She’s lost in a maze of deceit and misdirection but the fate of the country hangs on Ginny finding her way back to reality.
Ginny had only dated the enigmatic Cal Coplin a couple of times when the police arrived to question her about him. He’d disappeared – something that should be completely impossible in the late 21st century when everyone was electronically tagged. And then Ginny received a recorded message from Cal, asking her to deliver a small package for him. Her decision to help him plunges Ginny into a world of fear, corruption, and massive deception.
On the run from the police, a dangerous terrorist organisation, and a shadowy corporation, Ginny struggles to stay alive and free while she tries to understand what is happening and prevent a deadly attack on the government. But in a world dominated by augmented and virtual realities, nothing is as it seems, and the deception runs deeper than anyone could imagine.
Professional Reviews
A wonderful, action-packed and philosophical story.
What is reality when all people see is artificial? What is control when all people have is submission? What is truth when all people know is a lie?
Graham Storrs doesn’t answer these questions, but he touches on them and attempts to reveal the morality of all-encompassing change.
Heaven is a Place on Earth is a speculative tale constructed around the idea of artificial reality and its impacts on humanity, concepts that aren’t simple imagination for us today. An upcoming vote seeks to bring all national network content under the control of local government, giving them the power to control, edit, and remove any information they find disagreeable. Written during a time when these issues are under hot debate, Storrs brings relevance to what is, at its core, a wonderful, action-packed and philosophical story.
Divided into four parts, the novel’s third person narrative alternates between Ginny, a struggling freelance composer, Rafe, a journalist attempting to return to the media world after a traumatic experience in his last case left him scarred and paranoid, and Della, corporate powerhouse and concerned friend of Ginny, just trying to keep her safe.
When Ginny delivers a mysterious package as a favour to a flirtatious acquaintance, she is quickly drawn into a world far beyond her comfort zone. Gone are the usual tired struggles for composing contracts, family squabbles, and unsatisfactory relationships, instead replaced with the struggle to stay out of prison—and alive—in a world where her every movement is trackable and every truth is a possible fabrication.
Interwoven with plots and sub-plots, Heaven is a Place on Earth pits Ginny against an anti-technology terrorist group, the Australian police force, and a consortium of international business owners chomping at the bit to have the new network control laws put in place for their own reasons. Storrs manages this complex interplay without leaving the reader confused, which is a grand feat in the circumstances.
Heaven is a Place on Earth is not a simple book, but it is a very fun book. It is a clever mix of conspiracy theory and technological speculation, with more than enough for fans of both genres.
This could so easily be the future
"That's because, for your parents, augmented reality meant a geotagged app on their smartphone."
This is a thrilling, intense and subtly disturbing novel which packs one heck of a wallop whilst being exciting at the same time. Storrs manages a believable extrapolation of artificial reality and forecasts a future at once fascinating and horrifying in all its sociological implications.
I took some time to warm to Ginny, and found her a little whiny and irritating to begin with. I think it was because she was just some normal, everyday person thrust into these events, whereas Storrs previous characters, in Timesplash etc, had either been professionals or proper kickass with gumption aplenty. It's refreshing, on reflection, to see him take a run-of-the-mill lady trying to get on with the business of living and her reactions to the goings on in the book are as interesting as the events themselves.
"Reality was even more depressing than usual and it was good to get back to normality."
Throughout the book, there's a huge undercurrent of artificial or virtual reality as "normal", and reality as we have it today, with our own limited senses, is considered wrong, somehow. "Only a masochist would want to see the world as it really was" is the prevailing attitude of much of the population, and when Ginny visit's Cal's place and sees he's kept the reality and the augmentation together it's a profoundly shocking moment for her.
I took to Rafe quicker, so from about the second third into this story I really was quite hooked. As the tension built and the lies and harsh realities became clearer, I found myself praying for traffic so I could finish before I had to clock in.
and then there's the final chapter, that glorious "vicious wrenching of reality " which is extremely unsettling and when I'd turned the final page and actually had to step out into the real world, I of course had to wonder, for a moment, how real it really was? This is a story that makes you ask questions, makes you think about what we're being told and fed and made to think. It scared me a little, to be truthful.
Graham Storrs has once again pulled out the stops for a true page-turner of a thriller. It's not the last we'll see of him in 2014, but it's certainly a brilliant way to begin the year!
Unnerving Reality
This was an enjoyable read with an engaging yet worrying premise. Set in a future world of augmented reality, this tale explores our ever-growing dependence and addiction to life on the ‘nets’, as well as our increasing laziness yet desire for perfection, and the potential implications of these. Told from three different perspectives, there’s a nice cross-section of PoVs; from the average-everyday woman, to the corporate high-flyer, to the reporter who has seen too much (and can't handle much more). There’s plenty of action and twists to keep you turning the page, as you try to figure out what's going on and who the good guys are. Overall, it’s quite thought-provoking, and I really hope things don’t turn out like this at all!
Pieces of Eight, Part II is an eclectic collection of eight imaginative novellas that complement the eight tales that appeared in Pieces of Eight. The selections are a blend of different short story/novella plots and themes. Science-fiction, paranorm
A female assassin, known as Raven and hailing from both human and alien backgrounds, shares her story with Security Chief Salina Craddock of the Earth Conglomerate Space Security Agency (ECSSA) after being captured.
