Books by Daniel Verastiqui

As the advice goes:

"Your website is your chance to really sell your books to prospective readers!"

Um, no.

Ads are everywhere, and humanity suffers enough as it is. So instead of subjecting you to a couple of sleazy marketing paragraphs generated by ChatGPT, let me just tell you a few things about my books and then you can choose the cover that catches your eye the most.

These are my novels, novellas, and short stories. I wrote them all by myself without generative AI or a working knowledge of similes. They come from my love of the movie Hackers and classic science fiction stories by Asimov, PKD, Gibson, and Butler. Although I like to throw around the word cyberpunk a lot, they're not really as hardcore as what you might find in something like Altered Carbon. If anything, I'd rather wrap sci-fi / cyberpunk / high tech themes around literary stories about identity, relationships, and mortality.

More The Time Traveler's Wife than Neuromancer.

More Replay than Snow Crash.

In my stories, technology usually plays the role of the villain, which isn't too far off from how things are in the real world. But instead of examining how cell phones are ruining our minds, I focus on the coolest tech enhancing our worst tendencies... and at scale.

If that's a little too doom and gloom for you, don't worry. Think back to the dystopian and post-apocalyptic vibes of the 80s and early 90s. Prayer of the Rollerboys, Class of 1999, those sorts of worldview-shaping classics. Even though they showed us a future far more horrible than where we find ourselves in 2025, they had a little humor to them, a glimmer of hope that maybe we'll find our way through.

And if even that's too rich for your blood, then I don't know what to tell you, dear reader. I don't write to the market. Critical reviews won't sway me. I write the books that I want to read, and I don't see that ever changing.

So let's find out if the same high-octane thriller action, relentless technobabble, gratuitous violence, questionable nudity, and gooey emotional pathos entertain you as much as they do me.

Pick one to start with and enjoy. If you'd like more context on how the novels fit together, check out this page about The Vinestead Anthology.