£2.49 – £9.99
Oshibana Complex, a cyberpunk novella, uses gender neutral pronouns for all characters and digs into the idea of stagnant humanity and preserving the past at the detriment to the future.
Welcome to Shika-One City, humanity’s final home.
Nations have come together. Gender and race are petty concerns of the past. But not everything is well in Shika-One.
Humanity can no longer procreate and has to synthesize future generations. But there aren’t many genetic templates to go around and meeting yourself on the street is a daily occurrence. With so many people wearing the same face, the synths of Shika-One strive for individuality in a world where stepping out of line can lead to the shredder.
In this pulsing neon world lives Xev and eir friends, all hard-working synths who maintain their designations to earn the XP to live and hope to afford the holographic shams that cover up their similarities. That is, until a new synth makes Xev start to ask big questions that might upset the status quo.
In Shika-One, life is cheap.
Xev is about to discover what e’s worth.
If you are a retailer and wish to stock this title, please get in touch with us for our discount rates and return terms.
Full Sell Sheet: Download PDF Here
Author: Craig Hallam
Category: (Cyberpunk) Sci-Fi
Release Date: September 2020
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-908600-97-4
Pages: 162
RRP: £9.99 / 12.99€ / $14.99
Format: eBook (MOBI & ePUB)
ISBN: 978-1-908600-98-1
RRP: £3.49 / 3.99€ / $3.99
With Thanks To:
BBeBooks Thailand (Formatting)
Matt Seff Barnes (Cover Design)
Sara-Jayne Slack (Editing)
Laura Cayuela-Ferrero (Proofreading)
Interested in reviewing this book (or one of our others?) check out our Book Reviewers Page!
This book was one of those that I finished and had to sit with for a minute because the ending was, WOW. I could FEEL the neon.
I found my eyes widening in the creation of tension filled chapters, my heart racing with anticipation. Hallam did not disappoint with the intense scenes that truly depict the brutality of his world. I was so gripped, I read it one day!
This cyberpunk world is well crafted, but the story is more than its world and aesthetic. This is one of those emotional and psychological stories and I believe it used its cyberpunk and post-apocalyptic backdrop well to show how people will still try to escape and and make themselves feel better in a different world. Ultimately, it ends up being a discussion of the mind and body, a transhumanist discussion in the face of depression. Hallam had a story to tell and used most of his tools appropriately to tell it.
Beginning his career with short stories in 2008, Craig’s tales have graced the pages of the British Fantasy Society, among many others. He has managed to avoid winning a single award in this whole time and has decided to take that as an accolade in itself, whenever the tears stop falling.
He likes to think that his books are about real people who live in impossible worlds. Whether his books are Fantasy, Horror, Steampunk, or Sci-fi, Craig loves to go wherever the stories may take him.
You can learn more about Craig Hallam by visiting his author page here on the IQ website.
Inspired Quill is a (non-profit) social enterprise, which means that we reinvest our profits back into IQ and local communities. Every time you buy one of our inclusive fiction (or non-fiction!) books, you’re helping us to help others.
We’re currently partnered with Derbyshire LGBT+ to get books in the hands of folks who may otherwise not have access to diverse reading in a safe environment. So for every 10 books we sell through our site (including ebooks!), we’re donating 1 paperback to them.
Find out more about our social collaborations and mentoring programmes.
© Inspired Quill 2023 | Website by Big Red Web Design
