Some more book recommendations
I’ve recommended this Liam Lawson series before. I love me some good xenoanthropology, and my favorite thing about this series is the “fish out of water”/”Tarzan in New York” bits where the Orc main character has to figure out all the weird cultural stuff humans (and other races) do.
Well, Book 8 is out, Trorm’s family is coming to visit, and the xenoanthropology spills out onto the front lawn in the form of fistfights and flaming maces, much to the horror of the hand-wringing and probably slightly racist HOA. Mmm mmm! Good stuff!
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A near future, proto-cyberpunk novel. As in, the main character is, through circumstances beyond his control, the first guy with a quantum linked AI in his brain. It’s kind of like he’s got “The Machine” from Person of Interest riding shotgun, only instead of being an enigmatic and vaguely creepy superintelligence, his machine decides it likes the human experience and adopts very anthropomorphic (feminine) qualities right off the bat. Corporations, governments, and organized crime antagonize, and eventually a bunch of ex-military female bodyguards are hired because they blend in better than burly dudes in suits and sunglasses. Yes, it’s a (slow burn) harem, obviously.
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There’s a lot of stories like this one, i.e., displaced hero makes good and grows his household and gets his revenge, partially by living well, but mostly with head chopping. I’m recommending this one because from among the similar books I’ve read recently, I thought this one stood out. I immediately bought the second book when I finished the first, which is a pretty good gauge of a series I think. I have a lot of orphaned Book #1’s in my library. This one is like, Isekai-lite. Instead of being from another world, the MC is a “Savage” from the north, forcibly taken to the “civilized” city where he proves that being a skilled hunter is advantageous in slave arena battles. So, it’s kind of a bummer at first, but then he finds out that if he wins, he gets to pick a wife from an assembly of female combatants, and the ruling class here has a way to combat a blight of infertility sweeping the land, so the MC is like, “I guess I’ll pick up a wife or two before I get my revenge on everyone.” So, yeah. As books of this nature go, I thought it was one of the better ones.
![The Lost Fleet: Dauntless by [Jack Campbell]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51p-qaYLuvL.jpg)
This series is a little different from most of my recommendations. It’s more akin to the early Honor Harrington books, which I quite liked, for their technical fleet battles. (I’m as surprised as anyone I enjoy that stuff.)
The hook of this series is; Guy wakes up from 100 years in cryosleep to discover 1) The war he was fighting is still going on, 2) Everyone thinks he’s some mythical super-tactician cause he fought in a famous, desperate battle before jumping in his pod. 3) He kind of is, because now, after 100 years of constant war, so many people have died that advanced fleet tactics have been lost as the war chewed up all the old captains and admirals, and most warfare has devolved into “charge forward and hit them harder than they hit you.”
Something I like about this series is that it recognizes that space is stupidly huge, and when a ship that is 10 light minutes away from you does something, it takes ten minutes for you to know about it. Fleet battles held at .1 lightspeed still take hours and hours when fleets start off in distances measured in AU’s.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
As someone who has read both the Honor Harrington and The Lost Fleet series, I must wholeheartedly recommend reading it in its entirety. In total, the series following the protagonist is divided in two sagas. One is six books long and the follow up is five books long, so eleven in total. There’s a spin off series of four books dealing with the events happening on a certain sector of space that the heroes of the main series visit in their long voyage home.
In a way, The Lost Fleet is Xenophon’s Anabasis in sci-fi form, detailing a long and grueling journey through enemy lands.
I’ve been eyeballing Savage Ascension, on MSE’s recommendation. This seals the deal. Gotta love a barbarian that smites the pompous, “civilized” kingdoms and takes a few wives along the way. Arena combat is Gore’s jam, so I’m looking forward to getting more inspiration and entertainment from this.
The Lost Fleet looks like a good recommendation, as well. Love me some Ender’s Game.
An Orc at College?! C’mon DaveB! You had me at “Orc”, and you know it. Also, gotta love the underdog “brute” showing the wallflowers and aristocrats what a smart Orc can do. ^_^
Lastly, Entangled Fates is a definite. I LOVE cyberpunk, ever since GITS, Akira, and Battle Angel Alita (all the originals, not this reboot crap…though Rodriguez/Cameron did a great Alita reboot, IMO). The whole quantum entangled AI kinda reminds me of the plot point from Birdy the Mighty, except with an AI, instead of a badass, beautiful bounty hunter. I will definitely give this a sniff. I really hope they’re in audio format. Kids chew up my reading time faster than a pack of ravenous Utahraptors.
