Check out my first novel, midnight's simulacra!

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[[File:Midnightsimulacra-cover-1024x768.png|right|thumb|Front and back covers, and spine]]
[[File:Midnightsimulacracover.jpg|right|thumb|Front and back covers, and spine]]


My first novel, coming 2024-01-01!
[https://midnightssimulacra.com My first novel] released 2024-01-11! You probably want [https://midnightssimulacra.com the book page].
* [https://nick-black.com/midnights-simulacra-chapter-3.pdf Sample chapter 3]


It's a romp featuring plenty of hacking, clandestine chemistry, and even a spot of at-home uranium enrichment. Along the way, there's lots of science and philosophy of science, and some big questions.
==Illustrations==
fullpage black and white illustrations by [https://www.justinbarkerart.com/ Justin Barker]


==Blurb==
not all of these ended up being used.
Michael Luis Bolaño is the scion of Mexican oil wealth gone to rut in Texas. Sherman Spartacus Katz is the hyperliterate son of evangelical eccentrics from the North Georgia mountains. One hopes to restore what's been lost, the other to attain what never was. Ambitious, creative, and as fiercely intelligent as they are hungry, they excel in a blur of differential equations, amphetamines, hacking, and élan. By graduation, they're formidable engineers with a smoothly-oiled drug enterprise; fifteen years later, they're both respected professionals firmly ensconced in the upper middle class.                                                                                                                     


Michael hopes to unwind an operation grown too large for comfort, but not until they've finally cleaned their money and moved it into the regulated banking system. Sherman stays awake for days on meth, building increasingly baroque machines, designing powerful drug analogues, and chasing scientific glory. The DEA and FBI circle, aware that there's something rotten in Atlanta, yet unable to determine its true nature. All the while, Katz's dreaming grows more lucid, and more difficult to separate from waking reality.
'''warning: these arguably contain spoilers'''
                                         
<gallery perrow=6>
A bulk international LSD sale goes sideways, but opens new opportunities of an entirely different nature. Carried away by events increasingly beyond their control, the two find themselves targets of governments, industry, and old friends unable to resist the allure of incredible power. Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold...
File:01-TeddieJodie-HC-300.jpg|jenseits von gut und böse (beyond good and evil)
                                                                                                                                   
File:02-SSKSign-HC-300.jpg|mémoires d’outre-tombe (memoirs from beyond the grave)
MIDNIGHT'S SIMULACRA is a comic novel of friendship among rogue engineers, packed to the gills with cutting-edge science. It explores the psychology, morality, and philosophy of the modern technological priesthood, drawing the curtain back from STEM education and new modalities of drug culture.
File:03-MLBCompCubicle-HC-300.jpg|the thirst for annihilation
 
File:04-SSK MLBInDorm-HC-300.jpg|the age of innocence
==Dramatis Personae==
File:03-DC-Party-HC-300.jpg|without MSG i am nothing
Major characters are introduced in prime-numbered chapters. Originally, I was going to do something inspired by [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serialism serialist music], and identify each character with a prime number, and then only have characters in a given chapter if they were in that chapter number's prime factorization. This idea sucked for several reasons, so I abandoned it.
File:06-SSKPostItGirl-HC-300.jpg|the yellow wallpaper
 
File:07-AO MLB-HC-300.jpg|unfair arguments with existence
* Sherman Spartacus Katz (b. 1980)
File:05-SSK MLBVanLeer-HC-300.jpg|le rouge et le noir (the red and the black)
** Also mother Eveline (Evy), and her husband Cassius James. Also Theodore Roosevelt and Jodie Foster, agents of an undetermined agency in a series of recurring dreams.
File:08-VCT-Gaming-HC-300.jpg|fanged noumena
** Enters GT 1998 CS+MATH BS, graduates 2005
File:05-Cloud-SSK-PhishLot-HC-300.jpg|their eyes were watching god
 
