Street thug Riko has some serious issues—memories wiped, reputation tanked, girlfriend turned into a tech-fueled zombie. And the only people who can help are the mercenaries who think she screwed them over.In an apathetic society devoid of ethics or regulation, where fusing tech and flesh can mean a killing edge or a killer conversion, a massive conspiracy is unfolding that will alter the course … the course of the human condition forever. With corporate meatheads on her ass and a necro-tech blight between her and salvation, Riko is going to have to fight meaner, work smarter, and push harder than she’s ever had to. And that’s just to make it through the day.
File Under: Science Fiction
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Necrotech is a great cyberpunk romp, filled with violence, gore, sex and action aplenty, all thanks to a rather unstable (if occasionally well-meaning) and violence-prone, literally iron-armed female protagonist.
Where to begin? This book is a fucking POWERHOUSE of awesome. I’m always on the prowl for a seriously kickass female lead. I’ve found a few who’ve come close to the level of badass I’m jonesing for, but never one like Riko in NECROTECH. She is all I’ve ever wished for in a heroine and all I’ll ever need. Riko is my guurrrrrlllll!
Okay, so the plot was cool and neat-o and twisty, yeah. Cyberpunked characters with cool tech specialties, raucous-ass hardware, and self-healing nanos brought to mind the computer games my boys play. Bring in some shitty corporate assholes trying to own the entire world (kinda like, yanno, the real-life corporate assholes trying to own the entire world) and mix it into a little paste of paranoia, mindfuckery, and tested loyalties, and you have NECROTECH.
The writing is superb. The characters are visceral. My adrenaline-riddled heart is content, having exploded and restitched itself back together with the help of nanos and a green-sludge recharge pack chaser. I’ll be reading the next book in the series as soon as I catch my breath.
God DAMN, I loved this book!
5/5
NECROTECH is probably the most entertaining novel I read in 2017 and is the best way I can finish off this year. I say this as a huge cyberpunk fan and someone who has often felt the genre has suffered since The Matrix. Basically, the original cyberpunks grew up to become thirty something year old people who had to work for a living and were briefly deluded by the tech of Steve Jobs as well as the Clinton Administration into believing the world was getting better.
It took the War on Terror to remind us the world was a scary place with violent chaos on one side along with the politicians as well as corporates willing to take advantage of it. Even so, I wrote my first cyberpunk novel (AGENT G: INFILTRATOR) with the cultured assassin of the super-rich rather than the penniless hacker on the ground.
In a way, Necrotech is a throwback to the original cyberpunk novels of Case and Molly. Riko is a Runner and professional thief who wakes up in a laboratory one day with months missing of her life. The rude, irreverent, and crude heroine doesn’t make it out of the laboratory without some serious damage. Not only does she find her reputation in tatters, all of her old allies having abandoned her, and missing time but she’s also lost her girlfriend to whoever was experimenting on her.
Riko can’t conclusively prove she didn’t sell out her girlfriend as while that’s not something she would normally do, their relationship had also fallen apart. Instead, she soon finds herself surrounded by men who want to use her and manipulate her. The secrets of the laboratory she escaped from have a substantial credit amount and everyone wants her to guide them back to find out its secrets–government quarantine or not.
The future described in Necrotech is a true cyberpunk one with society on the verge of collapse. The government still exists but corporations have disproportionate power, organized crime is utterly vicious, and the police are corrupt as hell. Riko is a product of the streets and feels authentically punk in a way which very few authors are able to claim.
I love Riko’s complicated and fascinating relationships with the characters around her. Bisexual representation in fiction is rare enough but she’s a character who is active in her sexuality as well as unapologetic. Love is not in the cards for her and that’s okay. I will say I think the book was a bit sexless despite large amounts of innuendo. I could have used a bit more Riko getting to act on those urges. What can I say.
The action is great in the book but I mostly appreciated the hard edged negotiations and characterizations of the book’s first half. The second half of the book is mostly action and a heist story with a team of dangerous hackers as well as mercs hitting the laboratory. That part felt a bit too long and didn’t have enough interaction but it still worked.
In conclusion, Necrotech is a great novel for fans of cyberpunk and I immediately picked up the sequel. It’s a truly punk novel which has a character who embodies the “give no ****s” attitude of the movement and serves as one of its iconic characters almost immediately out of the gate. I hope the author writes many more installments.
perverted and not much of a plot