Connect

By: Julian Gough
Location: FIC GOU
Genre:  Science Fiction

For readers of William Gibson, Ready Player One, and Naomi Alderman’s The Power, Connect is a page-turning novel of ideas that thrillingly explores what connection – both human and otherwise – might be in a digital age.


"Connect really is a work of genius. It confronts and explores the nature of humanness and existence in a thrilling, immersive, addictive way, and marks Julian Gough out as a prophet  among writers." Donal Ryan 



"Connect by Julian Gough is a very ambitious project. It seeks to map the human condition in the context of the greater universe and particularly its place amidst the rise of Artificial Intelligence. So, y’know… just Life, the Universe and Everything. That the author wraps these themes into a good old-fashioned, ripping yarn and pretty much succeeds in his attempt is truly commendable" SW7

Colt is a teenage boy, the only child of divorced parents, living in Nevada. For all his brilliance, he is impossible at school and is being home-schooled by his mother. At least in theory. His mother is a biologist, on the verge of a major scientific breakthrough; his father works for a mysterious government agency that isn't supposed to exist. Socially awkward and benignly neglected by his parents, Colt spends most of his time living in a virtual reality gaming world.

Colt is on the spectrum, to say the least. Like most people who are borderline autistic, Colt tries to keep his life simple. But when Colt meets a girl online; when he submits his mother's breakthrough scientific paper to a conference and the paper comes to the attention of the organization his father works for; when his father comes to see his own son and ex-wife as threats to national security, things start to become complicated. Very complicated indeed . . .

"This book has been written by someone who, like Alex in A Clockwork Orange, processed the media and pop culture of the last decade unblinking. Put through the arts blender of Julian's brain, the result is a thrilling and naughty mix of sci-fi, thriller, coming-of-age and criticism of civilisation. An instant cult book and literally begging to be made into a movie." Marcel