Strictly Analog
Strictly Analog
Written by: Richard Levesque
Narrated by: Steven Jay Cohen
Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
Unabridged Audiobook
Publishers' Summary
Fans of William Gibson, Jonathan Letham, and Richard K. Morgan will enjoy Strictly Analog by Richard Levesque.
What's a private detective to do in a future where nothing is private? That's Ted Lomax's problem. In the new California, a corporation runs the government, electric cars have drive tones, and a new technology keeps everyone constantly connected to the Internet. Almost everyone.
Disabled in California's war for independence, Ted is locked out of the new tech. Living on the fringes of society for years, he's found a way to turn his disability into cash: finding clients who need their info kept off the grid.
But when his daughter is accused of murdering her boyfriend - an agent in California's Secret Police - Ted has to dig himself out of the hole he's been in. To save his daughter, he ventures into a shadow world of underground hackers, high-end programmers, and renegade gear-heads, all of whom seem to have a stake in California's future.
It soon becomes clear it's about more than one dead agent. Solving the case might save his daughter. And it might get him killed. And it just might open the door to secrets surrounding the attack that almost killed him eighteen years before.
One thing's certain, though. Ted Lomax will never be the same.
©2012 Richard Levesque (P)2014 Richard Levesque
My Review
Teds daughter lives with her mother and her stepfather, now she is in trouble, deep trouble. She is accused of killing her Secret Agent boyfriend who works with Stepdad, Stepdad, also a bigwig in the secret police seems of little help, so, of course, she wants her Daddy to help get her out of trouble.
Ted is a private detective who lives in a world where the Internet is accessed by fingers seeming to claw the information from the air around them, to be viewed only through special spectacles. (Somewhat reminiscent Mr. Smiths' special spectacles, used to view and translate the magical golden tablets)!
However, two healthy working eyes are necessary to utilise this visual technology, Ted has only the one good eye, so has to get his information in anyway and anywhere that he can. He decides to work off the grid, I was never quite sure if this was through preference or necessity, but working Strictly Analog make a for a darned good story.
It's complicated, as they say, because the mother, the stepfather and Ted have History, no spoilers here!
Ted, on his quest for information, finds himself on a strange journey where he discovers, amongst other things, the dark secrets of those who prefer real engines that make real noises, and where the purchase of the petrol necessary to fuel these antique machines is, in itself an adventure in black marketeering.
All the while, we are learning more and more of the technology of the future, more and more about some very weird people performing strange high tech procedures.
Strictly Analog is a well written intriguing and strange story, I couldn't immerse myself fully into this strange world, nor did it occupy my thoughts when not listening to it, but it's a darned good story.
I found it really odd though, that a story set in the future could evoke feelings of nostalgia, but it did.
Narrator
Another excellent performance by Steven Jay Cohen, he simply gets it right.
There's no doubt that his story telling style did much to create that special "noir" feel of the old time, streetwise, hard boiled detective.
This book was gifted to me in return for this, my honest opinion
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