Repo Virtual

December 23, 2019
White’s gritty but unexceptional debut takes a deep dive into a cyberpunk world. Life in the “smart city” of Neo Songdo isn’t easy: augmented reality mixes with actual reality, and corporations hold all the power. JD, a thief and digital repo man, hustles and schemes his way through life. But when a powerful woman named Kali hires him to steal a computer virus from reclusive billionaire Zero Lee, JD doesn’t realize that it’s really the world’s first sentient artificial intelligence, Mirae. As Mirae develops a sense of self, JD and his team are thrown into peril and they’ll have to pull off their most difficult hacking job ever to save their skins. Though White drives the narrative forward at a thrilling pace, genre readers will recognize familiar plot beats and tropes. White’s casual, slangy use of language distinguishes the story somewhat, but it also detracts from the severity of intense moments as characters punctuate their dialogue with the word bro. This quick, solidly constructed tale should satisfy cyberpunk fans who don’t mind revisiting genre staples. Agent: Nell Pierce, Sterling Lord Literistic.

February 15, 2020
A near-future hacker in a digitally enhanced city runs afoul of dangerous adversaries when he steals a unique prize. The cyberpunk ethos has been endlessly consumed and reimagined by writers since dystopian domains like Blade Runner and writers like William Gibson and Bruce Sterling captured the popular imagination. While this techno-thriller suits that company, White (Static Ruin, 2018, etc.) has admirably built a self-contained world with hard rules and real-world analogues that fit comfortably alongside robot dogs, 3-D-printed guns, and an addictive online galactic battleground called Voidwar permanently displayed in the skies above. The setting is Neo Songdo, a virtual and augmented reality-studded metropolis somewhere in Korea. Our entry here is Julius "JD" Dax, an online repo man and adept real-world thief who toils as a mechanic to earn money to fix his blown-out knee. His plans go awry when Soo-Hyun, his cryptic stepsibling, asks him to steal a virus from the home of an isolated billionaire named Zero Lee on behalf of her creepy mentor, Kali Magdalene. So this three-act arc kicks off with a complicated heist, as JD and his crew bob and weave to steal the MacGuffin--during the World Cup final, no less. The second act extends a new player in Enda Hyldal, a brutal ex-soldier-turned-private eye, who is blackmailed by Lee's company to retrieve JD's ill-gotten prize. This is the chase, complete with Bourne-esque close combat, action-packed set pieces, and gun fights. The denouement arrives in the third act as JD finds that his loot is not a virus and we finally discover who's been whispering to us during in-person interludes that foreshadow a radical new player in this dangerous game. White hasn't reinvented the wheel, but it's fun to read and more relevant to the present day than similar works in the canon, combining plausible technology with that age-old question of what it means to be human. A richly imagined, futuristic stand-alone with appeal to gamers, SF fans, and armchair futurists alike.

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March 1, 2020

Julius Dax, in-the-meat thief and online repo man, is tasked to steal an unknown object from the residence of tech billionaire Zero Lee. It turns out to be virtually magical, at once enthralling and disturbing. White's (Static Ruin) economy of language pulls readers through heists, shoot-outs, and car chases--the smart-city of Neo Songdo's skies haunted nightly by VOIDWAR, a game with millions of players. Aside from its augmented reality (only low-wage residents see the underlying grime and ruin), the world drawn here feels depressingly like now, its youths' craving for speed and authenticity rendered moot by predatory capitalism's eternal present moment. Akin to Philip K. Dick's iconic Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, this title's philosophical base addresses the status of nonbiological presences and what that says about humanity. VERDICT White, known mostly for his "VoidWitch Saga," here twists the volume up, both dramatizing and warning against unchecked AI. What lingers is an important observation: no culture can retain its power and sanity when there are no noncynical eyes to see it. Cyberpunk and general sf readers will enjoy and even learn from this one.--William Grabowski, McMechen, WV

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2020
In Neo Songdo, reality and the virtual are so intertwined that augmented imagery overlays what people see in the real world, and virtual money is accepted currency. Repo agent JD will need more than his usual moxie if he is going to escape the consequences of his current job. A self-styled eco evangelist hires him to appropriate a piece of living software from the dying founder of the powerful corporation holding the lease on Neo Songdo. She says she can use the virus to help everyone and save the world from itself. But the job goes off track, and JD discovers the program is worth much more than his agreed-upon fee. When the corporation pulls a lethal covert operative out of retirement to quickly and quietly reacquire the stolen property, both sides are after JD and his prize, and a nasty game of cat-and-mouse begins. Cyberpunk fans will relish White's (Static Ruin, 2018) fast-paced dystopian tale wherein a technological heist and LGBTQ+ characters meld with questions about humanity's survival and a new entity's search for self.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)