I’ve also enjoyed the Last World LITRPG series, by Atlas Kane. It’s an extra bonus that Christopher Bucher and Jessica Threet narrate the audiobooks. Love that duo, so much. ^_^
After finishing Savage Ascension, I tried Last World and thought it was… fine? It wasn’t bad at all, but as I alluded to, I’ve read a ton of Isekai-ish books lately, and most of them are just okay. I thought SA stood out amongst the rabble. It’s no Binding Words, but that series is in my all time top 5. I think I got bored with the tropes about halfway through Last World, and that’s when I tried Lost Fleet. I may go back and finish LW after I finish the first set of Lost Fleet books.
Here is why I take the time to read the comments on this strip. The average person would have referred to them as “Velociraptors” whereas CapnTytePantz knew the correct name for them – “Utahraptors”. And I would bet that all or most of the fans of this series knew the term as well. That’s just awesome!
I wouldn’t underestimate a pack of velociraptors, just because they may be smaller than the things depicted in Jurassic Park – I’d wager they’d still make lunch out of most humans – and because they’re smaller and would most likely have a lower metabolic rate than humans, perhaps dinner and every other meal for several weeks.
I have read all of these books and like them immensely. If you have the time there are two series that may not have come to your attention, that I feel would be of interest to the community.
The Spellmonger Series by Terry Mancour — Epic level fantasy series (12 books of 30 planned) with a deep world-building and quite a bit of humor and banter.
Chronicles of Fid by David Reiss — Supervillian fiction with a great backstory and MC who is both hopelessly broken and understandable.
The lost fleet is really really good. I’d also recommend the Amaranthe series by G.S. Jennsen which does a good job of painting a picture of humans growing and changing in response to improvements in technology. The Archangel series by C. Gockel does goes in depth asking what it means to be human. And, depending, I’d recommend the Shifters and Partners series by Hollis Shiloh, which follows the stories of shpeshifters who work as a partner with policemen and such – though it’s more of a niche taste.
The Shiloh series sounds like a cool premise, but I’m going to guess from those covers of very muscular, square jawed, intense staring dudes with strategically groomed stubble that my bread may be buttered on the wrong side for me to fully appreciate everything that series has to offer. :)
I don’t know if they’ve come up in the recommendations before, but I’d like to point interested parties towards the Systems of the Apocalypse books by Macronomicon. He’s written a few different LitRPG stories, and he puts a lot of interesting thought into essentially min-maxing one’s self in a world where that’s suddenly not only viable but necessary, and how to survive in a world where the really dangerous people also realized that. Some really smart applications of esoteric powers by clever protagonists, and detailed hair-trigger tactics.
The bulk of his writing is free to read online, though not all of them are finished; Systems of the Apocalypse is just what he’s officially published on kindle. Good stuff!
Does it take place inside a video game? The blurb on the book didn’t make that clear. With only incredibly rare exceptions, I just can’t get myself to care about the low-stakes worlds of books happening inside games.
Not in a video game, no. Earth and all of humanity get forcibly inducted as the latest in a long line of worlds to be added (“stiched into”) another world where the rules of reality happen to be very gameified. The first book covers the “tutorial” humanity had to do to basically see how hard everyone should squint suspiciously at them. Happily, the conventional rules of physics we know at least continue to apply as well, leading to some interesting exploits by smart people.
His The Outer Sphere story has a similar premise, and in Wake of the Ravager another such induction took place yonks and yonks ago from the story’s present. (On a sidenot, those two stories have some more explicit scenes, but not without warning aforehand.)
jack campbell is one of the better military scifi writers out there, but I found a couple of others that scratch that same itch. so if you want what he does with more focus on the economy behind the war try Elizabeth Moon’s “vattas war” series. still has the complications of .1c warfare but more of a focus on small group engagements versus large fleet tactics with the added wrinkle of …(story spoiler). If you want a bit more on the society that supports the fleet try Mike shepard’s “kris longknife” series space empire if fracturing and everybody starts grabbing for the pieces they can hold onto. Jean johnson’s A Soldier’s duty is the start of a series that deals with a badass lady psychic trying to save the future from an extra galactic threat; not a spoiler that’s literally the prologue. Now I know you’ve said you are meh on isekais but give “everybody loves large chests” a shot. it’s a webnovel that can be found on royal road. the blurb is a very good play on the story. give the first few chapters a read before deciding though, some thing tells me you’ll like it.
