Max Barry – October 4 2020

World Space Week– October 4-10

Max is the author of six novels and a blogger on various topics including writing, marketing and politics. His first novel, Syrup, was written whilst selling high-end computer systems for Hewlett-Packard prior to taking up writing full time. Syrup has been optioned for the screen by Fortress Entertainment and Max has recently finished writing the screenplay. To publicise his second novel, Jennifer Government, Max created the online government simulation game NationStates which has generated a sizeable online community with over 6.5 million user-created nations, 200,000+ of which are currently active. Jennifer Government was also optioned for the screen, by Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney’s now defunct Section Eight Productions. Max’s third novel, Company, is to be adapted by Steve Pink as a screenplay for Universal Pictures, and Mandalay Pictures has acquired the film rights to Machine Man. Max’s other writing includes his fifth novel, Lexicon, and several short stories such as A Shade Less Perfect, Springtide and How I Met My Daughter.

Providence
G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2020; ISBN 9780593085172
Gilly, Talia, Anders, and Jackson are astronauts captaining a new and supposedly indestructible ship in humanity’s war against an alien race. Confined to the ship for years, each of them holding their own secrets, they are about to learn there are threats beyond the reach of human ingenuity – and that the true nature of reality might be the universe’s greatest mystery. In this near future, our world is at war with another, and humanity is haunted by its one catastrophic loss – a nightmarish engagement that left a handful of survivors drifting home through space, wracked with PTSD. Public support for the war plummeted, and the military-industrial complex set its sights on a new goal: zero-casualty warfare, made possible by gleaming new ships called Providences, powered by AI. But when the latest-launched Providence suffers a surprising attack and contact with home is severed, Gilly, Talia, Anders, and Jackson must confront the truth of the war they’re fighting, the ship that brought them there, and the cosmos beyond.

Machine Man
Scribe Publications, 2011; ISBN 9781921844263
When scientist Charles Neumann loses a leg in an industrial accident, it’s not a tragedy. It’s an opportunity. Charlie always thought his body could be better. His employer, military contractor Better Future, has the resources he needs to explore a few ideas. So he begins to build parts. Better parts. Charlie’s prosthetist, Lola, is impressed by his artificial limbs. But some see him as a madman. Others, a product. Or even a weapon. Existing at the intersection between mind and body, in the dawn of the age of pervasive technology, Machine Man is a gruesomely funny tale about one man’s quest for the ultimate in self-improvement.
“Blazes an independent trail … a uniquely creepy parable about our drive for personal and technological perfection.” – Duncan Driver, Canberra Times