Let's just get this tagline business out of the way. Sometimes I really enjoy doing this and other times I really bash my head against the wall and remember how painful it is even to come up with taglines for your own book. But here goes:
UPLOAD is like SNEAKERS (didn't think I'd be able to bust that one out did you?) meets GOONIES.
All right, I'll admit, I'm not very proud of that one but I couldn't really come up with anything for the second one. It's a techno-thriller, and those all always seem to be about some guy trying to take over the world while plucky heroes or possibly Angelina Jolie try to stop him. What did you want the second one to be? CONSPIRACY THEORY? EAGLE EYE? Yeah, I'm not even going to dignify your hypothetical suggestions with a response.
Aaaaaanyhoot, this book is kind of disturbing. I think I mentioned last week while talking about ARTIFICIAL ABSOLUTES that you always felt like one or two wrong turns with the Congress or maybe Apple and we'd be living in that world. Of course, AA is science fiction and takes place centuries in the future in a distant, far-off planet. UPLOAD happens right here on earth, right this very minute, and it feels like it's goddamned well happening right now.
Collin is an actual tech guy (actually, there are a couple of things I could tell you that you could blame him for, but I won't) and so I assume the mortifying, gut-icening shit that happens in UPLOAD is 100% possible with present-day technology (and, oh yeah, by the way, legal what with the Patriot Act and all.) I feel like I'm kind of talking around the issue, but I don't want to ruin any of the surprises for you. Suffice it to say that in their own ways, the hero of the story is just as creepy as the villain. In the one case, he was deliberately abusing technology to hurt people, and in the other case he was so naïve that he didn't understand how technology might hurt people. In any case, together, they present two sides to a very frightening coin, and throw right in our faces the very real possibility that privacy is a fast diminishing commodity, if not already a relic of the past.
Anyway, to check out the back cover blurb where I'm sure they're much less circuitous than I was in my description of the book, click here.
Or for an excerpt click here.
And to go ahead and support Collin's muscle car/Nabokov book habit, go ahead and buy the book at any of these fine retailers.
Oh, and bonus this week! An interview with Collin Tobin.
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