Boxxy is a fun character, and I think his service call scene re:Punchy summoning is one of my favorite scenes ever (his interaction with Chaos was up there too).
I heartily recommend pretty much anything by Elizabeth Moon, but Vatta’s war is her best SF as opposed to fantasy.
Although this sounds strange, I would recommend “Artificial Jelly: A LitRPG Dungeon Mob Searching for Family”, by Dustin Graham. One of the few books I read twice (in a row), as there were a lot of subtle things in it.
Another writer very much in the same vein is joshua dalzelle. With the black fleet trilogy followed by the expansion wars.
This was supposed to attach to cambell
I don’t know if you will read this or not, or even care about it at all. If you are looking for world building, adventure, and loads of character development in an ‘adult’ book (meaning there is sex too), then you should check out Sister Seekers series by A. S. Etaski.
Looks very Drow/Menzoberanzan adjacent.
If you like space battles that require time for events to happen I suggest the Chanur series. It’s been described as ‘the Lord of the Rings’ in space, in part because the original 4 books are divided into a short introductory story reminiscent of ‘The Hobbit’, and an epic 3 book saga with 5 territories controled by 5 spicies each with different psychologies (that don’t understand each other). Throw in one lost human, a ship of traders whose survival depends on understanding/ out thinking everyone else and it gets intense.
I do know that there some spinoffs on the honorverse including a one that is when the manticoran navy is first starting up it only 3 books if you want space battles. David Webber also made classical styled fantasy series. If want more jack campbell he does have another series, a scifi ground battle trilogy where the US forces fight on the moon and the issues with too many officers and the rebel.
Savage Ascension is not findable on Google Books. So i’m wondering if only on certain e-book website.
I just picked up sample of Lost Fleet, i was thinking about David Webber’s series which i collected most of the books. He got lost at End Game, his side stories became more interesting. He should have bumped off Honor when he had a chance, its too suck around her and frankly he made technology too Over Powering to be readable after that in the spine/core series
Folks who enjoyed Lost Fleet and Harrington might also like David Drake’s RCN/Lt. Leary series, beginning at With the Lightnings and up to 19 books at this point. It’s even more “Age of Sail in Space” than Harrington is with very obvious historical parallels, but Drake’s knack for writing flawed badasses and violent action scenes keeps it pretty engaging. It hasn’t lapsed into the massive setting exposition dumps that the later Harrington books did, and while the protags are very competent most of the time they don’t approach Mary Sue/Gary Stu levels.
Your description for Lost Fleet comes across as Avatar the Last Airbender meets Ender’s Game meets Idiocracy – might have to try it out
Thanks for the recommendations, the last time when you recommended Tamer I picked it up on a whim an proceeded to devour the whole series in a weekend so I’ll be taking these for a spin ASAP. In a sidenote, any chance you’ll release a sequel to Enhancer? I enjoyed it as much as Tamer and I’m kinda yearning for more Nira, Yxlyn and Voss , hell I’d even encourage you to talk to MSE and see if you two can work a deal to release it as an official side-story or something, it was honestly that good.
Enhancer 2 is still being worked on. Most of my “free” time is used up now with the monthly nudie pics, and I got hung up on a scene, but I’m starting to pick up speed again I think. It really just depends on how long each pair of comic pages take me to draw each week. I don’t have an estimate for when it’ll be ready, but I’ll keep you guys up to date as it gets closer.
Great news to hear!, and don’t worry about going slow, take as much time as you need.
Sneak peek on a passage that made me chuckle:
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“There are some [rapists on my world]. They have their genitals removed.” She shrugged, like the solution was a foregone conclusion.
I had to take a moment to digest that. “That, uh… sounds like an effective deterrent?” Especially considering how her stone-age civilization likely handled the surgery.
