Books › Infinite Detail
Infinite Detail
384 pages
A gritty, hyper-observant plunge into the paranoid twilight of the digital age and the scavenged ruins left in its wake.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like walking through a neon-lit city just as the power grid fails forever. It is a deeply atmospheric, dread-soaked experience that oscillates between a hyper-surveilled, anxiety-inducing 'Before' and a scavenged, disconnected 'After.' The narrative moves at a steady, deliberate pace, prioritizing the gritty textures of urban survival and the melancholic weight of lost digital memories over high-octane action. The prose is sharp and hyper-observant, dissecting the fragility of modern infrastructure with a cynical yet mourning eye. It will deeply satisfy readers who love politically charged, near-future dystopias that feel uncomfortably prescient, offering a chillingly plausible meditation on what happens when the invisible tethers of our world are suddenly severed.
- Mood
- gritty
- dread-soaked
- claustrophobic
- decaying
- Tone
- cynical
- observant
- melancholic
- sharp
- Pace
- steady
- Themes
- fragility of modern infrastructure · surveillance capitalism · weight of digital memory · urban decay and survival · illusion of privacy
- The writing
- Hyper-observant and textured, blending sharp technological critique with gritty, sensory descriptions of urban decay.
- The arc
- Moves from a simmering, paranoid anxiety about the hyper-connected present to a stark, grieving acceptance of a disconnected future.
- Who it's for
- Readers who crave politically charged, atmospheric cyberpunk that feels uncomfortably close to our current reality.
Content notes
- societal collapse
- grief
- surveillance paranoia
- violence
About the book
A timely and uncanny portrait of a world in the wake of fake news, diminished privacy, and a total shutdown of the Internet BEFORE: In Bristols center lies the Croft, a digital no-mans-land cut off from the surveillance, Big Data dependence, and corporate-sponsored, globally hegemonic aspirations that have overrun the rest of the world. Ten years in, its become a center of creative counterculture. But its fraying at the edges, radicalizing from inside. How will it fare when its chief architect, Rushdi Mannan, takes off to meet his boyfriend in New York Citynow the apotheosis of the new techno-utopian global metropolis? AFTER: An act of anonymous cyberterrorism has permanently switched off the Internet. Global trade, travel, and communication have collapsed. The luxuries that characterized modern life are scarce. In the Croft, Marywho has visions of people presumed deadis sought out by grieving families seeking connections to lost ones. But does Mary have a gift or is she just hustling to stay alive? Like Grids, who runs the Crofts black market like personal turf. Or like Tyrone, who hoards music (culled from cassettes, the only medium to survive the crash) and tattered sneakers like treasure. The world of Infinite Detail is a small step shy of our own: utterly dependent on technology, constantly brokering autonomy and privacy for comfort and convenience. With Infinite Detail, Tim Maughan makes the hitherto-unimaginable come true: the End of the Internet, the End of the World as We Know It.
Description from Open Library.
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