Unity
Elly Bangs
(Author)
Description
"Unity is an astonishing debut, twisty and startling, demonstrating both the disciplined development of a long-gestated project and the raw, dynamic flashes of an author's early work. It shows intense interest in the distance between conversation and communion . . . an absorbing, thrilling ride." --New York Times "A vivid, fascinating, and utterly believable future world . . . Echoes of Richard K. Morgan's Altered Carbon or the Netflix series Sense8." --New York Journal of Books Danae is not only herself. She is concealing a connection to a grieving collective inside of her body. But while she labors as a tech servant in the dangerous underwater enclave of Bloom City, her fractured self cannot mend. In a desperate escape, Danae and her lover Naoto hire the enigmatic ex-mercenary Alexei to guide them out of the imploding city. But for Danae to reunify, the three new fugitives will have to flee across the otherworldly beauty of the postapocalyptic Southwest. Meanwhile, Danae's warlord enemy, the Duke, and a strange new foe, the Borrower, already seek them at any price. Evoking the gritty cyberpunk of Mad Max and the fluid idealism of Sense8, Unity is a spectacular new re-envisioning of humanity. Breakout author Elly Bangs has created an expressive, philosophical, science-fiction thriller that expands upon consciousness itself.
Product Details
Price
$16.95
$15.76
Publisher
Tachyon Publications
Publish Date
April 21, 2021
Pages
304
Dimensions
5.5 X 8.4 X 1.0 inches | 0.71 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9781616963422
BISAC Categories:
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About the Author
Elly Bangs was raised in a New Age cult and once rode her bicycle alone from Washington State to the Panama Canal. She lives in Seattle, where she spends her days fixing machines and her nights writing short stories, novellas, and novels--usually speculative fiction, sci-fi, fantasy, and uncategorized weirdness--with a thematic emphasis on longing, heartbreak, and the grim fate of humankind. Her short fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Escape Pod, and others, and she's a graduate of Clarion West Writers Workshop in 2017). Learn more about her at elbangs.com, where you can use her "Story Premise Bot," and discover A Pocket Guide to Nuclear War Survival & Preparedness.
Reviews
"Breakneck pacing, non-stop action, and delightfully-damaged characters combine with some of the most intricate and clever worldbuilding I've seen in ages to make this an incredibly memorable debut."
--Sam J. Miller, author of The Art of Starving "Unity is a wild firefight of a novel. But amidst the vivid dystopian worldbuilding--the undersea metropolises and scorched badlands--and all the breakneck action is something deeper, a philosophically and emotionally resonant exploration of what it means to carry multiplicities of ourselves, our myriad shades of being. Elly Bangs is a writer of both kaleidoscopic imagination and deep literary empathy, a cyberpunk star in the making."
--Omar El Akkad, author of American War "Imagine Neuromancer and Lilith's Brood conceived a baby while listening to My Chemical Romance and then that baby was adopted by Ghost in the Shell and Blue Submarine no. 6. The baby's name is Unity."
--Meredith Russo, author of If I Were Your Girl "Chock-full of both big ideas and high-energy action, Bangs's thrilling debut centers on a mad chase across a dystopian Earth in search of a collective consciousness that could save humanity from itself. Danae works as an often overlooked tech servant to a criminal syndicate that controls an underwater metropolis, but she is secretly a severed piece of a group mind that encompasses hundreds of people. Determined to get back to her larger self, she hires Alexei, a mercenary with a death-wish, to help her escape her employers. With Danae's lover, Naoto, tagging along, the trio flees the city and heads to what was once Arizona--but they are doggedly pursued by bounty hunters and a shadowy figure from Danae's past. . . . This gritty, thought-provoking cyberpunk adventure does the genre justice."
--Publishers Weekly "Epic science fiction, and intimately personal at the same time, thanks to the clever and revolutionary trick of disassembling the individual subject. Take THAT, the very form of the novel!"
--Nick Mamatas, author of The People's Republic of Everything "The apocalyptic landscape is terrifying, beautiful, and well thought out. Readers may very well draw parallels between this future-U.S. and our current reality."
--Booklist "A powerful debut sci-fi novel packed full of ideas."
--New Scientist "Unity is a killer debut by a thrilling new writer. Trust me, you're all going to be hearing a lot about Elly Bangs and this gleaming and gritty world she's created. And cyberpunk fans? Put down the game controller and read this now. This is the real stuff."
--Daryl Gregory, author of Spoonbenders "Unity manages to be simultaneously exciting and philosophical, a brilliant gut-punch of a novel. I cannot wait to see what Elly Bangs does next."
--Kij Jonhson, author of At the Mouth of the River of Bees "Stick around for the good stuff at the end."
--Kirkus "Unity is a blistering post-apocalyptic interrogation of personhood and society. Elly Bangs brings grief, revelation, and humanity to bear in this incredible debut novel."
--dave ring, editor of Glitter + Ashes: Queer Tales of a World That Wouldn't Die
--Sam J. Miller, author of The Art of Starving "Unity is a wild firefight of a novel. But amidst the vivid dystopian worldbuilding--the undersea metropolises and scorched badlands--and all the breakneck action is something deeper, a philosophically and emotionally resonant exploration of what it means to carry multiplicities of ourselves, our myriad shades of being. Elly Bangs is a writer of both kaleidoscopic imagination and deep literary empathy, a cyberpunk star in the making."
--Omar El Akkad, author of American War "Imagine Neuromancer and Lilith's Brood conceived a baby while listening to My Chemical Romance and then that baby was adopted by Ghost in the Shell and Blue Submarine no. 6. The baby's name is Unity."
--Meredith Russo, author of If I Were Your Girl "Chock-full of both big ideas and high-energy action, Bangs's thrilling debut centers on a mad chase across a dystopian Earth in search of a collective consciousness that could save humanity from itself. Danae works as an often overlooked tech servant to a criminal syndicate that controls an underwater metropolis, but she is secretly a severed piece of a group mind that encompasses hundreds of people. Determined to get back to her larger self, she hires Alexei, a mercenary with a death-wish, to help her escape her employers. With Danae's lover, Naoto, tagging along, the trio flees the city and heads to what was once Arizona--but they are doggedly pursued by bounty hunters and a shadowy figure from Danae's past. . . . This gritty, thought-provoking cyberpunk adventure does the genre justice."
--Publishers Weekly "Epic science fiction, and intimately personal at the same time, thanks to the clever and revolutionary trick of disassembling the individual subject. Take THAT, the very form of the novel!"
--Nick Mamatas, author of The People's Republic of Everything "The apocalyptic landscape is terrifying, beautiful, and well thought out. Readers may very well draw parallels between this future-U.S. and our current reality."
--Booklist "A powerful debut sci-fi novel packed full of ideas."
--New Scientist "Unity is a killer debut by a thrilling new writer. Trust me, you're all going to be hearing a lot about Elly Bangs and this gleaming and gritty world she's created. And cyberpunk fans? Put down the game controller and read this now. This is the real stuff."
--Daryl Gregory, author of Spoonbenders "Unity manages to be simultaneously exciting and philosophical, a brilliant gut-punch of a novel. I cannot wait to see what Elly Bangs does next."
--Kij Jonhson, author of At the Mouth of the River of Bees "Stick around for the good stuff at the end."
--Kirkus "Unity is a blistering post-apocalyptic interrogation of personhood and society. Elly Bangs brings grief, revelation, and humanity to bear in this incredible debut novel."
--dave ring, editor of Glitter + Ashes: Queer Tales of a World That Wouldn't Die
