2020 Locus Award for Best First Novel (nominee)
The Guardian's Pick for Best Science Fiction Book of the Year!
A timely and uncanny portrait of a world in the wake of fake news, diminished privacy, and a total shutdown of the Internet
BEFORE: In Bristol’s center lies the Croft, a digital no-man’s-land cut off from the surveillance, Big Data dependence, and corporate-sponsored, globally hegemonic aspirations that have overrun the rest of the world. Ten years in, it’s become a center of creative counterculture. But it’s fraying at the edges, radicalizing from inside. How will it fare when its chief architect, Rushdi Mannan, takes off to meet his boyfriend in New York City—now the apotheosis of the new techno-utopian global metropolis?
AFTER: An act of anonymous cyberterrorism has permanently switched off the Internet. Global trade, travel, and communication have collapsed. The luxuries that characterized modern life are scarce. In the Croft, Mary—who has visions of people presumed dead—is sought out by grieving families seeking connections to lost ones. But does Mary have a gift or is she just hustling to stay alive? Like Grids, who runs the Croft’s black market like personal turf. Or like Tyrone, who hoards music (culled from cassettes, the only medium to survive the crash) and tattered sneakers like treasure.
The world of Infinite Detail is a small step shy of our own: utterly dependent on technology, constantly brokering autonomy and privacy for comfort and convenience. With Infinite Detail, Tim Maughan makes the hitherto-unimaginable come true: the End of the Internet, the End of the World as We Know It.
Genre: Science Fiction
A timely and uncanny portrait of a world in the wake of fake news, diminished privacy, and a total shutdown of the Internet
BEFORE: In Bristol’s center lies the Croft, a digital no-man’s-land cut off from the surveillance, Big Data dependence, and corporate-sponsored, globally hegemonic aspirations that have overrun the rest of the world. Ten years in, it’s become a center of creative counterculture. But it’s fraying at the edges, radicalizing from inside. How will it fare when its chief architect, Rushdi Mannan, takes off to meet his boyfriend in New York City—now the apotheosis of the new techno-utopian global metropolis?
AFTER: An act of anonymous cyberterrorism has permanently switched off the Internet. Global trade, travel, and communication have collapsed. The luxuries that characterized modern life are scarce. In the Croft, Mary—who has visions of people presumed dead—is sought out by grieving families seeking connections to lost ones. But does Mary have a gift or is she just hustling to stay alive? Like Grids, who runs the Croft’s black market like personal turf. Or like Tyrone, who hoards music (culled from cassettes, the only medium to survive the crash) and tattered sneakers like treasure.
The world of Infinite Detail is a small step shy of our own: utterly dependent on technology, constantly brokering autonomy and privacy for comfort and convenience. With Infinite Detail, Tim Maughan makes the hitherto-unimaginable come true: the End of the Internet, the End of the World as We Know It.
Genre: Science Fiction
Praise for this book
"Deft and jolting as an EMP, Infinite Detail is a worryingly credible ghost story about our electronic lives." - Lauren Beukes
"Maughan conducts a masterclass in the thrill and contradictions of counterculture, the uses and abuses of networks, the ways that capitalism can bend and flex to adapt, until, suddenly, it breaks. This is a stunning debut." - Cory Doctorow
"Infinite Detail is the new required reading for the future's next fifteen minutes. A sobering, often frightening look at the implications of the networked world. Riveting, sinister and deeply human." - Warren Ellis
"Looping and layered, disruptive and deeply linked--Tim Maughan's unsparing tale of the internet's end is a paper internet unto itself. The native 21st-century novel is coming into view; it looks like Infinite Detail." - Robin Sloan
"A singular speculative debut, Infinite Detail asks crucial questions about the nature of our relationship to technology. A lively and provocative novel particularly equipped for the challenges of our moment." - Jeff VanderMeer
"Tim Maughan brings a deep knowledge of why the contemporary world works as it does, along with an informed awareness of how subcultures operate, to Infinite Detail--a powerful narrative featuring characters hardened but never crushed, told in crystal-sharp writing that leaves you wanting more." - Jack Womack
"Maughan conducts a masterclass in the thrill and contradictions of counterculture, the uses and abuses of networks, the ways that capitalism can bend and flex to adapt, until, suddenly, it breaks. This is a stunning debut." - Cory Doctorow
"Infinite Detail is the new required reading for the future's next fifteen minutes. A sobering, often frightening look at the implications of the networked world. Riveting, sinister and deeply human." - Warren Ellis
"Looping and layered, disruptive and deeply linked--Tim Maughan's unsparing tale of the internet's end is a paper internet unto itself. The native 21st-century novel is coming into view; it looks like Infinite Detail." - Robin Sloan
"A singular speculative debut, Infinite Detail asks crucial questions about the nature of our relationship to technology. A lively and provocative novel particularly equipped for the challenges of our moment." - Jeff VanderMeer
"Tim Maughan brings a deep knowledge of why the contemporary world works as it does, along with an informed awareness of how subcultures operate, to Infinite Detail--a powerful narrative featuring characters hardened but never crushed, told in crystal-sharp writing that leaves you wanting more." - Jack Womack
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