Homerealm's cyberpunk about industrial espionage upload pain-free masochists
From Homerealm, a space-cyberpunk novel trilogy about the industrial espionage between two large space-based corporations. It is quickly established in the first scene that all of humanity has uploaded, and enjoy spectacular luxury in a post-livingonplanets future. Some implausible technobabble is introduced to justify the mathematically-unbreakable self-sovereignty of every upload, and the main consequence of that these novels are exploring: how you replace torture in a world where everyone is immortal, indestructible, and doesn't feel pain.
(The narrative seems to go out of its way to belabor that physical pain or harm is now impossible to impose, but also that it is only pain, among sensory experiences, that one is protected from this way: one might get the impression that the author was in love with the concept of masochism but also feels strongly that pain is a very unsexy thing.)
An ensemble cast of two teams of spy-hackers then proceed to try to keep their company ahead of the other in the race toward inventing new technologies and securing new resources, mostly through means involving breaking in to key individuals' virualities to trace their emulator and then kidnapping them to sex dungeons where the author takes advantage of the simulated environment to describe fantastically elaborate, implausibly artistic, and physically impossible forms of bondage, which serve as a backdrop to exquisitely pornographic interrogations that mix skilled orgasm-control and other dominant techniques with mind-games to break the wills of the "victims" and get the information they're looking for... and in one case get a new submissive-pet-relationship. In none of these scenes do the depicted people appear to have much if any reaction to being forced into a sexual situation; it is clearly shown that the sexual "torture" is, if not fun, then exciting, for everyone involved, as a background fact that no one questions.
The climax of the first book is the defection of one spy-hacker from one company to another, which was a purposeful scheme that results in the two spy-hacker teams finding out about each other's existence. The climax of the middle book is the aforementioned new-submissive-relationship in which an important character, in fact the same character who, it is now revealed, falsely defected, falls for her interrogator for real this time... after resisting longer than anyone else and nearly succeeding in subverting her new dom as well, but in the end deciding to give up the information willingly for the sake of the new relationship, which is depicted as entirely genuine. The climax of the last book is a sort of BDSM battle-royale in which the two spy-hacker teams go head to head, each capture half of the other team, and go all out to break each other. The book ends with the two teams in uneasy truce, comparing all of their information and realizing that they can sell the critical McGuffin-secret to both companies and buy their own (virtual) universe with the proceeds. (The subtextual assumption being that of course even high-action hacker-spies would want to retire and spend the rest of eternity worldbuilding.)
You could reasonably read this as a horror novel about the desperate attempts of sadists to be sadists in a world where real torture is impossible and they are trying to be creative about that but it is fundamentally impossible to break people. But it can't even work as a horror novel, because everybody is relentlessly cheerful about being trapped in a world like that.
The aliens in this book are ultimately impossible to relate to. Abrogail would send the author to Hell, but they might enjoy it, and then some devils might end very unhappy and one can imagine them eventually tracking down Abrogail somehow... also it seems like her orders are not, in fact, usually getting carried out on the other end.
Definitely not printable in Cheliax, maybe see if one of the other planes will buy this alien book for something of value.
Abrogail's feedback to the author will gush a lot about the 'new technologies' they're trying to investigate, deliver extended lies about how much she liked the pornography and character development, and express sadness that the innovative technologies weren't more relatable to her own world's technology level.
Homerealm's cyberpunk about industrial espionage upload pain-free masochists
From Homerealm, a space-cyberpunk novel trilogy about the industrial espionage between two large space-based corporations. It is quickly established in the first scene that all of humanity has uploaded, and enjoy spectacular luxury in a post-livingonplanets future. Some implausible technobabble is introduced to justify the mathematically-unbreakable self-sovereignty of every upload, and the main consequence of that these novels are exploring: how you replace torture in a world where everyone is immortal, indestructible, and doesn't feel pain.
(The narrative seems to go out of its way to belabor that physical pain or harm is now impossible to impose, but also that it is only pain, among sensory experiences, that one is protected from this way: one might get the impression that the author was in love with the concept of masochism but also feels strongly that pain is a very unsexy thing.)
