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In January 2020, I wrote for Slate about the experience of reading
The Absolute Book, an epic fantasy by the Wellington, New Zealand, writer Elizabeth Knox. The book seemed so remarkable and so marketable that I couldn’t believe it had no American publisher, so I gave my piece the puckish headline “This New Zealand Fantasy Masterpiece Needs to Be Published in America, Like, Now.” Much to my delight, the essay worked, and on Tuesday the American edition of
Privacy is a luxury in Cory Doctorow’s
Attack Surface
, a political technothriller that follows the questionable choices of former spy, government operative, and traitor, Masha Maximow, as she builds cyberweapons for authoritarian governments, greedy cyber firms, and progressive activists alike. Taking place a few years after the events of
Little Brother and
Homeland
, this standalone novel yanks readers through Masha’s turbulent life in a series of alternating flashbacks and present-day dilemmas. Masha serves as a slightly unreliable narrator. Her snarky and (sometimes) cringey first-person point of view conveys Doctorow’s unsettlingly realist perspective on surveillance and internet freedom quite well.
The Desolation of Arda mod for Battle for Middle-earth II: Rise of the Witch King
Hello! Welcome to the Desolation of Arda ModDb page! We re a small mod team working on The Battle for Middle Earth 2: Rise of the Witch King. On whom we re creating the mod called Desolation of Arda . The mod takes place in the Second Age and will then transpire and translate itself into the First Age and then finally into the famous eucatastrophe event known as Dagor Dagorath .
Factions to be included into this mod on release will be Numenor, Eregion, Dwarves of Khazad-Dum, Mordor and Harad. (Subject to Change)