Ebook on the Edge Merges TechnoCulture, Personal Growth

Alternative webmaster Nowick Gray (AlternativeCulture.com, HyperLife.net) crosses boundaries of conventional reality and genre with the release of Future.Con, a literary thriller of the near future. Available as an ebook for Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Reader, and Web browsers, Future.Con is a cyber-wise parable of self-realization, about relationship, virtual reality and the nature of choice.

What is Future.Con? It's a psychological mystery; a literate techno-thriller; a spiritual quest embedded in a hacker's coy game. Welcome to every computer programmer's nightmare: the virus that shows up on the user side of the interface. In this stylish journey into the near future, Joe Norton falls prey to a force that threatens to tear his Philadelphia life apart--from the inside out.

With instructions to kill and a baffling menu of choices, Norton faces a rocky ride through a series of alternate realities, at the whim of an invisible adversary. Never mind that one shaky relationship gives way to another, or that his job is jeopardized by a corporate buyout. Norton has another assignment to take care of, as he discovers that virtual reality is not confined to hardware. Destination: the home brain.

Like the novels of Michael Crichton, Peter Straub or Umberto Eco, Future.Con will appeal to literate readers who enjoy a compelling story with a heady concept and a speculative edge.

Future.Con was released by Booklocker.com in April 2000 (PDF, 300 pages, $8.95). http://www.booklocker.com/bookpages/nowickgray01.html
ISBN 0-9682033-1-0

It's also available (with a free first chapter) in HTML and Microsoft Reader formats from:
http://www.alternativeculture.com/lit/future.htm

Nowick Gray's computer adventures began at Dartmouth College in 1968. Future.Con surfaced as a dream twenty years later, a haunting put to rest in this, his first published novel. Nowick operates the online publications Alternative Culture Magazine (www.alternativeculture.com) and HyperLife: A Life in Hypertext (www.hyperlife.net). He is also an avid African drummer who has published a popular lesson guide, Roots Jam: Collected Rhythms for Hand Drum and Percussion.