XXXXX nodded. “There is little recidivism.”
****************
I got a chuckle out of it (specially the last line) but can’t place the it on the existing characters. Maybe Voss? we know little about her so far, though based on the description of her underwear/clothing it doesn’t quite match with a stone-age civilization IMO so I’m leaning on this being a new character. In any case sounds like it’s coming along nicely, thanks for the update.
Jack Campbell is a great writer, did you by chance get to meet him when he showed up at A-kon (~2015)?
I got to talk with him and he’s a former canadian navy TAC officer , who was quite happy to be on a panel with Elizabeth Moon and some other military vet novelists.
/I hope we get more great space battles
I was unaware of him until about 3 weeks ago, but if he’s around again I’ll know to look for him.
I’m glad you enjoyed Lost Fleet enough to give it a recommend! I was pleasantly surprised to see it mentioned after commententing about it on your other book thread. I’m so bad at talking up things that I like that it is always shocking when someone actually checks them out. Even if it wasn’t my specific recommend that brought you to it, I am pleased that you like it too! ^^
Thanks for the heads up on the Entangled Fates series. Devouring the first book now, its hard to put down.
Hey Dave!
Thanks again for recommending Tamer, I have devoured it and loved Enhancer also. Have you seen the “Visual Audiobook” on Youtube? https://youtu.be/or-hSvlrEvA
P.S.: Starting Savage Ascension and after that The Lost Fleet.
I’ve watched about 30 seconds of it. I’m not a fan of motion comics. They’re like audiobooks you can’t multitask to, and comics you can’t read at your own pace combined into one inconvenient package.
I had guessed this was what his mystery project was almost immediately, but I never posted my thoughts on it because I’m trying not to be so casually cynical about stuff. He’s leveraged interest in it into his new Patreon account, and it’s great so many people are interested in it, so maybe I’m the weirdo who thinks motions comics are dumb.
I’ll try and give it a watch once it gets up to more interesting chapters (the pool party with Lacy was a rough start for the book, IMO) but honestly I don’t know when I’d find the time to sit down and watch a 14 hour narrated comic.
This chapter introduces us to the protagonist. We first see him at work, doing a fairly menial job but one he is still able to get some enjoyment out of. We learn that he loves animals not because he tells us so, but because his thoughts about his boss revel that he wonders about her dislike for animals in her position at the animal control department.
We learn about his background, the death of his parents a few years ago. Again not because he comes out and tells us he was orphaned a few years ago, but because he had plans to go visit his parents graves which his domineering boss interrupted. From this we learn that he’s a bit of a wimp, giving in to his boss’ unreasonable demands even though he’d cleared his exit this day with her previously.
From his interactions with the girls at the pool party we learn a little about his high school years, since he went to school with a couple of the girls present at the party. We see how he reacts to women, and especially female attention. He always shuts down any attempt by his high school crush to offer him sympathy or regret that she hadn’t reached out to him. Not that he was rude or didn’t like it, but because he is awkward and unused to this kind of attention from a woman.
In short, what you’re calling a “rough start” manages to not only introduce us to the protagonist, but learn a great deal about him. We know that he isn’t some macho man who will be solving problems with his fists. The reader is led to know the protagonist as a sort of relatable “everyman.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everyman) This is something which this book managed to do in one chapter and which your own first effort never managed throughout the entire novel, where the reader never learns much of anything about the protagonist other than that he likes to bang alien women. Don’t mistake me, I’m not extolling the praises of Tamer as a great work of literature. But I am recognizing that the writer had a plan to introduce the protagonist and try to make him relatable to the reader. A plan that he followed through on. I can almost imagine him jotting down a chapter plan, with chapter one reading something like: “intro to Our Hero: ~21ish, orphan, average height and build, pushed around at work, not a big ladies man, likes animals, struggling financially.” And then when he sat down to do the actual writing he followed that plan and filled in more as his muse led him.