An ensemble cast of two teams of spy-hackers then proceed to try to keep their company ahead of the other in the race toward inventing new technologies and securing new resources, mostly through means involving breaking in to key individuals' virualities to trace their emulator and then kidnapping them to sex dungeons where the author takes advantage of the simulated environment to describe fantastically elaborate, implausibly artistic, and physically impossible forms of bondage, which serve as a backdrop to exquisitely pornographic interrogations that mix skilled orgasm-control and other dominant techniques with mind-games to break the wills of the "victims" and get the information they're looking for... and in one case get a new submissive-pet-relationship. In none of these scenes do the depicted people appear to have much if any reaction to being forced into a sexual situation; it is clearly shown that the sexual "torture" is, if not fun, then exciting, for everyone involved, as a background fact that no one questions.
The climax of the first book is the defection of one spy-hacker from one company to another, which was a purposeful scheme that results in the two spy-hacker teams finding out about each other's existence. The climax of the middle book is the aforementioned new-submissive-relationship in which an important character, in fact the same character who, it is now revealed, falsely defected, falls for her interrogator for real this time... after resisting longer than anyone else and nearly succeeding in subverting her new dom as well, but in the end deciding to give up the information willingly for the sake of the new relationship, which is depicted as entirely genuine. The climax of the last book is a sort of BDSM battle-royale in which the two spy-hacker teams go head to head, each capture half of the other team, and go all out to break each other. The book ends with the two teams in uneasy truce, comparing all of their information and realizing that they can sell the critical McGuffin-secret to both companies and buy their own (virtual) universe with the proceeds. (The subtextual assumption being that of course even high-action hacker-spies would want to retire and spend the rest of eternity worldbuilding.)
You could reasonably read this as a horror novel about the desperate attempts of sadists to be sadists in a world where real torture is impossible and they are trying to be creative about that but it is fundamentally impossible to break people. But it can't even work as a horror novel, because everybody is relentlessly cheerful about being trapped in a world like that.
The aliens in this book are ultimately impossible to relate to. Abrogail would send the author to Hell, but they might enjoy it, and then some devils might end very unhappy and one can imagine them eventually tracking down Abrogail somehow... also it seems like her orders are not, in fact, usually getting carried out on the other end.
Definitely not printable in Cheliax, maybe see if one of the other planes will buy this alien book for something of value.
Abrogail's feedback to the author will gush a lot about the 'new technologies' they're trying to investigate, deliver extended lies about how much she liked the pornography and character development, and express sadness that the innovative technologies weren't more relatable to her own world's technology level.
Homerealm's cyberpunk about industrial espionage upload pain-free masochists
From Homerealm, a space-cyberpunk novel trilogy about the industrial espionage between two large space-based corporations. It is quickly established in the first scene that all of humanity has uploaded, and enjoy spectacular luxury in a post-livingonplanets future. Some implausible technobabble is introduced to justify the mathematically-unbreakable self-sovereignty of every upload, and the main consequence of that these novels are exploring: how you replace torture in a world where everyone is immortal, indestructible, and doesn't feel pain.
(The narrative seems to go out of its way to belabor that physical pain or harm is now impossible to impose, but also that it is only pain, among sensory experiences, that one is protected from this way: one might get the impression that the author was in love with the concept of masochism but also feels strongly that pain is a very unsexy thing.)
An ensemble cast of two teams of spy-hackers then proceed to try to keep their company ahead of the other in the race toward inventing new technologies and securing new resources, mostly through means involving breaking in to key individuals' virualities to trace their emulator and then kidnapping them to sex dungeons where the author takes advantage of the simulated environment to describe fantastically elaborate, implausibly artistic, and physically impossible forms of bondage, which serve as a backdrop to exquisitely pornographic interrogations that mix skilled orgasm-control and other dominant techniques with mind-games to break the wills of the "victims" and get the information they're looking for... and in one case get a new submissive-pet-relationship. In none of these scenes do the depicted people appear to have much if any reaction to being forced into a sexual situation; it is clearly shown that the sexual "torture" is, if not fun, then exciting, for everyone involved, as a background fact that no one questions.
The climax of the first book is the defection of one spy-hacker from one company to another, which was a purposeful scheme that results in the two spy-hacker teams finding out about each other's existence. The climax of the middle book is the aforementioned new-submissive-relationship in which an important character, in fact the same character who, it is now revealed, falsely defected, falls for her interrogator for real this time... after resisting longer than anyone else and nearly succeeding in subverting her new dom as well, but in the end deciding to give up the information willingly for the sake of the new relationship, which is depicted as entirely genuine. The climax of the last book is a sort of BDSM battle-royale in which the two spy-hacker teams go head to head, each capture half of the other team, and go all out to break each other. The book ends with the two teams in uneasy truce, comparing all of their information and realizing that they can sell the critical McGuffin-secret to both companies and buy their own (virtual) universe with the proceeds. (The subtextual assumption being that of course even high-action hacker-spies would want to retire and spend the rest of eternity worldbuilding.)
