Transcendence

McKitterick's first full-length novel is set in a dark, dismal populated galaxy where everyone is wifi-ed to computers and physical bodies are mere "meat," where reality is rewritten by participants to fit their self-images, and being "intheflesh" is retro and frowned upon—yet "feedrapture-addiction" is the price one pays for becoming too computer involved. Two nearly simultaneous events have the power to upend all the accepted realities of this computer-driven galaxy--alien technology has been found on Neptune's moon Triton; and the Brain, which controls all computer interaction to EarthCo citizens, has become fully sentient. Amid the chaos, three men living on different planets, who at first glance have no connection, will cross paths during the next seventy-two hours as Earth and Neptune face off in a war that could mean the end of the entire solar system. Although McKitterick's characters are often wooden and their dialogue a bit forced, his narrative and its intricate setting creates offers a stark, thoughtful, and engrossing look at human society and its interactions with animate and inanimate objects. (Nov.)