Structurally it’s fine, though I personally would have split it into two chapters, the “A day in the life on Earth” chapter and the “Oh shit aliens/Welcome to dinosaur land”
The reason it felt rough to me, and maybe ‘rough’ is the wrong word, but to me it came across as a very adolescent scene. MC shows up at a pool party and it’s supermodels/cheerleaders (I don’t recall exactly) as far as the eye can see. I’m not saying that girls don’t ever have girls only pool parties, but if they do, there’s probably a conscious effort to not invite any guys, but then the one girl he knows there immediately invites dad-bod everyman who works animal control to join them and (if I recall correctly) is almost immediately throwing herself at him.
To me it had a very immature wish fulfillment vibe to it, and yes, I’m perfectly aware the whole series is about a dude surrounded by beautiful alien women who need/adore him. The difference is, the rest of the relationships in the book feel earned, whereas the first chapter felt very “Dear Penthouse, I showed up at a house to handle a snake problem, little did I know the sixty cheerleaders in bikinis would be handling my snake.”
I’m very surprised by the existence of so many harem fantasy novels by american authors. I thought it was a japanese thing.
I think it’s a guy thing, honestly. It’s just not mainstream in the US.
I bought the orc at college audiobook, not a perfect 10 out of 10, but good enough, it was fun to listen to. I think I’ll like the entangled fates more since it’s cyberpunk. Made me want to get back to writing stuff again. Thanks for the recommandation.
Lost fleet just got a new book!
I would 100% refuse to wear a choker. I would constantly feel like I am, well, choking. I might settle for that thing that… Hiro, IIRC… wears. Like a half-choker, leaving the throat free.
I’ve mentioned it before, but I’ll risk repeating myself because the third book is currently free-releasing and will probably be edited and published this or next week, with an accompanying sale on the first two:
Macronomicon’s “Systems of the Apocalypse”; All of humanity collectively hears that they are about to be inducted into the Tutorial, and all promptly find themselves in different parts of another world, one where they have discrete stats, powers, and full of really dangerous things that can and will kill them quite easily. When the tutorial is finally finished, it turns out this was part of a process whereby earth and its inhabitants are incorporated into a larger world with the same gamified rules of reality, literally shuffling geographies together.
His stories tend to feature smart, clever bugger protagonists who really get elbow-deep into how the rules work, with fun casts of personalities and attractive ladies.
The books will be on sale on kindle with the release of the third one, and apparently there’s even an audiobook of the first in the offing!
I’ve avoided that one in the past partially because the blurb for the first book is really bad, and partially because it sounds like it takes place in a video game, and I just can’t bring myself to care about those. Your description makes it sounds bearable, so I’ll stick it on my wishlist for when I’ve cleared out a few other titles.
Yeah, it does sound game-y at a glance, cuz it kindof is, but the consequences are definitely real, and it goes to some fun places. You can check out the first chapter on his RoyalRoad account; if that doesn’t pique any interest at all, then the rest of his stuff will probably hit similarly. I will say that I get similar vibes reading his stuff that I got from Tamer, if that helps at all :]
Lost Fleet one of my favourite series ever. Sequel series….less so
Couple of other short series that are a lot of fun:
“I’m the Bad Guy” trilogy by Simon Archer. Yes, it’s “set in a video game”. But…..
“Dungeon Crawler Carl” series (5th book due out very soon) by Matt Dinniman. Despite the title, NOT a video game. Hilariously entertaining.
Binding Words #7 is out!
*devours*
Binding Words #8?
I need to be honest here; These are good books, but it’s not a great series. By about book four, the plots have crystallized. There are very few surprises. The writing is very good, but the repetition turns good writing into a slog. If the first book appeals to you, jump ship and go pick up David Drake’s RCN series. You’ll be far better served.
“Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
The Romans used this as part of the pain of crucifixion. The even wrote a book about it. Crucifixion that is.
I really liked Honor Harrington Novels so I will have to check out Lost Fleet. As a big Sci fi and Fantasy reader I also recommend a few others. NPC’s By Drew Hayes is a great D&D style series. Morningwood Everybody loves large chests by Niven Iliev is an amazing fantasy story from the monsters viewpoint which I rather enjoyed ( has some harem elements). A little old school but Hammers Slammers by David Drake is some great Military Sci Fi. I could name a bunch more but dont have time. These are just a few of my favorites
One trigger warning for An Orc at College for anyone else who is thinking of trying it.