You could reasonably read this as a horror novel about the desperate attempts of sadists to be sadists in a world where real torture is impossible and they are trying to be creative about that but it is fundamentally impossible to break people. But it can't even work as a horror novel, because everybody is relentlessly cheerful about being trapped in a world like that.
The aliens in this book are ultimately impossible to relate to. Abrogail would send the author to Hell, but they might enjoy it, and then some devils might end very unhappy and one can imagine them eventually tracking down Abrogail somehow... also it seems like her orders are not, in fact, usually getting carried out on the other end.
Definitely not printable in Cheliax, maybe see if one of the other planes will buy this alien book for something of value.
Abrogail's feedback to the author will gush a lot about the 'new technologies' they're trying to investigate, in between extended lies about how much she liked the pornography and character development, and express sadness that the innovative technologies weren't more relatable to her own world's technology level.
Homerealm's cyberpunk about industrial espionage upload pain-free masochists
From Homerealm, a space-cyberpunk novel trilogy about the industrial espionage between two large space-based corporations. It is quickly established in the first scene that all of humanity has uploaded, and enjoy spectacular luxury in a post-livingonplanets future. Some implausible technobabble is introduced to justify the mathematically-unbreakable self-sovereignty of every upload, and the main consequence of that these novels are exploring: how you replace torture in a world where everyone is immortal, indestructible, and doesn't feel pain.
(The narrative seems to go out of its way to belabor that physical pain or harm is now impossible to impose, but also that it is only pain, among sensory experiences, that one is protected from this way: one might get the impression that the author was in love with the concept of masochism but also feels strongly that pain is a very unsexy thing.)
An ensemble cast of two teams of spy-hackers then proceed to try to keep their company ahead of the other in the race toward inventing new technologies and securing new resources, mostly through means involving breaking in to key individuals' virualities to trace their emulator and then kidnapping them to sex dungeons where the author takes advantage of the simulated environment to describe fantastically elaborate, implausibly artistic, and physically impossible forms of bondage, which serve as a backdrop to exquisitely pornographic interrogations that mix skilled orgasm-control and other dominant techniques with mind-games to break the wills of the "victims" and get the information they're looking for... and in one case get a new submissive-pet-relationship. In none of these scenes do the depicted people appear to have much if any reaction to being forced into a sexual situation; it is clearly shown that the sexual "torture" is, if not fun, then exciting, for everyone involved, as a background fact that no one questions.
The climax of the first book is the defection of one spy-hacker from one company to another, which was a purposeful scheme that results in the two spy-hacker teams finding out about each other's existence. The climax of the middle book is the aforementioned new-submissive-relationship in which an important character, in fact the same character who, it is now revealed, falsely defected, falls for her interrogator for real this time... after resisting longer than anyone else and nearly succeeding in subverting her new dom as well, but in the end deciding to give up the information willingly for the sake of the new relationship, which is depicted as entirely genuine. The climax of the last book is a sort of BDSM battle-royale in which the two spy-hacker teams go head to head, each capture half of the other team, and go all out to break each other. The book ends with the two teams in uneasy truce, comparing all of their information and realizing that they can sell the critical McGuffin-secret to both companies and buy their own (virtual) universe with the proceeds. (The subtextual assumption being that of course even high-action hacker-spies would want to retire and spend the rest of eternity worldbuilding.)
You could reasonably read this as a horror novel about the desperate attempts of sadists to be sadists in a world where real torture is impossible and they are trying to be creative about that but it is fundamentally impossible to break people. But it can't even work as a horror novel, because everybody is relentlessly cheerful about being trapped in a world like that.
The aliens in this book are ultimately impossible to relate to. Abrogail would send the author to Hell, but they might enjoy it, and then some devils might end very unhappy and one can imagine them eventually tracking down Abrogail somehow... also it seems like her orders are not, in fact, usually getting carried out on the other end.
Definitely not printable in Cheliax, maybe see if one of the other planes will buy this alien book for something of value.
Abrogail's feedback to the author will gush a lot about the 'new technologies' they're trying to investigate, in between extended lies about how much she liked the pornography and character development, and express sadness that the innovative technologies weren't more relatable to her own world's technology level.
