TR Napper’s novella Ghost of the Neon God is a fierce and imaginative neon sci-fi work that seamlessly combines elements of noir and cyberpunk into a story with a distinct Australian flavour.
Jack Nguyen is a squatter, petty criminal, small-time hacker. He lives on the rough fringes of Melbourne with his best mate Col, scraping a living by hacking tech and selling stolen goods in a future Australia that is largely controlled by outside countries. When a chance encounter with a rogue dissident lands Jack with an unprecedentedly powerful AI in his head, he must go on the run across the baked dirt and painfully bright sky of the Nullarbor.
Jack is a compelling character, young but hardened by a difficult life, and his Aussie larrikin attitude jars compellingly with the sentient AI he is carrying. The story explores questions of personhood, autonomy, mercy, friendship and community, and what they mean to someone who lives on the edge of society versus what they mean to an artificial consciousness whose ability to comprehend such things is still in question.
From the wet, neon-lit streets of Melbourne to the vast, dry silence of the Ninety-Mile Straight, the author takes a futuristic sci-fi premise and levels it up by juxtaposing two hostile and distinctly Australian settings.
This is a short but captivating read. Napper has crafted a detailed and complex world in a little over a hundred pages, filled it with compelling and unsentimental characters, and plunged them into a desperate and adrenaline-fuelled situation that is morally grey with no clear path out. Ghost of the Neon God is brief and brilliant, perfect for lovers of sci-fi, spec fic, noir and manifestly Australian stories.
This review first appeared in Aurealis magazine, issue #176.
