- Publication date: March 23, 2020
- Pages: 111
- ASIN: B085KK2K4Z
- Author: Rachel E. Beck
Defrag (The Glitch Logs Book 1) by Rachel E. Beck is a roller-coaster ride of a cyberpunk novella. Beck takes us from the physical world of a corporate run dystopia into the internal workings of computer systems and back out again. It is a non-stop thrill ride and is really just a lot of fun.
Glitch is a hacker with more of a talent for computers than people. She uses her embedded jack-in-cable to be able to directly interface from her brain to computer networks. She works as a Runner, stealing from the massive corporations that run the city.
One night, working with a mostly new crew, they run into a shit storm on the 189th floor of a corporate high rise when they encounter a rival group of runners, the corporate security teams and the internal systems of the corporation.
One of the things I especially liked about the story was the difference in mindset from the physical ‘meat’ world to the digital realm. In the digital realm, the influences of the body systems diminish blocking out such things as fear and other emotions. It becomes all about the task at hand and what needs to be done next. It was a different take on virtual worlds than I’ve seen before, but granted, I have not read a huge amount of cyberpunk.
I’ve always had something of a problem with how folks describe the virtual worlds. It is hard to describe something that is really just zooming electrons and ones and zeroes. I don’t know how to go about this other than putting it in an anthropomorphic model. Beck does that with Glitch’s cat avatar interacting with various other Egyptian related avatars in the corporate systems realm. It’s an interesting way to represent the virtual world, and with only a little suspension of disbelief, it works very well and adds to the intensity of the book’s action.
I highly recommend Defrag. I like Glitch and the other characters and I like the universe the author has created. I plan to come back around to books 2 and 3 in the series (and #4 that is supposed to be coming soon) in the future.
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Plastivore by Matt Truxaw
