Null States, Malka Older
Null States, Malka Older
List: $26.99 | Sale: $18.89
Club: $13.49

Null States
Book Two of the Centenal Cycle

Author: Malka Older

Narrator: Christine Marshall

Unabridged: 12 hr 5 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/19/2017


Synopsis

"Christine Marshall narrates a chilling near-future thriller...The complex plot shifts between three main storylines, but Marshall keeps all of them clear through her straightforward delivery." — AudioFile Magazine

Null States continues Campbell Award finalist Malka Older's Centenal Cycle: the politically-charged science fiction trilogy that began with Infomocracy.

• A Locus Award Finalist for Best First Novel
• The book The Huffington Post called "one of the greatest literary debuts in recent history"
• Named one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post, The Verge, Flavorwire, Kirkus, and Book Riot

The future of democracy is about to implode.

After the last controversial global election, the global infomocracy that has ensured thirty years of world peace is fraying at the edges. As the new Supermajority government struggles to establish its legitimacy, agents of Information across the globe strive to keep the peace and maintain the flows of data that feed the new world order.

In the newly-incorporated DarFur, a governor dies in a fiery explosion. In Geneva, a superpower hatches plans to bring microdemocracy to its knees. In Central Asia, a sprawling war among archaic states threatens to explode into a global crisis. And across the world, a shadowy plot is growing, threatening to strangle Information with the reins of power.

About Malka Older

Malka Older is a writer, aid worker, and sociologist. Her science-fiction political thriller Infomocracy was named one of the best books of 2016 by Kirkus Reviews, Book Riot, and The Washington Post. She is the creator of the serial Ninth Step Station, currently running on Realm, and her short story collection And Other Disasters came out in November 2019. She is a Faculty Associate at Arizona State University’s School for the Future of Innovation in Society and teaches in the genre fiction MFA at Western Colorado University. Her opinions can be found in The New York Times, The Nation, and Foreign Policy, among others.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Bradley

Thanks to Netgalley for the Arc! When I read the first book in the series, Infomocracy, I loved it for the hardcore idea-based SF couched in a technothriller base, and Null States continues on in the same tradition. Only, this next novel isn't all about a high-tech election based on micro-democracy wi......more

Goodreads review by Brent

Unlike the slow build of the first book, this one kicks off right away. Definitely going to read book three.......more

Goodreads review by Michael

To-do full review: +++ The idea of the Centenal series, of exploring the impact of a new political system through a sci-fi setting. ++/- The centenal political model, despite its flaws (so many!), allows for an investigation of a truly global system. The role played in the global political system by......more


Quotes

PRAISE FOR INFOMOCRACY

"Kinetic and gripping, the plot hurtles toward an electoral climax that leaps off the page." —NPR

"Futurists and politics geeks will love this unreservedly." —The New York Times

"This brilliant book is unquestionably one of the greatest literary debuts in recent history." —The Huffington Post

"A futuristic world with eerie parallels to current events... [an] uncanny political thriller." —The Washington Post

"Smart, ambitious, bursting with provocative extrapolations, Infomocracy is the big-data-big-ideas-techno-analytical-microdemoglobal-post-everything political thriller we've been waiting for." —Ken Liu, author of The Grace of Kings

“A fast-paced, post-cyberpunk political thriller... If you always wanted to put The West Wing in a particle accelerator with Snow Crash to see what would happen, read this book.” —Max Gladstone, author of the Craft Sequence

"A frighteningly relevant exploration of how the flow of information can manipulate public opinion...timely and perhaps timeless." —Kirkus Reviews

"Older’s sparkling debut, the first full-length novel from the novella-focused Tor.com imprint, serves as both a callback to classic futurist adventure tales by the likes of Brunner and Bester and a current examination of the power of information." —Publishers Weekly

"In the mid-21st century, your biggest threat isn’t Artificial Intelligence—it’s other people. Yet the passionate, partisan, political and ultimately fallible men and women fighting for their beliefs are also Infomocracy’s greatest hope. An inspiring book about what we frail humans could still achieve, if we learn to work together." —Karl Schroeder, author of Lockstep and the Virga saga