Xronixle (2007)

To preserve his relationship with his girlfriend, C, X uploads her consciousness into a virtual avatar, triggering unforeseen consequences. As C becomes an unstoppable presence in the virtual Net, X’s friends Natalie and G must embark on a rescue mission through a digital realm filled with deadly threats and insidious corporate forces.

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They say long distance relationships never work...

But what if they could? What if we could throw enough technology at them to essentially erase the distance?

Those are the kinds of questions I was asking myself back in 2004 when I was writing The Sum of Memory, a short story I would later expand into the novel-length Xronixle. The premise of the book mirrored my life in 1998: leaving Maryland for Texas, computer science classes at UT Austin, and a doomed long distance relationship hanging over my head. Back then, we didn't have text messages and FaceTime. We had ICQ and prepaid calling cards.

Then The Matrix came out, and I started thinking about virtual reality in a big way: would a fully immersive, full-sensory, virtual reality be just as good as being there in-person?

It doesn't take long for Xronixle to answer that question with a resounding no, but what follows is the kind of fiction I was born to write: selfish characters, violent hackers, lack of morals... basically all the cyberpunk tropes you know and love.

I set X and C on their doomed path, threw in some friends to get caught up in the maelstrom X ends up creating, and then used this book as a jumping off point into the Vinestead Anthology. It may not be my best-written work, but it's the one that started everything, and it holds a special place in my heart.

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