An Amazon Best Book of April 2017: Immersive and labyrinthine, this near-future SF suspense novel sets a billionaire seeking immortality in a crumbling world against a tech genius whose neural memory implant allows her to communicate with networks and AIs. Irene’s ability to talk with machines makes her a much-coveted and very expensive troubleshooter, but her meeting with billionaire Cromwell sets off all sorts of subconscious alarm bells, as does the frightening glimpse of a wild AI she’s never encountered before. As Irene follows the trail of her suspicions and odd details her implant picked up, her path is set to intersect with that of Kern, a self-taught street fighter who raised himself within the favelas of San Francisco and who is on a mission to rescue a young woman who may (or may not) be an ally. Unlike most thrillers, Void Star utilizes a deliberate, predatory pace more common to the most exquisite horror novels. A buildup of tiny tells, headlong plunges into the sharp-as-glass memories saved in Irene’s implant, and eerie snapshots of the strange and inexplicable hammer the tension into a near-unbearable drumbeat as Irene and Kern’s quests threaten to collide. But even as Irene and Kern crisscross the planet—sometimes on the run, sometimes on the chase—it’s the essential role of memories that gives this novel its heft, coaxing us to consider what we keep and what we leave behind in our own daily world-building. —Adrian Liang, The Amazon Book Review
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