File:09-Erica-Arguing-HC-300.jpg|le sens du combat (the art of struggle)
* Michael Luis Bolaño (b. 1979)
File:11-SSKErikaLab-HC-300.jpg|el jardín de senderos que se bifurcan (the garden of forking paths)
** Also great-great-grandfather Gustavo, and his wife Guadalupe; their son Antonio, and his wife Valentina; their three children: eldest son José Luis, and the twin daughters Xevera and Zita; Lillian, wife of José Luis; their son Luis, and his wife Rosemary; their son Diego (brother of MLB).
File:04-AT-CrossingStreet-HC-300.jpg|to the lighthouse
** Enters GT 1998 IE+PHYS BS, graduates 2002
File:16-ElevatorWarhead-HC-300.jpg|war in the age of intelligent machines
 
File:10-Greg-OwningIt-HC-300.jpg|auch zwerge haben klein angefangen (even dwarfs started small)
* Devesh Choudhary (b. 1977)
File:02-MLB-Drinking-HC-300.jpg|angle of repose
** Also a pursuing alligator snapping turtle.
File:20-OrianaCab-HC-300.jpg|le dieu du carnage (god of carnage)
** Enters GT 1997 PHYS BS, graduates 2003
File:06-DYK-Zoo-HC-300.jpg|a mathematical theory of communication
** Enters GT 2008 PHYS PhD
File:07-SSKRunHighway-HC-300.jpg|the difference between me and you is that i am not on fire
 
</gallery>
* Alexei Orshanskiy (b. 1980)
** Enters GT 1999 CS+MechE BS, graduates 2003
** Enters GT 2003 MechE MS, graduates 2005
 
* Vladimir cel Tredat (b. 1982)
** Enters GT 2002 CS, graduates 2005
 
* Anarbek Tursyn (b. 1982)
** Enters MEPhI 2000 NucE BS, graduates 2005
** Enters GT 2009 NucE MS, graduates 2011
 
* Cloud (b. ?)
** No educational history reported
 
* Erica Marelli (b. 1985)
** Enters UC-Berkeley 2003 Chemistry BS, graduates 2006
** Enters GT 2006 Bioinformatics MS, graduates 2009
** Enters GT 2009 BME PhD, graduates 2013
 
* Greg Moyer (b. 1979)
** Enters GT 1998 MGMT BS, graduates 2003
 
* Do Yoon Kim (b. 1991)
** Enters GT 2009 CS+PHYS BS, graduates 2013
 
* Oriana Marino (b. 1988)
** Enters GSU 2010 Phil+Journalism BS

Latest revision as of 04:46, 10 March 2024

Front and back covers, and spine

My first novel released 2024-01-11! You probably want the book page.

Illustrations

fullpage black and white illustrations by Justin Barker

not all of these ended up being used.

warning: these arguably contain spoilers

  • jenseits von gut und böse (beyond good and evil)

    jenseits von gut und böse (beyond good and evil)

  • mémoires d’outre-tombe (memoirs from beyond the grave)

    mémoires d’outre-tombe (memoirs from beyond the grave)

  • the thirst for annihilation

    the thirst for annihilation

  • the age of innocence

    the age of innocence

  • without MSG i am nothing

    without MSG i am nothing

  • the yellow wallpaper

    the yellow wallpaper

  • unfair arguments with existence

    unfair arguments with existence

  • le rouge et le noir (the red and the black)

    le rouge et le noir (the red and the black)

  • fanged noumena

    fanged noumena

  • their eyes were watching god

    their eyes were watching god

  • le sens du combat (the art of struggle)

    le sens du combat (the art of struggle)

  • el jardín de senderos que se bifurcan (the garden of forking paths)

    el jardín de senderos que se bifurcan (the garden of forking paths)

  • to the lighthouse

    to the lighthouse

  • war in the age of intelligent machines

    war in the age of intelligent machines

  • auch zwerge haben klein angefangen (even dwarfs started small)

    auch zwerge haben klein angefangen (even dwarfs started small)

  • angle of repose

    angle of repose

  • le dieu du carnage (god of carnage)

    le dieu du carnage (god of carnage)

  • a mathematical theory of communication

    a mathematical theory of communication

  • the difference between me and you is that i am not on fire

    the difference between me and you is that i am not on fire

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