From now until June 16, 2014, Amazon Prime members can borrow Mark McClelland’s award-winning science-fiction novel, Upload, from the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library for free.
Upload is a near-future sci-fi thriller that goes deep into the mind of Raymond Quan, a troubled young hacker with a criminal past and dreams of escaping into a digital utopia of his own creation. Upload is the story of the first person to upload his mind into a computer, an unlikely hero in an all-too-plausible tale of transhumanism and the singularity.
Intrigued? Take a look at the About the Book page. Check it out on Goodreads and Amazon. Or read what Goodreads Author R.S. Carter has to say about it:
WOW. I LOVED this book. There are so many sides to this book that I could attempt to tackle. But my brain is exhausted from this read. Upload would be a premium selection for any scifi book club.
First there is the issue of ethics. If you could upload a consciousness into virtual reality while simultaneously destroying the physical body, should it be allowed? What if the body was going to die anyhow?The main character in this novel is a loner. An introverted genius who has joined the Upload project at a local university. He has a past he wishes to escape, but it is that past which created and funded his life. He has plans to upload in the future but all at once, our protagonist is hit from three sides: the Upload project is going to be disbanded because a government committee deemed human upload to be unethical, his criminal past is catching up with him, and finally he discovers real world love for the first time.
Think you know how this book is going to end? You’ll be wrong.
This one takes a turn into a virtual reality adventure. Ready Player One meets The Matrix combined with the God complex of The Lawnmower Man.
My analogy to The Lawnmower Man is a little extreme – it isn’t that severe. But then again, we don’t know the whole story so it might have been more similar than we can imagine. You’ll understand when you read the book. There are some parts of the story intentionally missing.
I’ve read a number of reviews from people who loved the story and the science-fiction, but hated the protagonist. I LOVED Raymond! Sure, he had his character flaws (and some are very dark), but that what makes him such a perfect character for this story. And I’m always a sucker for child geniuses. This is Ender Wiggins as an introvert – hence the Lawnmower Man reference.
Ah, I’m going in circles. Read this book!
