Mark McClelland's Blog - Posts Tagged "sci-fi"

Enter to win a free signed copy of Upload here on Goodreads. Seven copies available, eight days left to enter. Giveaway ends January 13.

Can’t beat the price, right?

Download Upload now for your eReader, while winter pricing lasts! Only $2.99 for a great read -- 4.8 out of 5 stars on Amazon, and 4.5 out of 5 here on Goodreads.

This new low price is now available if you buy direct from Lulu. Pricing should catch up soon on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBookstore, Google Play, and Kobo.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


An escapist romp set in the near future, Ready Player One is the story of Wade Watts, a teenaged boy obsessed with winning a treasure hunt that demands deep knowledge of 80s pop-culture and video games. The winner will inherit the vast wealth and thriving business empire of the man who created the hunt, James Halliday, a recently deceased computer genius born in 1972 and freakishly nostalgic about his childhood. Halliday's empire includes OASIS, the virtual world where most of humanity spends most of its time. The value of the prize is so great that Innovative Online Industries, cold-hearted giant of the network-infrastructure industry, creates a department of expert contestants under contract to sign over their winnings should they be the first to find the coveted egg. The head of this special department, Nolan Sorrento, is the villain -- caricature of the calculating, cutthroat executive -- leading his army of corporate drones in a brutal, no-rules race to beat Wade and his friends to the egg.

I can see why this book has been so popular -- very high word-of-mouth potential. The number of 80s nerd-culture references is staggering, and it's hard not to want to mention this book to a nerd friend. But the story sometimes feels like a vehicle for movie, video-game, and anime references. For me, the thrill of nostalgia for Zork, Adventure, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Star Blazers (a personal favorite), Joust, Devo, etc. wore off pretty quickly. The core story was fun, albeit predictable, but I found the pure escapist enjoyment a little lacking. To give me escape, a book has to transport me. I too often found myself distracted by the pop-culture references, thin character development, and obvious mechanisms of storytelling. I also didn't come away feeling at all enlightened or inspired; the morals of the story -- seek satisfaction in reality-prime, true beauty lies within, and we nerds should get outside more -- all felt rather tacked on. I understand that this book wasn't meant to change my life, but I love it when a light read turns out to give me a surprisingly inspiring little push. (Neverwhere comes to mind.)

Ready Player One is a good example of the increasing overlap between sci-fi and fantasy. The use of v-worlds in sci-fi allows the writer to incorporate fantasy elements into a story that's ultimately grounded in reality-prime. I did a fair amount of this in my own novel, Upload, but I always tried to keep it relevant to the speculative heart of science fiction. In Ready Player One, I didn't find much to chew on in terms of ideas and questions about the future. It felt heavy on the fantasy, light on the sci-fi. Which is great -- just don't pick up Ready Player One expecting a lot of thought-provoking speculation on where we humans are headed. Think "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World", not I, Robot.

Kirkus recommends Upload as similar to Ready Player One. I was downright ecstatic when I saw my book placed alongside such a popular title, and I do think someone who liked Ready Player One will probably enjoy Upload, but the two books are very different in feel. Ready Player One is fun and pretty fluffy, and felt to me like it was written for a teen audience -- and for children-of-the-80s looking for a little nostalgia. Upload is a good deal more intense, more noir, more adult. In both, the hero had a difficult childhood and received much of their "parenting" in virtual reality. Both stories also have the hero on the run. But in Upload there's a lot more internal struggle, meatier relationship issues, more focus on science, and serious questions about where technology is taking us.

For me, Ready Player One gets three stars. Would I recommend it? To a trivia hound or 80s pop-culture fanatic, yes. Otherwise, no, because I think there are lots of books equally as fun but with more artistry, more charm, richer characters, or a more compelling world.




View all my reviews

The Human Brain Project won one of two billion-Euro research grants from the European Union. Over the next ten years, it aims to create a complete computer simulation of the human brain.

As the author of Upload, a thrilling sci-fi story about the first person to upload his consciousness into a computer, I'm keenly interested in this cutting-edge research into cognitive computing. It has the potential to bring futuristic technologies like those in Upload much closer. It also makes my fiction feel all the more relevant, as thought-leaders struggle with the possibilities and ethical implications surrounding simulation of the human mind.

