Coldwire by Chloe GongMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
“Then it turned out AI tour guides freaked people out too much.”
Chloe Gong’s been busy these last few years, and while I wasn’t nearly as enamored with her Flesh and False Gods saga, this latest start to a new futuristic series, a kickass second-world cyberpunk thriller, shows how much she is back and better than ever before. Easily comparable to Marie Lu’s cyberpunk dystopias, this book is set in a parallel world circa 2058, where instead of the national superpowers we know, there are two main superpowers locked in a constant cold war: Atahua and Medaluo. Both are vast nations, located on opposite sides of the world - there’s a twelve hour time difference, and it takes almost nine hours just to drive across Medaluo. Though both have Chinese sounding names, it’s not hard to see the rival nations as the worst excesses of America and China and Russia come to a head.
It’s a crumbling real world, so much of the action takes place “upcountry” in immersive servers, and the plot hinges on deepfake accusations of murder and forcible conscription of foreign foundlings into an academy of spycraft. Along for the ride, we have two seemingly disparate POV’s - Eirale, the wrongly accused outsider, and Lia, the competitive high ranker in the academy.
It takes a hell of a long time for the two POV’s to meet. But when they do…
…no spoilers.
Chloe Gong is promising a second book next year, and I can’t wait to see what she’s got up her sleeve. In the meantime, when I finish my own futuristic WIP manuscript, Coldwire will absolutely be a comp title on my query letters.
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