Southern Reach trilogy

"Looping and layered, disruptive and deeply linked—Tim Maughan’s unsparing tale of the internet's end is a paper internet unto itself. The native 21st-century novel is coming into view; it looks like Infinite Detail." —Robin Sloan, author of Sourdough

"Tim Maughan brings a deep knowledge of why the contemporary world works as it does, along with an informed awareness of how subcultures operate, to Infinite Detail—a powerful narrative featuring characters hardened but never crushed, told in crystal-sharp writing that leaves you wanting more." —Jack Womack, author of Random Acts of Senseless Violence

"Tim Maughan’s fiction is whip-smart, funny as hell, and full of hard truths most people would rather ignore. And despite its riveting dystopian scenario and biting critiques of life in late capitalism, Infinite Detail has so much deeply felt grace, heart, and hope." —Ingrid Burrington, artist, journalist, and author of Networks of New York

"Tim Maughan gets it. This civilization is over and everyone knows it. Infinite Detail gets on with the job of figuring out what to do next. His inspiring characters show us how to live and love in these ruins." —McKenzie Wark, author of A Hacker Manifesto, Gamer Theory, and Telesthesia

Infinite Detail is an immaculately patterned debut novel, its author as in control of its design as the metafiction specialist Christopher Priest. Maughan's feel for and knowledge of the technological straightjacket of contemporary culture is the equal of William Gibson. I have not often felt optimistic after reading a dystopian sci-fi novel, but Maughan's debut leaves you with a Vonnegut-like sense of abiding humanity. Infinite Detail offers a sorely-needed perspective on the transience of the internet age. Fierce and compassionate, its vision of a post-apocalyptic afterlife is a blessing.” —Dan O'Hara, editor of Extreme Metaphors: Selected Interviews with J. G. Ballard

Kirkus Reviews

2018-12-11

When a young iconoclast unleashes a destructive algorithm, a group of vagabonds in Bristol struggles to come to terms with the world that follows.

You never know quite what you're going to get with journalist Maughan's thoughtful dystopian debut novel, which offers a blush of cyberpunk, a shakerful of Neal Stephenson, and a dash of Cory Doctorow's speculative fiction. The book's time frame is split in half, alternating by chapters. In "Before," our main protagonist is hacker-turned-activist Rushdi Manaan, who's built an alternative community in Bristol, England, called the Croft, completely cut off from the internet and outside communication—mostly artists doing their thing. He's gone to New York to visit his boyfriend, Scott, but he's also working on an algorithm that could change the world, for better or worse. In "After," the Croft is barely holding together after a group of cyberterrorists unleashes what they call a "reboot," completely destroying every network, every cellular device, and essentially switching off the internet itself. The occupants of the Croft are a pretty ragtag group by this point, connected to the past only by artist Anika, who bridges the gap between stories. Elsewhere are Grids, who runs the black market, Tyrone, who trades in old music cassettes, and Mary, who sees ghosts through her glasses, although she's unable to communicate with them. As a backlash against the connected world and an indictment of internet culture, it's a terrifying scenario rife with terrorist attacks and a movement whose mantra reads in part, "With zero bandwidth opportunity is our only weapon." The story is a bit fractured in structure, but the characters are compelling, and it's worth reaching the end just to find out how Maughan wraps up this Byzantine puzzle box.

An original and engaging work of kitchen-sink dystopia.

Product Details

BN ID: 2940169283976
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Publication date: 03/05/2019
Edition description: Unabridged
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