There's a pretty good introductory video up at the Human Brain Project's website. Exciting stuff -- check it out. And then read my book to help stir your imagination!

I got a happy bit of news today. My novel, Upload, is a Finalist in Science Fiction for ForeWord Reviews' 2012 Book of the Year Award.

Curious about the other finalists in Science Fiction? I was, so I compiled a list of Goodreads links to the books and their authors. (In the case of State of Union, I couldn't find the book on Goodreads. I suspect it's a sequel to State of Mind.)

Document 512, by Thomas Lopinski
God Bless The Dead, by Evan Geller
Six, by Calvin J Brown
State of Union, by Sven Michael Davison
The Death of Eve, by Shaun Penney
The Samsara Effect, by Paul Black
The Serpent's Grasp, by C. Kevin Thompson
The Water Thief, by Nicholas Lamar Soutter
The Webs of Varok, by Cary Neeper
Upload, by Mark McClelland (me)
Wildcatter, by Dave Duncan

What is this award? In their own words, "ForeWord's Book of the Year Awards program was created to highlight the year's most distinguished books from independent publishers."

If you're looking for some good fresh sci-fi, this seems like a great place to start!

Thanks to Joe Teehan for having me on "The Joe Show" to talk about the future union of humans and computers, and about Upload. You can catch the interview on the KGMI-AM website (see "The Joe Show for 4/22/13") or listen to the MP3 on uploadthenovel.com, trimmed down to just my segment.

In doing these radio interviews, I find myself gradually fleshing out my ability to talk about ideas and concerns that flopped around in my head through the many years of writing Upload. I finally touched on one issue in particular that's important to me, which could be in its early stages already:

We as a species have a role as caretakers of the planet, and as we isolate ourselves from the planet through a layer of virtual existence, we lose touch with that. We could become more prone than ever to abusing the world that made it all possible.

Check out this week's CNSC Podcast for my discussion of Upload with Jeffery Smith of the Chicago Nerd Social Club. I'm seriously impressed by this group. If you aren't looking for a fun group of nerds to connect with here in Chicago, maybe you should be. Where else can you find a bunch of people who are putting together their own field trip to Fermilab?

(From my original, longer blog post, here.)

Back in March, I posted to say that Upload was a Finalist in Science Fiction for ForeWord Reviews’ 2012 Book of the Year Award. Well, ForeWord Reviews announced the winners on June 28, and I’m very proud to share my happy news: Upload was among the winners!

What is this award? In their own words, "ForeWord's Book of the Year Awards program was created to highlight the year's most distinguished books from independent publishers." From what I've seen, it's one of the premier awards for books from small publishers, and especially for self-published books like Upload.

The winners in science fiction include:

State of Union: Book Two of the God Head Trilogy, by Sven Michael Davison
The Samsara Effect, by Paul Black
The Water Thief, by Nicholas Lamar Soutter
Upload, by Mark McClelland (me)

For more info, read the ForeWord Reviews press release, or browse all of the BOTYA award winners.

Now through June 16, Amazon Prime members can borrow Mark McClelland’s award-winning science-fiction novel, Upload, from the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library for free.

Download Upload on Amazon

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.

Readers of the award-winning techno-thriller Upload are comparing it to Transcendence, starring Johnny Depp. To celebrate the April 17 release of the film, the Kindle edition of UPLOAD will be FREE 4/17 - 4/20.

UPLOAD on Kindle - Free 4/17 - 4/20

Invite friends to the Goodreads event and the Facebook event. Help spread the word!

For a lot of people watching Transcendence, it will be their first exposure to mental uploading and the Singularity. Intrigued by the concept of humanity ditching our biological bodies and moving into computers? If you're excited -- or scared -- by what lies on our technological horizon, UPLOAD is a thought-provoking way to explore what this future might look like.

A winner of ForeWord Reviews 2012 Book of the Year Award in Science Fiction, 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.

To find out more about the book, check it out here on Goodreads or at uploadthenovel.com.

If you've already read UPLOAD and are looking for a different perspective on the same topic, check out David T. Wolf's Mindclone: When You're a Brain Without a Body, Can You Still Be Called Human?, a more humorous take on mental uploading that's been getting great reviews.