Metal Fatigue
IN A DYSTOPIC WORLD after a devastating global war, the American city of Kennedy has walled itself off from the decline of the former USA. Determined to continue as a functioning metropolis, Kennedy strictly patrols its boundaries and struggles to maintain the semblance of a modern city.
Now, forty years after the end of the war, Kennedy is in crisis - technologies are failing and replacements and repairs are not forthcoming. It is within this atmosphere of technological and social stagnation that news of a Re-United States of America emerges - and a RUSA which wants Kennedy to rejoin.
But not everyone in Kennedy agrees with reassimilation, and a series of political assassinations and data thefts begin. As the deadline for union looms, Phil Roads, the investigator assigned to solve the killings and robberies, is under increasing pressure. Caught between murderous opposing forces, and with forbidden genetic secrets emerging from his own past, his own life and career are in extreme jeopardy. He needs to find out who is behind the crimes - and fast.
It is difficult in such a short description to do justice to this brilliantly innovative science fiction novel, which moves on many different levels, incorporating amazing future technology, artificial intelligence, and film noir thriller motifs. Perhaps most amazingly of all, Williams keeps his characters full-bloodedly and empathically human. Little wonder that this, his first full length sci-fi novel, won Williams his second prestigious Aurealis award.
Author: Sean Williams. ISBN : 1-874082-29-4. Science Fiction. Pages: 464. Hardcover. Price: £16.99
PRAISE FOR THE WRITING OF SEAN WILLIAMS
'Metal Fatigue is one of the best future-noir thrillers to come out of Australia in recent years. Recommended!’
Jonathan Strahan, Eidolon
'...the finest novel yet from this exciting writer...Like all good science fiction, this novel raises important questions, without dictating specific answers. It is compulsively readable.' Locus
'I thought of both Niven modified by Bester, or, better yet, of Iain M Banks's similarly-layered Against A Dark Background ... a large and dark universe, full of wonders and horrors, secret histories and long-held grudges ... an interesting place to visit.' Locus (On The Prodigal Son)
*** This is an important opportunity to acquire Sean's first novel in its world first hardcover edition ***