Hanging in the balance is the fate of MultiReal, a technology that could end the tyranny of the Defense and Wellness Council forever--or give the Council the ultimate weapon of oppression.

Natch has just won his first battle with the Defense and Wellness Council for control of MultiReal technology. But now the Council has unleashed the ruthless cunning of Lieutenant Executive Magan Kai Lee. Lee decides that if Natch's company can't be destroyed from without, it must be destroyed from within. As black code continues to eat away at Natch's sanity, he faces a mutiny from his own apprentices, a legal onslaught from the government, and the return of enemies old and new. In desperation, the entrepreneur turns to some unlikely allies: a radical politician with an agenda of his own, and a childhood enemy to whom he has done a terrible wrong. Natch's struggle will take him from the halls of power in Melbourne to the ruined cities of the diss. Hanging in the balance is the fate of MultiReal, a technology that could end the tyranny of the Council forever—or give the Council the ultimate weapon of oppression.

The Defense and Wellness Council is enmeshed in full-scale civil war between Len Borda and the mysterious Magan Kai Lee. Quell has escaped from prison and is stirring up rebellion in the Islands with the aid of a brash young leader named Josiah. Jara and the apprentices of the Surina/Natch MultiReal Fiefcorp still find themselves fighting off legal attacks from their competitors and from Margaret Surina's unscrupulous heirs -- even though MultiReal has completely vanished. The quest for the truth will lead to the edges of civilization, from the tumultuous society of the Pacific Islands to the lawless orbital colony of 49th Heaven; and through the deeps of time, from the hidden agenda of the Surina family to the real truth behind the Autonomous Revolt that devastated humanity hundreds of years ago. Meanwhile, Natch has awakened in a windowless prison with nothing but a haze of memory to clue him in as to how he got there. He's still receiving strange hallucinatory messages from Margaret Surina and the nature of reality is buckling all around him. When the smoke clears, Natch must make the ultimate decision -- whether to save a world that has scorned and discarded him, or to save the only person he has ever loved: himself.

Natch is a master of bio/logics, the programming of the human body. He's clawed and scraped his way to the top of the bio/logics market using little more than his wits. Now his sudden notoriety has brought him to the attention of Margaret Surina, the owner of a mysterious new technology called MultiReal. Only by enlisting Natch's devious mind can Margaret keep MultiReal out of the hands of High Executive Len Borda and his ruthless armies. To fend off the intricate net of enemies closing in around him, Natch and his apprentices must accomplish the impossible. They must understand this strange new technology, run through the product development cycle, and prepare MultiReal for release to the public—all in three days. Meanwhile, hanging over everything is the spectre of the infoquake, a lethal burst of energy that's disrupting the bio/logic networks and threatening to send the world crashing back into the Dark Ages. Book 1 in the Jump 225 Series. About the Jump 225 Series: “. . . novels chockfull of ideas . . .”—Orson Scott Card “Infoquake is a stunning debut novel by a lucid, precise, and talented new voice in the genre.”—SSF World “Edelman has managed to capture the mania and obsession of internet moguls nicely.”—SF Revu Praise for Infoquake: “Slick high-finance melodrama and dizzying technical speculation lift Edelman’s SF debut. . . . Bursting with invention and panache, this novel will hook readers for the story’s next installment.” —Publishers Weekly “INFOQUAKE should appeal to just about any SF reader, but if you like Herbert’s Dune or any of Stross’ work, you should really enjoy this book.” —SF Signal Praise for MultiReal: “Edelman brings fresh air to the technological thriller. . . . MultiReal itself is firmly established as one of the most fascinating singularity technologies in years.” —Publishers Weekly “Once you realize that Natch is less Neo than he is Steve Jobs, you’re in for a swell ride.” —Sci-Fi Weekly Praise for Geosynchron: “This smart, idiosyncratic blend of cyberpunk, libertarian entrepreneurship, and social engineering will, I think, stand as a seminal work of 21st century SF.” —Locus “Takes the series one level higher, beyond mundanity to true sense-of-wonder SF, so it finally plays on the level of the masters of modern SF.” —Fantasy Book Critic At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).

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