Cyberpunk fallen angel Riko is back, in KC Alexander’s outrageous sequel to the savage Necrotech.Being a mercenary isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Especially when Riko’s hard-won reputation has taken a hard dive into fucked. Now she’s fair game for every Tom, Dick and Blow looking to score some cred. In this city, credibility means everything – there’s no room for excuses. She still doesn’t … for excuses. She still doesn’t know what she did to screw up so badly, and chasing every gone-cold lead is only making it worse. Without help and losing ground fast, Riko has a choice: break every rule of the street on her search for answers… or die trying.
File Under: Science Fiction [ Profane & Proud | Pound the Streets | Fist of Steel | Necro Tech ]
more
We need to have a talk about why you haven’t picked up this book yet. I know, I know. You’re scared. I’d be scared of Riko too. She is the bad-est ass-est of the baddest asses. But she has something so many other fictional characters don’t: A voice. And she demands you hear it.
Every book needs a plot. Every book needs a conflict. Every book needs characters. This book has all of the above, but where it really shines is in the character department. More on that later. First …
Plot: Badass mercenary with an attitude is trying to scrape together the cred she lost when she woke up in a corporate lab and discovered she was unknowingly involved with her girlfriend’s death and some other shady shit she doesn’t remember. In the interest of self-preservation, her friends and contacts have ditched her. Ain’t nobody tryin’ to get any of her shit on their shiny shoes. She’s on her own. But Riko has never been a follower, and she’ll figure out how to regain her standing in this cyberpunked world full of corporate scumbags and lowlife street bitches on her own—or die trying.
Conflict: Everyone (and I do mean EVERYONE) hates Riko, and now they’re gunning for her to claim the hefty bounty on her head, avenge the dead girlfriend, and collect some street cred of their own. Three shitbirds, one stone.
Characters: There are a bunch of them, but the only one who matters is Riko. She is EVERYTHING. From her smartass, rapid-fire, razor-sharp tongue to her absolute defiance in the face of everything and everyone standing in her way, Riko shines as one of the most interesting heroines I’ve ever read. Don’t believe me? Read the sample of the first chapter—no, the first SENTENCE—and tell me I’m wrong. Her voice is loud, ballsy, and undeniable, and I’m here for all of it. Riko is my own personal wet dream for a lead character. I’ve been waiting to find her since I started reading adult books. I have a feeling there will never be another heroine who can top her. KC Alexander’s talent has shaped this character into an all-time favorite. The story is good. The voice is incredible.
If you’re easily offended by wondrously colorful graphic language, blasphemous sexual acts unleashed on not-so-innocent nuns, the care and proper handling of religious zealots, raging and glorious bisexuality on full display, rabid violence and disregard for human (and other) life, or a woman who just checked her cupboard and found a cluster of spider webs and zero fucks inside, this is not the book you’re looking for. But if any of the above appeals, I’m asking—no, BEGGING—you to give the SINless series a try. It’s for selfish reasons. I need book 3, and that’s only gonna happen if more people discover, savor, and put these books on blast.
In a literary landscape littered with spineless heroines, monochromatic plots, lackluster conflicts, and timid voices, Riko writhes unapologetically atop Bookland’s throne of upraised word-swords—no lube necessary.
4/5
NANOSHOCK is the sequel to NECROTECH, a novel that I felt was one of the best cyberpunk novels of the new millennium. Cyberpunk hit its heyday in the Eighties and has never really return to its previous prominence, probably due to the fact we managed to make it reality around the late Nineties with the first present-day hackers movie being, well, Hackers. The SINless series is an homage to the classic Eighties cyberpunk, though, with its vulgar but unchanting heroine Riko as well as her insanely self-destructive attitude to anyone or anything that attempts to control her (or be her friend).
The premise is that Riko is still recovering from the events of the previous book. Her credit is in the toilet, she may have betrayed her fellow saints (street mercenaries) to a corporation, and her girlfriend became a kind of cyber-zombie that needed to be put down. Now she’s pursuing a series of questionable leads in hopes of finding something that will reveal the truth of her situation. Aiding her in this is the corrupt corporate execute, Malik Reed, and the brother of her late girlfriend, Indigo, who still suspects her of being responsible for Nanji’s death.
Nanoshock is book I have complicated feelings regarding. The book is trying much harder to be harsher, more vulgar, and more in your face than Necrotech. It opens up with Riko having sex with a nun (not a real one) in a back alley as a way to shock the audience. Riko also needlessly antagonizes everyone around her, physically assaulting and lashing out at her allies from the previous book. This is part of the story, though, as Riko was diagnosed with PTSD and her remaining paying gigs are all bound to trigger it.
I like that K.C. Alexander is willing to make her heroine not the most approachable or even likable at times. A more conventional author would play up her sexual tension with characters like Malik or Gregory but she has Riko even more antagonistic as a result. Relationships that seemed like thwy would be permanent or grow closer are permanently fractured in this volume. It isn’t exactly a feel good response but this isn’t exactly a feel good book. Sometimes, events break a character and the consequences aren’t pretty.
The world of SINless is a fascinating one, being a Judge Dredd-esque archaology that seems both infinite as well as claustrophobic as well. There’s endless numbers of horrible neighborhoods, new gangs, and murderous flamboyant mercenaries to deal with. The addition of technological zombies in the necrotech only adds to the horrifying but fascinating detail as well. Eventually, you put too much tech inside you then that tech will take over. It fits the world and makes things even more surreal and terrifying.
If I had one complaint about the book, it is the fact that the central plot to discover who did what to Riko and her team isn’t advanced much. Riko goes to elaborate lengths to try and recover the tape that seemingly convicts her but comes no closer to acquiring it by the end of the book. Instead, her journey is a personal one and ends on a cliffhanger I’ve been hoping for a resolution to since the book came out.
In conclusion, I really enjoyed this book but it goes to darker and edgier places than the original. Not all readers will be comfortable with its harsh depiction of its characters, sexuality, and violence. However, that’s part of the book’s appeal. It is definitely a cyberPUNK book and all the stronger for its choices.