Cirrus@Austlit

'In a clash between transhumans and the religious right, a washed up PI ends up as the meat in the sandwich, with the fate of humanity resting on his reluctant shoulders.

'When struggling PI Rik Sylver takes on a simple courier's job, it turns out the package he is transporting contains a virus that can control people's minds and powerful, dangerous people want to take it from him - many of them dangerous transhumans from Omega Point. All Rik has to do is hand over the package and get paid - but then he loses the package and the only way to save himself and everyone he loves, is to collaborate with these people to retrieve it Yet things are not what they seem and deciding who or what to believe is the only way Rik can save himself and the world he knows.

'The Credulity Nexus is the first book in the Rik Sylver series and also the first of Graham Storrs's novels set in his Placid Point universe. Moving between the Earth, the Moon and Omega Point, this is a fast-paced science fiction thriller, with the trademark plot twists that will delight readers of this author's previous work.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'The Sentience Machine is the sequel to The Credulity Nexus, a fast-paced, science fiction thriller set at the end of the 21st century.

'Two years have passed since PI Rik Sylver became involved in the credulity nexus affair and things are looking up for him – until his old nemesis, Rivers Valdinger, shows up with a message from Omega Point. Rivers is a “zombie” – the mind of a dead human uploaded into a powerful robot body. Omega Point is a “ghost farm” a satellite, orbiting the Sun, with the disembodied minds of 20,000 dead rich people living inside its virtual world. The message Rivers brings is that Omega Point is under attack by an unknown enemy and Martin Lanham, the uberghost who runs Omega Point, is holding one of Rik’s friends hostage until Rik finds out who the culprit is.

'Once again, Rik and Rivers become unlikely allies as they track down the perpetrator. Once again, they quickly find themselves tangled up in a web of lies and misdirection, prejudice, deadly danger, and high-level corruption, as they stumble towards a discovery that neither of them could have foreseen.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Walking away from the world never kept Rik Sylver out of trouble before and it didn’t this time.

'Even working in a mining camp on Saturn’s moon, Enceladus, didn’t stop the transhumans of Omega Point reaching out across the Solar System and dragging him back into their world of danger and intrigue. A transhuman has been murdered and, somehow, this is tied to a covert plot within the US Government that has MI6 operative, Fariba Freymann, investigating against the orders of her superiors. When the upload, Rivers Valdinger, is drawn into the operation, the action ratchets up a notch and the violence escalates. Rik, as ever, is well out of his depth but, as the scope of the conspiracy is finally revealed, he finds himself once more to be the only person with any chance of preventing a catastrophe.

'The Dissonance Factor is the third Rik Sylver novel.'