The Escher Man by T.R. Napper
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
TR Napper returns us to his dark cyberpunk future
Endel ‘Endgame’ Ebbinghaus is an enforcer for the Macau drug cartels. He often meets unsavoury people and sometimes he has to kill them. Endgame is a violent abusive husband, and he keeps away from his wife and kid because he’s afraid of what he might do to them. Endgame is a mindless assassin, programmed, set loose and mind-wiped when his target is eliminated. Endgame is a loving partner and parent to his two children, but they don’t live together anymore because of some poor life choices. Endgame is all of these things and none of them. He’s also something else, but he forgets what that is and may never remember.
In The Escher Man, TR Napper returns us to the cyberpunk world he so effectively realised in 36 Streets. The Escher Man was published after 36 Streets but written long before and that may explain why it’s an excellent companion piece to 36 Streets but doesn’t quite hit the high-water mark set by that novel.
In this shared world, the cochlear glyph – a behind-the-ear implant that works like a mobile phone on steroids – has become near ubiquitous, and users are losing the ability to lay down memories, searching instead for the next social-media-delivered dopamine hit, and then the one after that, and the one after that. But memory is not a problem as the c-glyph also contains a memory pin, giving the user complete and perfect recall. Unless they allow their pin to fall into the hands of another who can edit, wipe or implant whatever memories they choose.
Endgame’s boss – Mister Long – frequently accesses his memory pin. It’s convenient for anyone involved in criminal activities to regularly purge inconvenient memories and replace them with watertight alibis. But Endgame is starting to suspect that Long’s editing is a lot more fundamental as his battered mind keeps on dredging up incongruous thoughts and feelings. It’s time, Endgame thinks, to work out what his true history is. And that leads him into a whole world of pain.
Napper has an expert grasp of the cyberpunk form and his descriptions are vivid and bone-crunchingly brutal as Endgame pieces together his broken life, reunites with his estranged family and goes on the run from Mister Long. The plot whips along at breakneck pace – and many necks are indeed broken in Endgame’s headlong dash to freedom. While I really enjoyed the book, it does have its more formulaic aspects – more so than 36 Streets. After all, the anti-hero trying to leave his life of crime only to be pulled back in is a very familiar trope. And I felt that the ending, while satisfying, did feel a little too easy given the obstacles Endgame was facing to his own ‘happy ever after’. As a result, The Escher Man doesn’t quite achieve the nuanced apotheosis of 36 Streets, but it does pull off a hugely entertaining and action-packed story.
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