Reckless Sleep (Gollancz S.F.) [Paperback]

Our planet is falling apart from tectonic palsy in this offbeat debut novel, thanks to crazed fundamentalists eager for the End Times: "The Earth was dead from the moment ReGenesis triggered the chain of nuclear devices it had set along the floor of the Marianas trench in the Pacific Ocean". With fault-lines cracking everywhere and even safe zones like England wracked by tremors and landslips, society is in a sanity-challenged mess. Escape into virtual reality becomes ever more popular.

VR "gamezones" have a special, painful meaning for Far Warriors like reluctant hero Jon Sciler, who were sent to clean out the hostile native life of the colony world Dirangesept. What seemed a simple task, a shoot-'em-up game with Earth's invincible remote-controlled "autoids" pitted against primitives, went horribly, inexplicably wrong. The remnants of Sciler's team returned scarred and publicly shamed.

Now a vengeful serial killer is apparently targeting Far Warrior veterans--at least those who sign up with the VR outfit Maze. Maze is running endless, mysterious tests on its impossibly realistic gameworld Cathar, haunted by magic and presence that even the operators don't understand. Must dying in Cathar always mean dying in reality? Sciler's struggle to make sense of how he is being manipulated by Maze and stranger forces leads to serious danger in and out of VR--for friends as well as himself--eventually uncovering the true legacy of the Dirangesept disaster. A fast-moving, street-wise, intensely paranoid SF thriller. --David Langford --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

An extraordinarily exciting SF debut of conspiracies and mistaken realities from a writer who has it in him to be the British heir to Philip K. Dick --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

A world that is literally falling apart, a fresh take on VR, realistic flawed heroes and a fierce intelligence mark this out as a debut of unusual quality. London is drowning in volcanic ash and someone is hunting down the survivors of a failed war on our first colony planet. Jon Sciler has to find out who before he is next.

SALES POINTS Part of the boom in homegrown SF talent Great reviews in the trade edition Roger Levy has already made inroads into the SF scene Ideas, and rigorous prose style combined 'A fast moving, streetwise, intensely paranoid SF thriller' David Langford