Connect

Description

Nevada; the near future; a family about to implode. In a world run by computers, hackers have power - and awkward, home-schooled Colt is among the best. But when Colt secretly submits his mother Naomi's breakthrough research to a biotech conference, and it is immediately shut down, mother and son are forced to go on the run. Now Colt is coding for his life. As the military, and Colt's father, hunt them through a Las Vegas of self-driving cars and surveillance drones, Naomi has to decide how far she will go to protect her child. Can she kill a man? Can she destroy the world? And Colt is finally forced to leave the comfort of virtual reality, and face his greatest terror: love. The world is evolving; humans need to evolve too . . . For readers of William Gibson, Ready Player One, and Naomi Alderman's The Power, Connect is a page-turning novel of ideas that thrillingly explores what connection - both human and otherwise - might be in a digital age.

Julian Gough is the author of three comic novels and was formerly the lead singer of the underground literary band Toasted Heretic. He won the BBC National Short Story Award in 2007 and was shortlisted for the Everyman Bollinger Wodehouse Prize in 2008 and 2012. In 2011 he wrote the ending to Minecraft, Time magazine's computer game of the year.

A dazzling technothriller . . . propulsive and engrossing * Guardian * Connect is so plugged into the technological zeitgeist . . . This is the world we know, several operating systems down the line . . . Instantly convincing . . . It will subtly change the way you see the world. * Sunday Times * I found Connect propulsively paced and ingeniously twisting. Gough has written a hyperactive, adrenaline-junkie dystopian thriller that deserves to be made into a belter of a film franchise. * The Times * This stimulating tale of a coder and his mum is a hyper-digital thriller . . . a story of family dysfunction plugged into larger questions about reality, evolution and the west's self-definition as "the good guys". * Observer * An exciting literary thriller with plenty of interesting ideas. * Mail on Sunday * Read Connect by the absurdly brilliant Julian Gough, a mind-expanding technothriller with a hotly beating human heart. -- Emma Donoghue Connect really is a work of genius. It confronts and explores the nature of humanness and existence in a thrilling, immersive, addictive way, and marks Julian out as a prophet among writers. -- Donal Ryan A wonderful novel, a tour de force. -- Joseph O'Connor This is a novel of enormous danger and risk . . . It is in the lightness of the writing, the compelling force of the narrative that the author achieves real brilliance. Gough has undoubtedly arrived, as a master storyteller. -- Michael Harding Connect has all the hallmarks of such futuristic classics as War Of The Worlds and Brave New World, but it is also a strong stand alone novel full of excitement, twists, and turns, and stands shoulder to shoulder with any thriller being published today. * Galway Advertiser * A mind-warping futuristic thriller wrapped in a smorgasbord of ideas . . . inventive and entertaining . . . Connect might just be the perfect combination of beach read and literary torchpaper. * Sunday Business Post (Ireland) *