The chemical props desperately holding together a defunct society. If you aren’t prescribed them to function, then you are dropping them to escape harsh reality. Water costs the same as rent. A 24/7 society leaves no time for sleep, and your only chance for financial freedom is enslaving yourself to the mega-corporations.
Welcome to Seattle.
Venom is a twenty-something-year-old hacker employed with the illusive Seraphim Network. Her life is simple: wake, work, party, pills, sleep, and repeat. That is, until an illegal data steal gone wrong forces her into the grasp of the newest drug on the market. NeuroPep…a hacker’s dream come true or their final nightmare. When pushed to the limits, Venom is forced to choose: her friends or the drug?
I love a good cyberpunk. And what do I mean by “good”? Good cyberpunk has tech that makes sense for the world. Good cyberpunk isn’t all about an author’s gratification (as if the only huge advancements in tech are centered around ease or pleasure), and it shows an understanding of how actual technology works (if it requires too much of an explanation, or if “humanity has to discover a completely new material or element” in order for something to happen, it feels like the author is justifying having cool effects without regard for parameters and limitations of what is possible), along with how a society might develop alongside this futuristic tech. Also, from a storytelling standpoint, a good cyberpunk story will stay grounded in the real world somehow, without being totally virtual and abstract. It will center on a distinct arc for the main character, a real challenge based around the tech, real stakes for said character, and in the end it’s not the tech that solves it, it’s the characters.
In that regard, Caustic checked all the boxes for me. The story stayed grounded (primarily because it’s set in a near-future Tacoma, Washington—and as a lifelong resident, I identified with the setting very much!) in the real world with not only things like the weather and the living situations, but how the characters interacted with one another. The other aspect I really liked was the way hacking was portrayed. In most 90’s and 80’s era films, one might assume hacking is this glamorous “clickity-clackity” activity where the hacker can hole up in a secluded area and just type really, really fast and then say “I’m in!” and all of a sudden their device has absorbed all information from the target computer and the system is completely in the hacker’s power. Hawken goes beyond that in their virtual portrayal, laying out a hacker’s actual use of toolkits and programs needed to run in order to navigate a foreign data system. They display it like an actual virtual heist mission, running attempts, dispatching various “predators” (the hacker programs, portrayed as snakes or bears, for example) to seek out weaknesses in the security systems to exploit.
Then there is also the matter of substance abuse which is a major driving force in this story as well. (This, again, is a “grounding” feature for me, since it’s a big part of society today, where we hear about how people will turn to substances in an attempt to “augment” their experience, but the abuse and addiction that follows ends up ruining and sometimes costing them their lives.) The writing lays it out very well, both the high of the drug’s effects, and the way its influence lingers on the character’s psyche—which is particularly detrimental to said character’s job as connecting to the virtual world relies so heavily on the health of one’s psyche!) A few lighter drugs are used recreationally, and aren’t treated with such severity—but the understanding is there, and it weighs heavily on the story.
I would rate Caustic a very strong ****4 STARS****. I would advise my followers that this book does contain a lot of triggering things like substance abuse, explicit content, and of course language—it’s not my usual “clean read” by any means, and if the subjects don’t bother you, I will say that the writing is very good and you’ll enjoy it a lot! If there are things mentioned that you know you won’t enjoy, you are welcome to approach with caution. I was able to ignore a lot, but some of those inclusions were hard to overlook and largely the reason it didn’t quite make the full 5 stars.
Further Reading: (Cyberpunk/Sci-Fi/Dystopian/Clean Reads/Not-So-Clean Reads)
-For None of Woman Born--S. D. Curran
-Cybermancer Presents--Andrew Barber
-Untamed
-Fragmented
-Bounty
-Blood Ties
-Behind the Badge
-Behind The Mask
-Who Can You Trust?
-Sound & Fury: Shakespeare Goes Punk, Vol. 1
-Once More Unto The Breach: Shakespeare Goes Punk, Vol. 2
-What We've Unlearned: Classic Literature Goes Punk
-Someday I'll Be Redeemed
-I Still Have A Soul
-I'm Still Alive
-Do You Trust Me?
-You Left Me No Choice
-They Must Be Stopped
-Find Me If You Can
-You're Not Alone
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