by Ray Nayler
First published 2025
Lilia runs through the streets of a surveillance state, clutching the invention that could topple an immortal dictator. The Federation President has downloaded his consciousness into body after body, maintaining his stranglehold on power for decades. Now conspirators plot his assassination, and Lilia's scientific breakthrough sits at the center of their scheme. She must escape the all-seeing eyes of Krotov, the ruthless security chief whose agents hunt her across continents. Meanwhile, Western Europe crumbles under AI rule as an experimental artificial mind malfunctions, threatening global catastrophe. Palmer searches desperately for the woman he lost in London. Imprisoned activist Zoya watches her revolutionary writings spark uprisings from her taiga cell. The President's physician Nikolai faces impossible choices in palace corridors. Parliamentary staffer Nurlan watches his attempt to save his Republic spiral into disaster. As both the authoritarian Federation and the AI-governed West begin to collapse, these lives converge in a struggle against systems that crush human freedom.
Genres: science-fiction, dystopia, adventure, action, artificial-intelligence, political-thriller
Vibes: dark, fast-paced, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Federation, London, Taiga, Western Europe
Period: Decades
337 pages · Kindle Edition · MCD
Content warnings: violence