The Obake Code

by Makana Yamamoto

An all-new, stand-alone sci-fi caper from the author of Hammajang Luck: a bored hacker is forced by vicious gangsters to take down a crooked politician...only to find herself up against a code she might not be able to crack.

After the heist of a lifetime, Malia has it a loft apartment aboard the massive Kepler Station, expensive clothes, and a dev credit in her favorite video game. She’s also bored as hell. Three years after retiring her mantle as the Obake, the most infamous hacker in the quadrant—and arguably the galaxy—Malia hasn’t taken well to civilian life. So what’s the harm in rigging a few cybernetic prizefights and making a little cash on the side?

When Malia’s scheme is uncovered, she runs afoul of Jeongah Song—the dangerous leader of a local gang with a reputation for brutality. Malia is ready for retribution. But what she gets instead is an offer she can’t take down the local politician leading a “clean up the streets” campaign displacing residents and hindering Jeongah’s operations on the space station… or die. Without another way out, Malia takes the deal.

Luckily, she has some friends she can call on in times of a master thief, a street racing wheelman, and a femme fatale grifter. But as Malia digs deeper into the politician’s shady dealings, she finds herself embroiled in a conspiracy that might be too big for her to handle. One that has roots in her own rise as the Obake—a cybernetically enhanced superhacker created by a power-mad genius… a superhacker whose mods are rapidly degrading. Faced with threats on all sides, Malia may finally be in over her head...or stuck—forever—inside her own mind.

Genres: Science Fiction, Adult, Queer

Kindle Edition

Expected publication February 10, 2026

About the author

Makana Yamamoto was born on the island of Maui. Splitting their time between the Mainland and Hawaiʻi, Makana grew up on beaches and in snowbanks. Always a scientist at heart, Makana fell in love with sci-fi as a teen–they even led the science fiction and fantasy interest house at their college. A writer from childhood, fiction became the perfect medium for them to explore their interests as well as reconnect with their culture, coalescing into a passion for diverse sci-fi. They love writing multicultural settings and queer characters, as well as imagining what the future might look like for historically marginalized communities. In their free time, Makana likes to hoard dice for their Dungeons & Dragons games, experiment in the kitchen, defeat bosses with their guildmates, and get way too invested in reality competition shows. They currently live on the East Coast with their wife and two cats.

Reviews

[Cathy Newman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book a lot! Not quite as much as Hammajang Luck, but it's still among the most interesting cyberpunk books I've read. This book is marketed as a standalone, and while I think you can certainly understand this story on its own, reading Hammajang Luck first will fill in a lot of backstory on the world and characters, especially since there are numerous references in The Obake Code to the heist featured in the previous book and Malia's former team. I generally always recommend reading in publication order books written in the same world, even when they are technically standalones or can be read as such, because I pretty strongly feel that that's the best way to fully experience the story.

Whereas Hammajang Luck is more of a plot-driven book focused on the heist, The Obake Code is more of a character-driven story. It's still action-packed and features its own heist and take-down of bad guys, but the overall plot isn't as tight as book 1 because more time is spent exploring and developing the characters, especially Malia. By the end of the book, I still didn't entirely understand the Maddox/AI/orphanage storyline, and I'm not sure if that's because the information came to us in bits and pieces throughout the book or just because I wasn't focused enough to grasp all the AI plot details. There was one detail though that I thought was really cool: the description of the difference between VI ("virtual intelligences" = basically our current form of AI technology today in 2025) and AI ("artificial intelligences" = VI + real human element: "built around a neural imprint" and "seeded with an existing human personality").

This book did have a more sci-fi feel to me than book 1 though because of the heavier focus here on the virtual world thanks to Malia as MC. So if you enjoy a good cyberpunk story, check out this book.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the eARC.

[excessive · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a really cool sci-fi read! It’s technically the second book in the series, but even though I haven’t read the first book I was never lost or confused. But I liked this book so much I need to go back and read the first one!

This book is set in the future, and Malia is able to code and hack through technology in her mind which is pretty cool. I liked the VR aspects as well, everything felt actually possible, like it wasn’t too outlandish.

There was always a lot going on in the story, not just the heist, but that kept things interesting! There was a lot of build up to the heist which was good. I loved all of the queer representation as well.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!

[Courtney]

HELL YES!!! Can't wait for this!

[⭑𓂃 mia [semi-ia]]

MALIA IS GETTING A BOOK AAAH