A Neon Genesis

Did you ever wonder what a cyberpunk story written by yours truly would look like? Apparently the folks over at Broken Eye Books did, because they asked me to write one. Not just a short story, either. They asked me to write what technically qualifies as a novel, and now they’re serializing it for their Patreon patrons!

It’s called Neon Reliquary and, as I said on their site, what led me to agree to the project was a desire to focus on the “punk” part of that portmanteau. By that I don’t necessarily mean leather jackets and bright green mohawks so much as I mean something that’s “deeply suspicious of capitalism, imperialism, fascism, and rich old white guys, as all good cyberpunk should be.”

The pitch that I sent them began – much like Blade Runner – like a classic film noir story. “You are Soma Caldwell, an operative for Eidolon, the corporation that is the only employer, the only government, the only law in a city where the sun never shines, surrounded by an endless expanse of darkness that is peopled by unstoppable monsters. It’s been this way for as long as you can remember. For as long as anyone can remember. The city is a perfect machine, and you’re the implement that helps keep it running smoothly.”

But then the story begins to fray apart at the edges, shedding its skin, becoming something different. This is still me, after all, so this is an occult cyberpunk story, filled with mysticism and half-glimpsed monsters – and those seen in all their monstrous glory – and every bit as beholden to William Hope Hodgson’s The Nightland as it is to Neuromancer.

The installment that’s currently up on the Broken Eye Patreon is Act One of three that are planned, and I hope that you’ll stick with us for all of them. I’m not going to swear that I’ll stick the landing, but I have big plans and, if I do my job right, they may not be what you’re expecting at the end of this chapter…