The Escher Man by T.R. Napper

Book Review

Robin C.M. Duncan

Endel ‘Endgame’ Ebbinghaus is head of security for vicious Macau mob boss, Mister Long; a brutal tool to be employed for all the Macau Syndicate’s drug-cartel dirty work. After every job, Endel’s memories are wiped and re-written, and he must keep a log in his memory pin to prompt him at the start of each day, or he’d be hard-pressed to remember which way is up.

‘Endgame’ is a violent man, but he is also a father and husband, haunted by memories of his estranged family, and the life they once had. Endel wants them back, he wants outs, but one does not simply leave the Syndicate. In a world where memory manipulation is the everyday stock in trade of the powerful, both criminals and corporations, Endel can barely tell his friends from his enemies.

Given the prevalence in our own society of later-life memory loss, and such cruel cognitive impairment diseases as Alzheimer’s and various forms of dementia – in parallel with the relentless advance of (so-called) AI, virtual reality and increasing reliance on Smart technology – this novel feels particularly prescient. How long will it be before we are purchasing cyber-mods across the counter, and having them installed in the high street clinic between the vape shop and the tanning parlour?

Part of the author’s skill, as Napper fans already know, is weaving significant questions about human identity in our own time through a story that drips with techno-noir, pummelling the reader with gut-wrenching combat scenes and powerful personal conflicts. The action set pieces are at once cruel, colourful, and never less than riveting as we follow Endel’s battles, both without and within, on the quest to find his truth. (There’s really only one thing in the novel that is truly unbelievable, and that’s the suggestion of my team Arsenal losing 3-0 to Tianjin Teda!)

The Escher Man is a superb follow-up novel to the author’s fantastic debut 36 Streets. His recent novella Ghost of the Neon God gave us a bitter and brilliant reminder of Napper’s cutting take on futuristic corporate thuggery, and here comes the main event. Intricate and brutal, insightful and thought-provoking: this is required reading for Cyberpunk fans.