Travel to the Furthest Limits of Speculative Fiction
Furthest Press is a boutique publisher focusing on speculative fiction. We specialize in novels that transport the reader to the furthest limits of human imagination and understanding. While we are not actively soliciting manuscripts, we always enjoy hearing from folks who share our passion.
We are extremely excited to announce the forthcoming publication of Scott T. Grusky’s second novel, Zero Percenters, which will become available on December 9, 2019.
Would you sacrifice your humanity to live free from pain and suffering?
Conservationist Anja Lapin always stood firm against her father’s profiteering. But in her wildest dreams, she never guessed his tech company would stumble on an algorithm enabling humans to digitize their bodies and secure artificial immortality.
Before Anja can stage a protest, terrorists take out the research team, along with her father. Billions adopt the new technology in record time, lured by an eternity free from pain and filled with pleasure—even if it means losing a few pieces of their identity.
Anja finds she’s one of the last two flesh and blood humans remaining on Earth. But while her worries turn to the future of consciousness, her father’s rival plots to hijack the network of digitized people and claim ultimate control.
Can Anja counter the attack and safeguard a brave new stage of human evolution?
Zero Percenters is a provocative science fiction novel. If you like exploring futuristic possibilities, artificial intelligence, and moral dilemmas, then you’ll love Scott T. Grusky’s intriguing adventure.
Read Zero Percenters to witness the future of consciousness today!
SCIENCE FICTION: Near-future, hard science fiction, singularity, artificial intelligence, utopia, mind uploading, immortality, metaphysical, visionary
PUBLICATION: December 9, 2019
LENGTH: 275 pages
$14.99 tpb, $4.99 Ebook
ISBN: 978-0-9651190-4-7
Ebook ISBN: 978-0-9651190-5-4
“It’s a great idea, reminiscent of the best work of Philip K. Dick…”
—Salon
Take a journey to the furthest limits of cyberspace. It is the year 2077 and data pervades. There are no plants or animals in the cities, food grows only on orbiting satellites, and sex has been forgotten. All day long, day after day, humans process their burgeoning data via “PIFFEN meters” implanted in their brains. A worldwide bioelectronic net called the Neural Web links the tiny meters. But Kale Keeler—a 26 year-old, female Web reporter—has glimpsed the ways of the old-time. While attending a rare physical briefing with Mr. Clyde Trivers, the CEO of the “Public Netgorks,” she notices that Trivers is different from everyone else. He does no data processing of his own.
Most humans would be too busy with their Web-signals to give this a second thought, but Kale suffers from a “slowed metabolic rate.” She agrees to accept Trivers’ odd assignment to investigate a Professor Walter Morgaux at Harvard University, which has been relegated to a rehab center for the most feeble processors of society. Unknown to her, she is monitored by Ralph Peterson, a small-time channel boss desperate for a Netgorks promotion. Trivers has even given Ralph a special headware device to illegally enter private segments of Kale’s system.
The more Ralph sifts her system, the more Kale deviates from her data. She even touches the skin of a male rehab student at Harvard named Greggy Panagopoulos—a violation of the sacred “Third Law of the Internal.” But the terrible truth about the world doesn’t get revealed until Kale does the most brazen thing of all: She arches her back like a bird and sends a Webless signal to her reclusive grandfather, Joseph Baptista. The result is pure silicon madness.
If you’re worried about where the Internet is leading, you may want to read this book. If you aren’t worried, you BETTER read this book!