Broken Mirror (Resonant Earth) - Softcover

Sisco, Cody

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0997034823 ISBN 13: 9780997034820

Publisher: Resonant Earth Publishing, 2016

Synopsis

Broken Mirror: the start of a smart, complex, and imaginative cyberpunk alternate history saga. Literary science fiction from a fresh, young voice.

In a mirror universe, a mentally ill young man searches for his grandfather's killer.

Someone killed Grandfather Jefferson. Victor is sure of it. But he's the only one.

Diagnosed with mirror resonance syndrome and shunned by Semiautonomous California society, Victor suffers from "blank outs," hallucinations, and vivid nightmares. He violently overreacts to even minor confrontations.

Victor's grandfather devoted his life to researching and curing mentally ill Broken Mirrors like Victor, but now that he's gone, Victor must walk a narrow path between sanity and reclassification--a fate that all but guarantees he'll lose his freedom.

Victor is determined to uncover the truth about his grandfather's death and grows increasingly suspicious of the medicine he must take to help manage his "symptoms." As he tries to sort his allies from his enemies, a conspiracy with global implications emerges.

Can he trust his Aunt Circe, the only person in his family who's even somewhat sympathetic to his plight? His former classmate-turned-brainhacker Ozie, who wields information as damaging as any weapon and who seems intent on luring Victor away from his home? What about his old friend Elena, who reappears in his life abruptly, claiming to have miraculously overcome a devastating addiction?

With its self-driving cars, global firearms ban, and a cure for cancer, the world of Broken Mirror may sound utopic, but history has taken a few wrong turns. The American Union is a weak and fractious alliance of nations in decline. Europe, a superpower, manipulates its citizens through technology. And Asia is reeling from decades of war. Amid shifting geopolitical sands, Broken Mirrors like Victor find themselves at a crossroads: evolve or go extinct.

Broken Mirror is the first novel in a sci-fi detective saga tailor-made for fans of Isaac Asimov, Haruki Murakami, and Neal Stephenson.

About this title

From the Author:

on writing a character with a mental illness...Mirror resonance syndrome (MRS) borrows elements from other mental disorders like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and borderline personality disorder. People with MRS also experience extreme emotional transference; they involuntarily feel what the people around them are feeling, strongly. This can lead to mental shut down, or blanking out, when their consciousness overloads and shuts down temporarily. Victor Eastmore, the main character, has suffered from MRS for years. Through medication and therapy, he maintains a tenuous grip on his sanity--until his grandfather dies under conditions Victor finds suspicious.
on the inspiration for Broken Mirror...My cousin struggled with schizophrenia for years and died tragically while institutionalized. Several friends from childhood developed personality disorders in their teens or became addicted to drugs. I struggled with depression in my late teens and early 20s. It seems like many young people in my generation face uphill odds to simply lead normal lives. I wanted to show that struggle through my writing.
on writerly influences...I think writers are enormously influenced by what we've read--both what we've enjoyed and what has troubled us. Throughout my teens, I couldn't get enough of Stephen King and Clive Barker, not for the gore and splatter, but for the vividly imagined and daring worlds they created. It tells me that readers have an appetite for new, different, and surprising settings and characters and it encourages me to take risks. 
Conversely, I recently re-read Isaac Asimov's Foundation Series and I realized some of my writing was in reaction to his--for example, what if posthumous messages were more hurtful than helpful? Or take the TV show Fringe--what if crossing over wasn't as easy as stepping through a portal--what if the blood price was quantum suicide? So in some respects, a work of fiction is in dialogue with those that came before. 
In Broken Mirror, I hope that I'm channeling Frank Herbert's penchant for writing grand and historical battle of forces, Kim Stanley Robinson's exactitude when it comes to realism and scientific plausibility, and Haruki Murakami's sparse filaments of magic that yank on readers' curiosity.

About the Author:

Cody Sisco is the author of speculative fiction that straddles the divide between plausible and extraordinary. Tortured Echoes is his second novel and continues the series that began in Broken Mirror, which focuses on Victor Eastmore's journeys on Resonant Earth and beyond. An avid reader of Frank Herbert, Haruki Murakami, and Kim Stanley Robinson, Sisco strives to create worlds that sit in the "uncanny valley"--discomfortingly odd yet familiar, where morality is not clear-cut, technology bestows blessings and curses, and outsiders struggle to find their niche. He lives in Los Angeles.

About this edition

• Publisher: Resonant Earth Publishing
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0997034823
• ISBN 13: 9780997034820
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 470