It has been a fun read and the characters are genrally consistent and likeable, but (spoiler) a few books in it starts to include explicit Mother/Daughter/Daughter relations. It’s specified that they are all consenting adults, one daughter is adopted and the other is a step-daughter so there is no blood relation. The author does his best to jusitfy it in story, in retrospect he telegraphed it in advance and the main character is caring & respectful to all his lovers, but.. yeah. It’s in there and graphic.
Heh heh, so basically, three people who have a legal relationship and aren’t related by blood and can’t even get each other pregnant thereby creating Deliverance babies which is the source of the whole “incest is bad” thing anyway, eventually have sex.
I had thought about putting an asterisk on an Orc in College, but it was for the elf character. I know some dudes who read harem books are super not okay with another penis being even tangentially involved in the proceedings. Then I was like, eh, people will read the books or they won’t.
For what it’s worth, I wasn’t aware until this day’s commentary discussing the return gymnastics that the lighthook (*) has any Newtonian opposite-force effect. Admittedly I don’t remember seeing Sydney lift anything with it that she couldn’t have moosed on her own, but I wasn’t at all sure.
(* Light_hook_, not lighthouse. Darned auto incorrect…)
In other words, you can be fighting for your life and bored, simultaneously…
Just wanted you to know that I bought all of the Entangled Fates series, on your recommendation.
I really do not regret it. I got the first one, but after that I had to order the next one… and the next one.
Thank you!
Thanks for recommending Entangled Fates! You had me at “it’s a (slow burn) harem”, which, it is, and it’s awesome, but the escalating AI war has me gripped as well – already on the 3rd book. Thanks again.
I have read the Lost Fleet series. Well, OK, I listened to it as I drove back and forth between the Toys R Us warehouse and the stores. I prefer them to the Honor Harrington books, some of which I have also read.
Read the entire series. There were some interesting ideas, but he pushed everything until it was pleated. Then, once the war was over the protagonist moaned about how without a war life just wasn’t meaningful and exciting any longer. Gods alone know how many deaths directly. The entire economic surplus of trillions of people for hundreds of years chewed up, shipped to the edges of the galaxy and burned. But no more pewpewpew was the most important thing.
Appreciation to the Mysterious All-Repairing Substance, though.
Dave if you haven’t you should check out the series Between Worlds (the occupation saga) by J. L. Williams. It has alot of elements I think you would like.
I’ve been hoping for an audiobook of that for a while, but at this point it’s probably not going to happen.
perhaps dinner and every other meal for several weeks.
A series I’ve just gotten interested in is Michael Anderle’s “The Kurthurian Gambit”. Apparently it’s up to 21 volumes now. It has vampires, werewolves, *and* aliens. The first one is titled “Death Becomes Her”.
The tag line on Amazon is “What you thought you knew about vampires and werewolves is wrong . . . so *very* *very* *wrong*”.
When talking about Elizabeth Moon, I can also recommend her other military sci-fi series “The Serrano Legacy”
Though I would recommond starting with book 4 “Once a Hero” as the first three books have a different protagonist and a very different tone. When the protagonist switches from Herris Serano to Esmay Suiza the stories become much more military, but unlike most similar stories there is a lot of room and attention for the things that surround the military and military culture. (Not much romance though, and nobody is overpowered in any way, when spaceships do the fighting. There are some really dark subjects in these books though, and it does not shy away from confronting the society shattering consequences of certain new technologies. It is also refreshing that for once politicians are not demonished, but portrayed as fallible people who by and large try to do what they see is the best thing–while also personally profiting on occasion. It makes room in the story for a glimpse on the subject that is rarely addressed in military sci-fi: why the military gets employed in certain situations and what the consequences of that are beyond the obvious fire and fury).
I probably mentioned it in another book recommendation thread, but “The Laundry Files”, a series by Charles Stross is highly recommended. The premise is “Sufficiently advance mathematics and computing is not indistinguishable from, but actually magic”
A fun standalone novel by the same author is “Halting State”. It is a near future fiction (which means that the writer tries to use only existing or emerging technology). I will not spoil the many twists and puns of the story, but will only say that the protagonist is a beat cop who gets called in for a bank robbery and things get weird from that point in a hurry.
The book has a sequel but, while written expertly, that did not draw me in to the same degree.